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Posted on 07/12/2003 6:30:07 PM PDT by Torie

Mountain Meadows massacre analysis ends with an accusation

Sally Denton By Martin Naparsteck The Salt Lake Tribune

American Massacre By Sally Denton Knopf, $26.95

Brigham Young, as portrayed in Sally Denton's American Massacre, is a murderer and liar and commits treason. Her case is more strongly stated than in the two best previous books on the same subject, Juanita Brooks' 1950 Mountain Meadows Massacre and Will Bagley's 2002 Blood of the Prophets.

For those who view Young as a great man who did little or no wrong, her tone will be blasphemous; for those who view him as a self-centered dictator or worse, her argument will seem highly credible.

When the 1857 massacre occurred at Mountain Meadows in southwestern Utah -- the cold-blooded murder of at least 120 men, women and children on a wagon train headed from Arkansas to California -- LDS Church officials claimed Paiute Indians were responsible. Now, almost a century and a half after the event, nearly all reputable historians believe the murderers were white Mormons. Up to 50 Mormons took part in the murders, but only John D. Lee was punished; he was executed at the meadows 20 years later. Although he was clearly guilty, history also judged Lee to be a sacrificial lamb whose death by firing squad ended two decades of investigation into just how high in the church culpability reached.

There is disagreement among historians about exactly how many people were killed, how many Mormons took part in the murders, how much loot was taken, how many small children survived. But one overarching question dominates historical inquiries into the massacre: Did Brigham Young order the killings?

Gordon B. Hinckley, current president of the church, speaking at 1999 ceremonies marking the placement of a monument that for the first time acknowledged Mormons were responsible, said: "That which we have done here must never be construed as an acknowledgment on the part of the church of any complicity in the occurrences of that fateful day."

Brooks, a devout member of the church, showed great courage in publishing her book at a time when she risked excommunication and social ostracism. But she never seriously addressed the question of Young's involvement. She merely asked the question and, in essence, answered that there wasn't enough evidence on either side to answer it. Bagley (who writes a history column for The Salt Lake Tribune) used numerous sources not available to Brooks and concluded, essentially, that nothing of significance could occur in Utah in 1857 without Young's knowledge and approval. He stopped about a quarter-inch short of saying Young ordered the killings.

Denton comes even closer to saying Young knew in advance and probably ordered the killings. She gets as close to making that charge as a serious scholar can (and this book, regardless of whether you agree with the author's conclusions, is indeed serious scholarship) without a signed confession.

She repeatedly calls Young a dictator, depicts him as mean-spirited and claims he lied when he denied that Mormons perpetrated the killings.

The massacre occurred after President James Buchanan ordered the U.S. Army to remove Young from office. Young had been appointed governor of Utah Territory by President Millard Fillmore and ran Utah more as a theocracy than as a territory of the United States. Buchanan intended to establish U.S. authority over Utah. Young responded by putting Utah under martial law, ordering the destruction of army supplies and preparing to go to war with the United States. Under any reasonable definition of the term, he was guilty of treason.

Buchanan avoided a shooting war between Utah and the United States partly by promising Young and other Mormon leaders a pardon from charges of treason. The war was averted, but the massacre had taken place.

Brooks wrote near the end of her book, "While Brigham Young . . . did not specifically order the massacre, [he] did preach sermons and set up social conditions which made it possible."

Bagley wrote, "As long as modern [church leaders] deny that the LDS church had 'any complicity in the occurrences of that fateful day,' they can never come to terms with the truth."

Denton writes, "Within the context of the era and the history of Brigham Young's complete authoritarian control over his domain and his followers, it is inconceivable that a crime of this magnitude could have occurred without direct orders from him."

There is a progression worthy of note, from Brooks' courage in defying her church to the thorough and convincing scholarship of Bagley to the daring accusation of Denton. It is like three trial lawyers working together: Brooks with the opening argument, Bagley presenting endless details to the jury and Denton with the summation.

In Lee's first trial, the jury was hung because a majority of the jurors were Mormon and perhaps acting on orders from church leaders. In the second trial, church leaders, seeking to end the country's insistence that someone be punished, may have instructed the jurors to find him guilty.

The jury of readers of history must now decide whom they take orders from: a church leadership embarrassed by its past or their own consciences.

----- Martin Naparsteck reviews books from and about the West for The Salt Lake Tribune.

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