BY DUSK ON Friday, 11 September

Transcription

1 B O O K R E V I E W E S S A Y MOUNTAIN MEADOWS AND THE CRAFT OF HISTORY BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS: BRIGHAM YOUNG AND THE MASSACRE AT MOUNTAIN MEADOWS by Will Bagley University of Oklahoma Press, pages, $39.95 BY DUSK ON Friday, 11 September 1857, the massacre at Mountain Meadows was over. But the affair it produced is with us yet. Will Bagley is an independent writer and historian whose column, History Matters, appears weekly in the Salt Lake Tribune. He is also the series editor of Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier, a fifteen-volume documentary history by the prestigious western publisher, Arthur H. Clark Company. In his most recent work, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Bagley has constructed a narrative that treats both massacre and affair and their combined reverberations down to the present. Published by the University of Oklahoma Press, it is a handsome volume with carefully selected historical maps, illustrations and photographs that enhance the text. For a half century, Juanita Brooks s The Mountain Meadows Massacre (1950) has been Reviewed by Robert H. Briggs Historian Will Bagley identifies the victims, heroes, and villains of the Mountain Meadows massacre, but focuses especially on the question, What did Brigham Young know and when did he know it? the standard treatment of the subject. Yet in later editions and reprintings of her classic work, Brooks outlined areas of her history that warranted further study. Moreover, in Blood of the Prophets, Bagley has amply demonstrated that sources not available to Brooks should be evaluated and woven into our understanding of this event. Further, the widespread ethnic strife of the twentieth century has brought the conditions that surround horrific massacres into sharper focus. Thus, as we approach the 150th anniversary of this lamentable event, with new sources and frameworks, it is appropriate to produce new histories of this difficult chapter in Utah and western history. ORGANIZATION AND CONTENT ROBERT H. BRIGGS is an attorney in Fullerton, California, with an avid interest in Western history. Recently he has presented some of his ongoing research on the Mountain Meadows massacre at the 2002 Juanita Brooks lecture in St. George, Utah, and at the annual conferences of the Utah Historical Society and the Center for Studies of New Religions (CESNUR). He may be contacted at <briggsfam@earthlink.net>. BLOOD of the Prophets contains nineteen chapters plus an epilogue, a brief addendum, and an appendix identifying the victims of the massacre. The story begins in the 1830s with the conflict between Mormons and their neighbors in Missouri and later Illinois. Bagley then quickly moves to the massacre s precursors in frontier Utah, the outbreak of the Utah War, and the massacre itself. Nearly half the narrative concerns these events. Next, Bagley details the federal investigations of (followed by a decade-long hiatus during the Civil War and its aftermath) and the renewed federal investigations of the 1870s that culminated in the indictment of nine southern Utah militiamen, one of whom, John D. Lee, was brought to trial. Lee s first trial ended in a hung jury, but Lee was convicted in the second and was ultimately executed by firing squad in early 1877, the same year Brigham Young died. More than a third of the narrative deals with the events of this twenty-year period. In the remaining sixty pages, Bagley draws his story to a close. He discusses the fate of such massacre planners or participants as Isaac C. Haight, Philip Klingensmith, John M. Higbee and William H. Dame, all of whom died between 1880 and He briefly treats the contributions of such massacre commentators as Josiah Gibbs, Josiah Rogerson, Orson Whitney and Robert Baskin. He also highlights the final years of the last of the militia participants and the Fancher party s surviving children. Sarah Dunlap Lynch, who was one year old when she received a crippling gunshot wound in her arm during the massacre, survived until Southern Utah militia private William Edwards, fifteen years old at the time he stood on the grounds at Mountain Meadows, provided what is believed to be the last of the militia statements about the massacre in He died the following year. Several of the children who survived the massacre lived to ripe old ages. William T. Baker lived until His sister, Betty Terry (nee Mary Elizabeth Baker), provided reminiscences in 1938; and Sally Baker Mitchell, the longest lived of those connected to the massacre, provided an account for American Weekly in In the final chapter and epilogue, Bagley recounts Juanita Brooks s courageous revelation of the details of the massacre in the early 1950s, the tentative efforts toward reconciliation between descendants of the Arkansas train and of southern Utah militiamen including John D. Lee, and the successive placing of monuments in 1990 and 1999 at the Mountain Meadows massacre site as more fitting remembrances of the dead.

