American Primeval: Was Brigham Young Evil? Netflix Portrayal Vs. Real-Life Details

Published January 15, 2025 By admin with Comments 0

While American Primeval portrays its take on Brigham Young as largely evil, the real-life man was a bit more complicated than that.

The hit new Netflix mini-series, sets itself against the backdrop of real-world American history, following the battle for the West in 1857 during what has become known as the Utah War.

The series centers on a cast of characters on both sides of the conflict, members of the Mormon Church and the U.S. government itself. At the forefront of this battle is Kim Coates’ Brigham Young (the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

Brigham Young is at the forefront of Netflix’s American Primeval historical war, but the TV character was based on a real man.

In the series, Young (played by Kim Coates) is portrayed as a mainly evil presence, serving as the primary antagonist of the show’s ongoing conflict.

This includes his involvement in the on-screen version of the deadly Mountain Meadows Massacre, where members of the Mormon church committed a mass murder of emigrants passing through on the famous Baker–Fancher wagon trail.

While Young is depicted in the series as the mastermind behind this bloody affair, that is not necessarily the case in real life. The Mountain Meadows Massacre was a real-life historical event, that took place during the Utah War of 1857.

While it is true that the event was a mass killing of emigrants traveling through Mormon territory in Southern Utah, Brigham Young has never been proven to have had any knowledge leading into it.

However, historians maintain the real-life former president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints contributed in some way whether intentional or not, through fearmongering amongst his followers.

In his recount of the events of the Utah War, Life and Confessions of John D. Lee, Lee (who was convicted for his work in the Mountain Meadows Massacre), claimed that the mass murder occurred “by the direct command of Brigham Young,” and that Young had “[led] the people astray” (via Smithsonian Magazine):

Content retrieved from: https://thedirect.com/article/american-primeval-brigham-young-evil-netflix-portrayal-real-life-details.