American Primeval and the bloody truth about the Mormon massacre of 1857
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Everyone knows about the events of 9/11. But few are aware that, a century and a half before, September 11 was associated with a ghastly act of violence that was similarly driven by religious zealotry and a desire to punish Americans. The events of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which took place in early September 1857, and came to their horrific conclusion on the 11 September, have been called “the darkest deed of the 19th century”.
They form the conclusion of the first episode of the new big-budget western series on Netflix, American Primeval, which focuses on the battle for Utah in the mid-nineteenth century. It is a shameful incident in American history that is less known today than it should be, but the show’s muddy, bloody evocation of the darkest point in its country’s history is about as far away from the glamorisation of How The West Was Won as it’s possible to get.
The origins of the first September 11 atrocity stem from the murder of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, who was assassinated in Illinois on June 27, 1844, aged 38. The religion was one of ecstatic revelation which Smith claimed had come to him in a vision from God when he was still a teenager, and its followers were enthusiastic adherents to the so-called ‘true faith’; among its teachings was the practice of polygamy and the belief that God had revealed to Smith a set of commandments inscribed in a golden book – the Book of Mormon. Naysayers, though, viewed it as a dangerous sect, and one that could be exploited by its charismatic leaders into a personality cult.
Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by a furious mob in the town of Carthage while awaiting trial on charges of treason and conspiracy, after he destroyed an independent newspaper that was critical of his leadership and religious ambitions. Opinion was divided (as it still is) as to whether Smith was a martyr for the faith he believed in or a dangerous and cynical fanatic whose propagation of polygamy was done for his own selfish and decidedly ungodly motives.
After Smith’s death, one of his deputies, Brigham Young, assumed command of the Mormon faith. Young was a wildly different character to Smith, possessed of an authoritarian streak that tipped into a dictatorial zeal. He wished to avoid any threat to his leadership, and so determined to lead his order into the Salt Lake Valley, which had originally been part of Mexico but had recently come under American control. It was a remote, barren area, a considerable way from any major settlement, and therefore easier to operate with a degree of autonomy. By the time that he arrived in Salt Lake valley in 1850, he was so powerful that he held complete sway over his followers.
As the judge John Cradlebaugh would later remark to Congress of Young, “The mind of one man permeates the whole mass of the people, and subjects to its unrelenting tyranny the souls and bodies of all. It reigns supreme in Church and State, in morals, and even in the minutest domestic and social arrangements. Brigham’s house is at once tabernacle, capital, and harem; and Brigham himself is king, priest, lawgiver, and chief polygamist.”
Young himself refused to acknowledge any authority other than the Almighty’s, declaring that “Any President of the United States who lifts his finger against these people shall die an untimely death and go to hell!” Yet amidst his fine words and threats, it was also the case that Utah was plagued by drought and insect infestations, which led to crops failing and economic collapse.
Young’s solution was to implement a scheme known as the Reformation, a back-to-basics programme of Old Testament-influenced morality; his followers were instructed to be baptised anew, and, most disturbingly, to embrace a doctrine of blood atonement. Young declared that “If our neighbour wishes salvation, and it is necessary to spill his blood upon the ground in order that he be saved, spill it.” If this was unacceptable, the only other option was to leave Salt Lake immediately.
Content retrieved from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/american-primeval-mormon-massacre-brigham-young-truth/.