2 THEME AND SCOPE WHAT are Bagley s purposes in constructing his narrative? One stated goal is to bring to life forgotten victims and heroes (xviii). These include both the slain and the survivors in the Arkansas train, as well as individual Mormons of integrity and courage (xviii) who opposed the massacre and its cover-up or who later held for a forthright acknowledgment of Mormon involvement in it. Here Bagley succeeds admirably. Through clever sleuthing, he has unearthed considerable background on the main Arkansas family groupings Fanchers, Bakers, Camerons, Dunlaps, Huffs, Joneses, Millers, Mitchells, and Tackitts that composed the Fancher party. He traces their roots in Arkansas, their blood and marriage connections, their involvement in the cattle business, and Alexander Fancher s previous trips to California. The resulting portrait humanizes the members of the Arkansas party far better than any previous effort, including Brooks s. Similarly, Bagley s narrative includes sketches of little-known Mormon frontiersmen. Some, like Laban Morrill of Cedar City, opposed from the outset an attack on the emigrant train. Others, like John and William Hawley, George A. Hicks, William Laney, and Charles W. Wandell, were outspoken in criticizing the cover-up of the massacre or supported prosecution of all perpetrators. Again, Bagley has done a service in uncovering obscure sources and recognizing their value to a fuller account of the complex affair that followed the massacre. Of special note is his treatment of the courageous role of Mormon historian Juanita Brooks in providing the first reasonably accurate account of the massacre and its aftermath. Paying respect and acknowledging his intellectual debts, Bagley praises Brooks as one of the West s best and bravest historians. (xiii) His work, he states, is not a revision but an extension of Brooks s labors. (xiv) For this reader, his account of Juanita Brooks role was one of the most satisfying in the book. Bagley also discloses another purpose. Where he feels official Mormon accounts of the crime laid the blame on victims and Indians, he has made a special effort to set the record straight (xvii). Like others before him, Bagley agrees that Indians were accomplices in the massacre but not instigators, as some have charged. The question of the Indians role is a very difficult one. Certainly as to the role of the Paiutes of southern Utah, Bagley is substantially correct. A number of accounts from Iron County militiamen, including John D. Lee, acknowledge the role of southern Utah settlers in instigating their Paiute neighbors. On the question of whether local Mormons incited Paiutes to gather at Mountain Meadows before the initial attack, there can be no doubt. Some have argued that when officials of the Iron County militia provoked their Indian compatriots, they lit a fire they could not later extinguish. There is some truth in that view, as the string of Indian attacks along the California Road after the massacre will attest. But it is undeniable that the planning of the first attack on Monday, 7 September 1857, and that of the main massacre four days later was carried out by white militiamen, not Indians. So here, too, Bagley is in line with most recent researchers. Perhaps Robert Baskin, assistant federal prosecutor in Lee s first trial and staunch Liberal Party crusader against theocratic Mormonism, was right: The Indians were an auxiliary force under the leadership of John D. Lee. 1 Recently, some have contended that Paiutes were not involved at all in the final massacre on 11 September. This is an inference drawn from osteological studies of skeletal remains which found wounds from gunshots but none from arrows or spears. But these studies are inconclusive and will probably remain so forever since scientists reviewed only a fraction of the human remains before they were reburied. Further, they do not take into account the evidence, which is considerable, that Paiutes had firearms. Bagley reviews this evidence and concludes, correctly I believe, that Paiutes were present at the initial attack and the main massacre, but they played a supporting, rather than leading, role. Bagley s main purpose in Blood of the Prophets, however, is an attempt to answer the question, What did Brigham Young know, and when did he know it? (xiv) It is in this focus and his conclusions that Bagley and many fellow investigators of the massacre part company. To his credit, Bagley acknowledges the difficulties and complexities of this issue. He notes that while many federal officials believed Young was directly responsible for the massacre, they could not muster the evidence for an indictment, let alone a conviction. Bagley states: Those who seek to prove that Young explicitly ordered the massacre should consider this fact (xiv). On the other hand, in agreement with Brooks and citing her conclusion, Bagley judges the evidence for Young as an accessory after the fact to be abundant and unmistakable (xv). Bagley further maintains that scholars within the Mormon tradition have dismissed early Mormon religious violence too blithely and neglected the devastating impact of the massacre and its cover-up on the LDS church and Brigham Young s reputation (xiv). The massacre s connection to early frontier Mormonism is explored. He maintains that scholars within the Mormon tradition have dismissed early Mormon religious violence too blithely and neglected the devastating impact of the massacre and its cover-up on the LDS church and Brigham Young s reputation (xiv). By implication, if not direct assertion, Bagley advances the thesis that the Mountain Meadows massacre resulted from several intertwined aspects of frontier Mormonism. One contributing factor was Mormon religious ceremonies conducted in the Endowment House in which initiates vowed, among other things, to pray that God would avenge the blood of the martyred Mormon founder and prophet Joseph Smith. A second factor was nineteenth century Mormon theological speculation regarding blood atonement. Third was the practice of giving patriarchal blessings to individual Church members, some of which were laced with sanguinary imagery of avenging the blood of the prophets. A final factor, Bagley contends, was Mormonism s excesses during the mid-1850s, the period known as the Mormon Reformation. Taking this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, Bagley asserts that frontier Mormonism at this time was essentially a culture of violence (50, 378), and at its center was a violent ideology. Thus, early Mormonism s peculiar obsession with blood and vengeance created the society that made the massacre possible if not inevitable (379). Disagreeing with Brooks s conclusions about the roles played by other circumstances economic, political, social, psychological, cultural, and military Bagley concludes that a ruthless commitment to revenge as a religious principle played a larger role than all other factors (378). Thus, bucking more than a century of research in the social sciences, he argues for the primacy of religious influences. Bagley s assertion is circumstantial. Some circumstantial cases can be persuasive and even compelling. Lacking direct evidence, how strong is this one? Blood of the Prophets pursues a conspiracy theory that weaves together several events. The first is the May 1857 murder of beloved Mormon leader Parley P. Pratt in Arkansas and the arrival in Utah that July of his be-

3 reaved widow Eleanor McLean Pratt. Her arrival and the emotions that arose from the story she told coincided with the Saints receiving confirmation that a large, apparently belligerent, contingent of the United States Army was marching toward Utah. Further straining Mormon nerves were the several, California-bound overland companies passing through Utah that season. According to Bagley, in an effort to both demonstrate his control over all overland routes and avenge the blood of the prophets (presumably that of Joseph and Hyrum Smith), as well as the more recent murder of Parley Pratt, Brigham Young initiated the sequence of events that led to the murder of one hundred and twenty men, women and children (380). The hapless Arkansas emigrants fell victim to Brigham Young s decision to stage an incident that would demonstrate his power to control the Indians... and to stop travel on the... overland road (380). Bagley asserts that one concrete step in effecting these ends was Young s conference with Utes and Southern Paiutes on 1 September 1857 in Great Salt Lake City, only a week before the first attack at Mountain Meadows. To cement a Mormon-Indian alliance in the anticipated clash with federal troops, Young granted to these Indians all the cattle gone to California on the southern route. Bagley interprets this as Brigham Young s encourag[ing] his Indian allies to attack the Fancher party (379). He asserts that these Indians, or at least the Paiutes, hightailed south to attack the Fancher train in southern Utah and relieve them of their livestock, presumably ignoring all the other cattle they passed in their three-hundredmile journey. Bagley contends further that even before this, Young had conveyed orders concerning the Fancher party to one of his leading lieutenants, George A. Smith, to travel to southern Utah to, as Bagley puts it, arrange their destruction at a remote and lonely place (381). Camping with the Fancher company near Corn Creek in south-central Utah in late August, Smith had been troubled with the impression that some evil would befall this group of emigrants. Smith shared his premonition with Jacob Hamblin, who recorded it in his journal. For Bagley, this is a chilling glimpse into the encounter between the Mormon party and the Arkansas company (110). According to Bagley, Young s injunction led Smith to invent the tale of the poisoned spring to provide a motive for murder and sent [Mormon militiaman] Silas S. Smith south to rouse the population BAGLEY PRAISES BROOKS AS ONE OF THE WEST S BEST AND BRAVEST HISTORIANS AND CONSIDERS BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS NOT A REVISION BUT AN EXTENSION OF HER LABORS. (381). Blood of the Prophets asserts this sequence as the chain of events directly linking Brigham Young to a conspiracy to murder the Arkansas emigrants. Bagley concludes that Brigham Young justified it as a righteous and necessary act of vengeance (175). Blood of the Prophets raises a host of larger issues. Since Bagley s work is one of several new and important efforts to reinterpret the Mountain Meadows massacre, (Sally Denton s work from Knopf is due in 2003 while the collaboration of Mormon historians Ronald Walker and Glen Leonard with attorney Richard Turley is due from Oxford University Press in 2004), let me outline some important issues. THE CRAFT OF WRITING THE HISTORY OF MOUNTAIN MEADOWS PHOTO FROM BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS, COURTESY THE UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY SOME important issues facing students of the Mountain Meadows massacre include (1) interpretation of sources, (2) military matters, (3) theoretical frameworks and factors which often lead to retaliation, and (4) and how to interpret the Lee trials. 1. INTERPRETATION OF SOURCES. Today s mainstream historians may not agree with the postmodernists and deconstructionists that every text need be deconstructed. Yet there is general agreement that accounts of an event should be analyzed for distortion, bias, prejudice, and other subjective elements. No account should be considered exempt or privileged. Every document should be subjected to a rigorous analysis to develop a reliable reading of it. All statements or accounts should be analyzed in this way. These points are pertinent to the source material for the early Mormons and their clashes with their (mostly) Protestant neighbors and, particularly, for the Mountain Meadows massacre and its ensuing affair. As a new religious movement in the family of American Christendom, early Mormonism was perceived by its elder Protestant siblings as radical, controversial, and notorious. Then, when Mormon settlers in southern Utah were implicated in the 1857 massacre of a passing Arkansas emigrant train of 120 men, women, and children, intense passions and partisan views resulted. A century and a half later, much of that partisan fire has been banked. Yet Mormon defensiveness and gentile partisanship still infect some (but not all) of the sources from which historians must construct their narratives. All databases contain conflicting materials. But when reciprocal Mormon-gentile prejudice in the late nineteenth century reached a level where both sides mutually denounce the other, this becomes partisanship of unusual magnitude. Thus, one obstacle for historians is biased source material. How does someone reasonably interpret this difficult body of evidence? In dealing with such sources, Bagley correctly determined to pay special attention to the sequence of events (xv) in order to derive cause-and-effect relationships. Presumably, he also agreed with and followed standard historical methods in dealing with: contemporary versus reminiscent accounts; problems of faulty memory in reminiscent accounts; techniques for judging between inconsistent accounts; and the problem of distortion due to various causes such as bias, prejudice, self-interest, or the desire by the source to avoid self-incrimination. In dealing with some of the special problems his project entailed, Bagley explicitly states that he determined to replace tedious debates with the simplest conclusions most consistently supported by the best accounts (xv). As a general statement of approach, Bagley is correct. I also agree with his assessment that reconstructing events from the testimony of children, murderers, and passersby is an immense technical challenge (xv). The historical record has been irrevocably colored by dubious folklore and corrupted by perjury, false memory, and the destruction of key documents (xvi). He found the reminiscent accounts of surviving

4 children problematic yet surprisingly reliable and consistent (xvi). Southern Paiute tribal traditions were also helpful. These he favored over the self-serving tales of the murderers (xvi). This seems to make perfect sense. Naturally we are skeptical of the selfserving aspects of the perpetrators accounts. But is that all there is? This issue warrants extended comment. (A) Methods for Dealing with Militia Accounts. The perpetrators accounts are of the genre of apologia: verbal accounts structured as a defense or justification. Many of the accounts have one or more main thematic points whose function is to excuse or justify the narrator. To a surprising degree, however, many of the accounts contain a second component, elements that admit or confess to participation in a crime. The centuries-old observation about such statements, now codified in the law of many jurisdictions, is that an individual would not make such admissions against his or her personal interests unless they were true. There are two possible exceptions to this dictum. One is a coerced confession and the other is a false confession (in which one individual confesses to crime to protect another). Neither of these exceptions apply to the statements of the Iron County militiamen. Thus, given the improbability that a militiaman would make such a confession unless it were true, these statements are generally reliable, especially when independently verified. Many militia statements also contain a third element that we may identify by the convenient shorthand, incidental details. These are elements in the narrative that are neither part of the defense nor of the (possibly unintended) confessions. These are elements about which each narrator would have no reason to lie. When independently verified from other sources, these elements are likely reliable. Thus, within each militia statement we may find elements of varying degrees of veracity. The most reliable element is a confession or admission of criminal involvement. The next most reliable element is incidental details, particularly when independently verified. The least reliable is the apologia itself with its defenses, denials, and excuses. Consider the example of John D. Lee. His various statements contain his apologia consisting of his defenses and self-justifications, as well as his accusations against others. But they also contain (mostly unintentional) confessions and intriguing incidental details. His admissions focus on his own role before, during, and after the massacre, among which are these: Lee considered killing the Arkansas company as in keeping with his religious vows; He discussed an attack on the emigrants with fellow militia major Isaac Haight; He told Paiutes bound for the Meadows that he would meet them there and lead them; He conveyed orders to other militiamen to send Paiutes to the Meadows; He was the only white man at the Meadows on the day of the first attack; He was so close to the fighting in one attack that he was shot through his shirt and hat; He had repeated interactions with the Indians during the week; He was seen by the emigrant camp at a distance and by two emigrant boys at close range; He was present at the military council held the night before the main massacre in which the massacre plan was developed; On the day of the main massacre, he went to the emigrant camp and delivered deceptive terms of surrender to decoy the emigrants from their protective enclosure; He was selected to convey to Brigham Young an account of the massacre; And, finally, in his role as Indian Farmer, he made a false financial report of expenses for Indians involved in the massacre. Thus, Lee admitted his criminal involvement in key aspects of the massacre and its aftermath. Since many of these elements are also verified from other sources, they are highly reliable. At the opposite end of the reliability spectrum are his self-justifications or accusations against others. Some of these are: George A. Smith discussed attacking emigrants rather than troops; Major Haight ordered Lee (a fellow major in the militia) to lead the attack; Lee arrived after the first attack but was not present for it; He requested orders that the emigrants not be attacked; In the military council the night before the main massacre, Lee was a lone voice pleading that the emigrants be released unharmed; Lee was ordered to enter the emigrant camp; It was his fellow militiamen, not Lee, who killed the wounded men and women riding near Lee; And finally, Lee made a full disclosure of white involvement in the massacre to Brigham Young. In his defense, he blamed others. Unless verified by other reliable evidence, we should be skeptical of these accusations. Finally, Lee s account contains a wealth of interesting incidental detail which may be reliable if verified from other reliable evidence. This deliberate method should be used with all militia witnesses. (B) The reliability of multiple source. One other type of reliable evidence is that which can be verified from multiple sources, particularly those from opposing sides of the partisan divide. Since religious and political partisanship drove Mormons and Gentiles to take differing positions on many issues, it is significant when Mormon and Gentile sources agree on otherwise disputed issues. For example, the tribal affiliation of the Native Americans at the massacre is disputed. Some Mormons contended that Utes were on the grounds. Yet from his independent investigation, Indian agent (and gentile) Garland Hurt concluded that only Piedes (Paiutes) were present. Significantly, Mormon militiaman, interpreter, and massacre eyewitness, Nephi Johnson, agreed with Hurt. Such areas of unexpected concurrence indicate probable reliability. The interpretation in Blood of the Prophets would have benefitted from a closer, more nuanced reading of these controversial sources. (C) Dealing with the Non-Mormon Sources. As we have seen, all sources should be rigorously analyzed, especially in partisan controversies. Here, one of the main challenges is to control not only for Mormon but for anti- Mormon bias as well. As we will see later, in ethnic and religious conflicts, there is a spectrum of reactions to other groups ranging from relatively harmless bias to more extreme prejudices, followed by a diminishing and devaluing of the other group, blaming and scapegoating, and then denunciation. The fact that in the 1850s and the 1870s, both Mormon and non-mormon ideological combatants reached the level of mutual denunciation should warn us that we must control for extremes of bias in both ideological camps. Bagley has controlled for Mormon bias and, in many cases, for anti-mormon bias as well. The case of Argus is an example. Charles W. Wandell was a Mormon who became critical and then antagonistic. Writing in the Utah Reporter and using the pen name Argus, Wandell penned a series of exposes

5 of the massacre. Yet Wandell s extreme bias was recognized in his own day and Bagley rightly cautions his readers against complete acceptance of Argus. Yet Blood of the Prophets does not reflect a critical evaluation of accounts from federal judge Jacob Boreman, the presiding judge in the Lee trials, and assistant district attorney Robert N. Baskin, the prosecutorial powerhouse of the first Lee trial. Bagley argues that the second Lee trial was a travesty of justice as false as the hinges of Hell. Shoring up this conclusion is the opinion of Judge Boreman and attorney Baskin. Yet both had very pronounced anti-young and anti- Mormon biases. Both were involved in the Liberal Party, a central plank of whose party platform was to dismantle the Mormon theocracy by any means possible. Both engaged in denunciation which, as noted, is an extreme manifestation of prejudice. Thus, neither Boreman nor Baskin nor other Liberal Party members can be considered nonpartisans. Their biases must be controlled as well. Blood of the Prophets would have benefited if Bagley had revisited these sources with the canons of a rigorous interpretative method firmly in mind. (D) Dealing with John D. Lee. John D. Lee as a source of information about the massacre and the affair that followed is a special problem. For nearly a century, Lee was treated as a onedimensional villain and the very embodiment of evil. Then, Juanita Brooks brought us a more complex and balanced view of Lee. Like many historians, she wrote for her historical time. She saw an injustice (viewing John D. Lee as the scapegoat and only guilty party) and she tried to correct it as best she could. But today the pendulum has swung the other direction. Now it is quite common to cite Lee s version of events with no evaluation of its accuracy or reliability. This happens despite the fact that the Lee materials contain a number of obvious internal inconsistencies. Such an approach poses a significant danger. At the methodological level, it violates the canon that all statements should be critically examined. More serious still are the contradictions in the Lee statements. To accept Lee uncritically, then, is to inject incoherence into accounts of the massacre. While I disagree with some details in Bagley s interpretation of Lee s role, I agree with the overall approach. In my judgment, Bagley has continued Juanita Brooks s work of treating John D. Lee as the amazingly complex character that he was. Yet he also supplies correctives to Brooks on the occasions she goes overboard in her defense of Lee. 2. MILITARY MATTERS. Juanita Brooks landmark study of the massacre was first published in In 1962, she published a revised edition. In an Author s Statement, Brooks stated that new research had strengthened her conclusion that the massacre could only have happened in the emotional climate of war. At the time of the fourth reprinting in 1970, she added yet another statement in which she again cited the importance of military considerations. For her, the massacre had been committed by a military group under military orders... fired by what was later called The Spirit of the Times. She continued to believe that the perpetrators had been spurred by inflammatory speeches, vows, patriarchal blessings, and their own determination not to be driven again. All these carried some weight, she said. But military orders brought them to the scene; military orders placed each man where he was to do his duty. 2 Thus did Juanita Brooks point massacre research in some tantalizing new directions. Blood of the Prophets does make mention of the militia positions of some of the participants and notes some militia orders and preparations. By and large, however, it ignores these potentially promising leads and sources. Bagley should have given fuller consideration to (1) the threat of United States troops invading southern Utah from the east, (2) the larger ramifications of the Mormon- Indian alliance, and (3) the role of militia communications and orders. All of these have implications for the question: Who planned the attacks at Mountain Meadows? (A) The Perceived Threat From the East. A much neglected area in massacre studies is the threat of an invasion over the Spanish or Fremont trails from Texas/New Mexico into southern Utah. This subject alone deserves an article. Yet it is possible to outline the pertinent evidence. At the outbreak of the war (summer to fall, 1857), tensions were high in the southern Utah settlements. There were a number of known approaches through the Wasatch Range and these were passable through much of the winter. Furthermore, according to Col. William H. Dame s estimate in August 1857, the effective southern Utah troop strength was only two hundred men. In mid-august 1857, the first rumors of approaching U.S. dragoons filtered into southern Utah. By late August, these rumors proliferated, and the Iron Military District responded by ordering several reconnaissance detachments to guard canyon outlets. A major focus was the Old Spanish Trail/Fremont Trail where they exit near present Paragonah. Another concern was a branch trail of the Old Spanish Trail east of Beaver. Still other detachments were ordered into the eastern mountains to reconnoiter the intertwining Spanish and Fremont trails where they snaked through the Sevier River drainage. When George A. Smith returned to Cedar City from his tour of the southernmost settlements, Major Haight informed Smith of these rumors and also told Smith of his intention to attack and destroy any United States forces while still bottled in the canyons, before they could emerge into the Parowan Valley. All of these rumors later proved unfounded, yet in the fog of war, each seemed credible. In war, perception frequently is reality. In this case, the perception of attack in southern Utah became their reality, heightening their fears and eventually causing panic. Some local Mormon settlers perceived that the Fancher party was going to assist U.S. dragoons approaching from the east. Just as the rumors of attack from the east were unfounded, so too were these stories. But they were believable at the time. This helps explain how local conditions may have contributed to the massacre. During the Utah War, the outbreak of violence against passing emigrants and Mormon turncoats was limited to particular locations such as Cedar City and Springville. This suggests that the entire explanation for the Mountain Meadows massacre in southern Utah and the Parrish-Potter murders in Springville will not be had in some broad pattern in Mormon subculture, but in the peculiar mix of social and psychological conditions in these particular communities. Blood of the Prophets would have been improved by a more thorough consideration of these conditions. At a minimum, its characterization of The Craze of Fanaticism (116 18, referring to Cedar City), should be expanded. Isolated, vulnerable, and fearful are equally apt. (B) The Mormon-Indian Alliance. The fear of military attack in southern Utah has implications for the nature of the Mormon-Indian alliance of The 1857 journal of Mormon interpreter Dimick Huntington makes clear that Brigham Young was seeking an alliance with local Native American tribes. 3 Whether Young or federal commanders were the first to do so is less clear. Both sides sought and, to some degree, achieved alliances with various Native American tribes. On the Mormon side, the initial overtures in early to mid August 1857 to local Indians were disappointing. None of those

6 consulted were anxious to join the Mormons, while many expressed an intent to withdraw into the mountains and wait out the impending clash. Thus rebuffed, we can infer a tactical change in Brigham Young s war planning beginning in late August. With federal troops drawing ever nearer, Young evidently decided to provide a material inducement to his potential allies by promising them livestock. Thus, during several separate councils over two days, 31 August and 1 September, and through Dimick Huntington, his Indian translator, Young offered livestock traveling over the northern and southern trails to his potential allies. In Blood of the Prophets, Bagley interprets the 1 September council with Utes and Paiutes as standing alone from the other councils. He infers that (1) the southern route was the California Road between Great Salt Lake City and southern California, (2) the cattle referred to were those of the Fancher company, and (3) this is evidence that Brigham Young specifically intended the Fancher party as a target. A consideration of the overall objectives of the two days of councils improves our understanding of the context. In the discussions with Weber Utes (or Cumumbas) on 31 August, the reference to cattle on the northern route is to the northern overland route passing through Utah. The reference to cattle & horses... on the road to California makes it sound as though these were livestock that had left Salt Lake City and were bound for California. However, there are two problems here. The area west of Great Salt Lake was Goshute, not Weber Ute, territory, and while Young or Huntington clearly met with Goshutes, there is no record of a gift of cattle or livestock to them. Second, Huntington told the Weber Utes that when they took the cattle, they must put them into the mountains.... This hardly sounds like the great desert west of Salt Lake City. Rather, it sounds the Wasatch Mountains east of Salt Lake/Ogden/Logan traditional land of the Weber Utes. 4 Evidently, then, this was a reference to inbound cattle accompanying the federal troops. In this context, cattle on the road to California meant cattle moving in the direction of California, i.e., cattle from the east heading west. In the council on 1 September that Bagley references, the Utes and Paiutes had come to visit Young to find out about the soldiers. The earlier Mormon policy was to discourage Indians from stealing livestock. Now the Mormons appeared to be reversing their policy. Confused, the Indians rejoined, You have told us not to steal. So I have, Huntington responded, but now they [soldiers] have come to fight us & you, for when they kill us[,] then they will kill you. For the second day in a row, Young and Huntington offered cattle to the Indians, this time on the southern route. But which southern route? Did Young and Huntington have concerns with the army and their supply trains thought to be approaching over the southern route? If so, the invitation to the Indians was to drive off government cattle and livestock. In this context, the southern route seems to be the overland route the Old Spanish Trail or possibly the Fremont Trail along which the Mormons feared that soldiers would pierce the mountains into southern Utah. 5 Bagley may rightly point to the reference to cattle gone to California in support of his interpretation that Young intended emigrant cattle on the California Road between Great Salt Lake City and Southern California. However, as we have seen, that expression could also have meant cattle from the east heading west. Moreover, Bagley s reference to Young and Huntington s meeting with Paiutes is misleading. In fact, there were only two Paiutes identified at the council Tutsegavit, a Piede Paiute who ranged near the Santa Clara River, and Youngwouls, also a Piede Paiute near Ash Creek and Fort Harmony. In comparison, fourteen Pahvant Utes were at the same council. Their traditional territory extended from Beaver to Lake Sevier and into the mountainous region to the east. 6 Part of their region included the California Road but it also portions of the Old Spanish Trail and Fremont Trail. If Bagley s hypothesis is correct, why, then, were the Pahvant Utes who had nothing whatsoever to do with the subsequent massacre yet constituted over 85 percent of the Indians in the council called to attend the council? Under the Bagley hypothesis, they heard Young target the Fancher party. The Indians later revealed to a federal Indian agent that Young had indeed offered them livestock to cement their proposed alliance. Their report found its way into the massacre investigation of federal judge John Cradlebaugh. If, in the same meeting with Young, he had also targeted the Fancher party for destruction, why didn t the Utes divulge that fact? These doubts increase when we consider that Young held a separate meeting with another important chieftain that same day. Antero, identified as chief of the Yampa Utes (other sources associate him with the Uintah Utes ), met with Young in council. This was their second meeting in two weeks. In the first, Antero and his fellow Utes had expressed great fears about the troops. The traditional territory for these Ute bands was eastern Utah and western Colorado. Antero could have no possible impact on the livestock of the Fancher company on the California Road near Mountain Meadows. But he was in a position to impact other cattle on the eastern branch of the Old Spanish Trail where troops were supposed to be approaching from New Mexico. 7 There is one final problem for Bagley s interpretation. The two Piede Paiute chiefs, Tutsegavit and Youngwouls (Huntington also spells it Yungwid ), apparently remained in Salt Lake City or environs during the entire time of the massacre in southern Utah. They were noted to be present in Salt Lake on 10 September, and shortly after that, Tutsegavit was ordained an elder. Did they depart Salt Lake on 2 September and race on horseback three hundred miles to southern Utah, then race back to Salt Lake to be present on 10 September? Unlike the Utes, the Piede Paiutes did not have a horse culture. Therefore, he assumption that these Piede Paiutes had horses, let alone that they raced - without replacement mounts six hundred miles in eight days is unwarranted. Reviewing Brigham Young s councils with both northern and southern Indian tribes, along with other war preparations, reveals Young s all-consuming interest in preparations for the coming conflict with the U.S. Army. Nearly every activity of August and September 1857 was directed toward these preparations. With twenty-five hundred federal troops known to be approaching from the east on the Oregon Trail, and an unknown number feared approaching on another eastern trail, we may ask: Would Brigham Young really concern himself with forty armed men in a small Arkansas wagon train as they departed the Great Basin bound for the west? (C) Militia Communications. After Juanita Brooks first edition of The Mountain Meadows Massacre, the Iron Military District muster rolls came into her hands. She was intrigued with what they revealed about Mountain Meadows as a military operation. Muster rolls for July and October 1857 are now available for scholars who are just beginning to evaluate how changes in militia personnel and organization may have impacted the Mountain Meadows operation. But even more intriguing are the sources revealing military communications. Chronology is vital to reconstructing causal relationships, and many researchers, Bagley

7 and myself included, have been intent on answering chronology questions concerning the massacre. But communications go beyond chronology in revealing the nature of complex human interactions, military operations included. Thus, the sources revealing communications between Parowan, Cedar City, Pinto, Mountain Meadows, and the small fort-settlements at Johnson, Hamilton, Harmony, and Santa Clara, relayed by a variety of militia couriers, are every bit as important as those between southern Utah and Great Salt Lake City. A detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this review essay. But, in general, the militia dispatches reveal vacillating and contradictory policies and actions in Southern Utah. On or about 2 September 1857, some encounters between individuals in the Fancher train and others in the Mormon iron mining settlement of Cedar City sparked an angry reaction among the Mormon settlers. By Friday, 4 September, however, militia leaders in Cedar City had decided against direct Mormon interference with the train. Thus, Major (also stake president) Isaac Haight dispatched couriers to Pinto, a new settlement near the California Road directly west of Cedar City. The couriers, Joel White and Philip Klingensmith, carried orders for settlers there to not interfere with the approaching emigrant train. Meanwhile, however, a pivotal meeting occurred that same evening in Cedar City between Major Isaac Haight of the Second Battalion and Major John D. Lee of the Fourth. What emerged was a plan to incite local Paiute Indians to gather at Mountain Meadows with Lee as their leader. Lee departed in the early hours of Saturday, 5 September. Evidently, Lee had no further contact with militia leaders at Cedar for the better part of the next four days. Lee returned home to Fort Harmony and laid over on Saturday and part of Sunday, making preparations. He departed for the Meadows on Sunday and arrived there later that afternoon or evening. Other couriers carried word to outlying settlements, each relaying that Indians were to be assembled. There was some confusion about exactly where this rendezvous was to occur. Many Paiutes from the region of Cedar and Fort Harmony were sent to Mountain Meadows. Other bands along the Santa Clara River were urged to gather at Santa Clara Canyon (west of present Veyo). CONVINCED THAT BRIGHAM YOUNG WAS AN ACCESSORY BEFORE THE FACT TO THE MASSACRE, BAGLEY LOOKED AT THINGS PRIMARILY THROUGH THIS PRISM, UNFORTUNATELY SKEWING BOTH THE QUESTIONS HE SOUGHT ANSWERS TO IN HIS SOURCES AND HIS INTERPRETATION OF THOSE SOURCES. Similar preparations continued in Cedar City over the weekend but came to a halt in mid-afternoon on Sunday, 6 September. During the usual council meeting of community leaders from Cedar City and outlying settlements, Laban Morrill lead a faction which heatedly opposed Isaac Haight s plan. Morrill extracted a promise from Haight that no aggressive action would be taken against any emigrants until they had sought the advice of President Brigham Young. Thus, as things stood in Cedar City, the plan was off. All of this was unknown to John D. Lee. At that moment, Lee was en route to the Mountain Meadows, his adopted Indian son in tow to act as interpreter. They met up with Paiute bands at Mountain Meadows that afternoon or evening. One line of evidence suggests that Santa Clara Canyon, roughly a dozen miles south of Mountain Meadows, was where the planned attack would occur. Yet early Monday morning, 7 September, Lee s Paiute auxiliary force attacked the emigrant encampment at the southern tip of Mountain Meadows. We will probably never know for certain whether Lee attacked according to a preconceived plan or, driven by some personal desire or impulse, attacked on his own initiative. In any case, as things stood at the Meadows, the attack was on. Activity erupted throughout Southern Utah. In Cedar City, Major Haight dispatched the youthful Englishman James Haslam to Great Salt Lake City for orders from President Young. Haight also sent an express via Joseph Clews to Amos Thornton at Pinto which Thornton was to relay. In it, Haight ordered Lee to keep the Indians off the emigrants and protect them from harm until further orders. 8 Thornton rode to the Meadows but searched in vain for Lee. Unbeknownst to Thornton, Lee had gone south, spending the night near Santa Clara Canyon with Mormon militiamen and the Paiute allies he encountered there. This group arrived at the Meadows on Tuesday afternoon, 8 September. That is the earliest Lee could have received an express that the planned attack had been postponed. There were additional expresses between Tuesday, 8 September and Thursday, 10 September. The most significant of these was one from militia headquarters in Parowan which conveyed the ambiguous order to save emigrants lives yet not to precipitate a war with the Indians under any circumstances. By then, however, events at the Meadows, not Parowan or Salt Lake City, would dictate the final outcome. The militia at the Meadows had to confront these considerations. The original plan for an Indian attack on the train had originated at Cedar, without authorization from Great Salt Lake City. Then the Morrill faction succeeded in temporarily countermanding it. Yet communications being so difficult, the countermanded order could not be delivered in time to stop Lee. Unaware of the reversal of orders, Lee s Indians had attacked on Monday morning. They could not rout the emigrants, but neither could the emigrants escape the ambuscade. At mid-week, several emigrants attempted an escape. Encountering Mormon pickets, all were killed except one who found his way back to camp. From then on, militia leaders presumed, the whole emigrant camp knew of Mormon involvement. If the militia released the emigrants, the latter would spread word in California that Mormons were attacking civilian emigrant trains. This would invite an invasion of U.S. troops from that direction. All of this compounded their already acute sense of isolation and geographic vulnerability. So an inexorable logic driven by, as they supposed, absolute military necessity led them to their fateful decision. I suspect that Lee, Higbee, Klingensmith, and all others of the militia field command joined in the decision because, fearful as it was, it seemed unavoidable. Borne by express riders and couriers, the military communiques offer a reasonably complete view of the entire Mountain Meadows operation. Moreover, what they reveal is inconsistent with the theory that the

8 Iron County militia acted on the direct orders from Brigham Young. Although subject to varying interpretations, these communiques suggest that (1) planning of the massacre was conceived in southern Utah, not Salt Lake City and (2) from the beginning, both planning and execution of the operation were botched. Riddled with confusion, hesitancy, and conflicting orders, the military operation bears the stamp of local overreaction to perceived threats, both from the east and from the Fancher party; of ill informed and inadequately trained military officers; of ad hoc reactions to events; of frightful breakdowns in militia communications; and finally, of zealous individuals, some with personal ambitions and agendas, and others with a desire to avenge some past wrong they had personally experienced in the mid-west. Whether or not Bagley agrees with these conclusions, Blood of the Prophets would have benefitted from squarely addressing this evidence. 3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES. Bagley purports to examine the intertwined religious beliefs and political conditions (xv) in 1850s frontier Utah, and, to some extent, does so. Yet Blood of the Prophets ultimately downplays the political factors and presents the massacre as an act of religious fury (xiii) much like those garnering headlines today. When he reaches for a larger theoretical framework, Bagley alludes to the conflict between Mormons and their neighbors in the Midwest. There had indeed been a cycle of conflict and reciprocating violence. Yet Bagley conceives of this cycle not just between Mormons and their neighbors but also within Mormonism itself. This bitterness and zealotry among the Mormons inexorably fueled the bitterness and emotions that led to Mountain Meadows (xviii). This view reflects, first, a insufficiently considered understanding of the nature of ethnic conflict and, second, a biased view of frontier Mormonism in Utah. Consider the first of these. What is the proper framework in which to consider this massacre? There are several models we might employ to understand what happened at Mountain Meadows: WAR CRIME OR ATROCITY comparing the massacre to war crimes such as those committed during the two World Wars, the 1915 slaughter of Armenians in Turkey, the massacre of Cambodians in the mid-1970s during the Pol Pot regime, or the mass murders of Muslims in Bosnia during the mid- 1990s. VIGILANTE ACTION comparing the massacre to extralegal vigilante activity very common in the nineteenth century, especially in the West. OPPRESSED MINORITY BACKLASH comparing the massacre to other instances of violent backlash by a provoked minority after repeated injustices. (Very strong evidence exists for this phenomenon in both nineteenth and twentieth century United States history, including instances of violent backlash following the mistreatment of Indians, Blacks, Chinese, Hispanics, Italians, Irish, and others.) WITNESS SILENCING comparing the massacre to other circumstances in which a sense of extreme necessity compelled perpetrators to take action that would leave no competent witness alive. However, the most promising approach may come from the interconnected disciplines contributing to the emerging field of ethnic studies. (A) Ethnic Studies as a Theoretical Framework for Studying the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Bagley cites several nineteenth-century commentators who labeled the Mountain Meadows massacre the darkest deed of the nineteenth century and a crime that has no parallel in American history for atrocity (xiii). In reality, however, the massacre pales in comparison with the mass killings associated with the Indian Wars, slavery, the Civil War, and the post-reconstruction lynching of African-Americans. Then followed the twentieth century with its unprecedented wars, atrocities, and massacres. One estimate for the world-wide death toll from all wars, massacres, and atrocities during the last century is 180 million, the worst in the history of humankind. 9 From the effort to comprehend this appalling bloodletting and its causes arose a number of studies which have grappled with genocides, massacres, ethnic cleansings, mass killings, and other forms of ethnic conflict. With this has come a variety of theories, approaches, and models that attempt to describe and to some degree explain these phenomena. DEVALUING AND MUTUAL ANTAGONISM. As scholars have studied episodes of ethnic cleansing, they have recognized that U.S. history has also been marred by this type of violence. One approach to understanding ethnic conflict in the United States is the study of devaluing and mutual antagonism. 10 Devaluing is the process by which the prejudice one group feels toward another leads to blaming, scapegoating, or otherwise diminishing the other. A sharp dichotomy is drawn between our group and the other. The other may be viewed as less intelligent, less likable, or lazy. The other may also be viewed by the group as morally bad and as a danger, intent on harming or destroying us. This scenario is heightened when a mutual antagonism exists between two groups that already have a history of violent episodes between them that have not yet healed. According to researcher Ervin Staub, this situation has especially great instigating power. Armed conflict or the threat of it intensifies antagonisms and creates additional hostility. In that environment, the hostility will be transferred to passing civilians (such as the Fancher company) if they are seen as in league with the enemy group and especially if they are seen as aiders and abettors. 10 THREAT OF PROPERTY DISPOSSES- SION. Another powerful instigator of retaliatory violence is dispossession of property. Looking to early Mormonism for examples, we note that between 1833 and 1846, the Mormons suffered a series of dispossessions in northwestern Missouri and western Illinois. The last of these precipitated their move to the Great Basin. What s more, in 1857, the approaching federal army represented the largest, best equipped and best organized force ever arrayed against them. Given their prior experience, they perceived a credible threat of a new dispossession. In southern Utah, some Mormon settlers believed that the Fancher party was in league with the federal troops while others came to believe that the Arkansas emigrants would actually return from California to dispossess the Mormons. Physical dispossession of property involves extreme economic deprivation plus a direct threat to individual or group security. Further, since an ethnic group may feel a spiritual connection to its land, dispossession can also become an attack on the spiritual identity of the group. Witness the centuries of resistance of Native Americans to the forced dispossession of their homelands. Witness also the example of nineteenth century New Mexico, where the Mexicans (the original mestizo occupants of New Mexico) resisted American encroachments on their homeland. The same thing can be seen in Chicano resistance during the latter half of the twentieth century to similar actions throughout the Southwest and California. This element a renewed threat of dispossession cannot be ignored in a complete study of the instigating causes of the massacre. All these factors make a theoretical framework like Bagley s that focuses primarily on