Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows [Paperback]

Bagley knows what he is up against. The fate of the Fancher party's wagon train from Arkansas until its doom can only be reconstructed from problematic reports: "Almost every acknowledged 'fact' about the fate of these murdered people is open to question." However, Bagley has firmly placed the massacre within larger church history. He demonstrates why the Mormon leaders viewed the presence of Arkansans going through the state as an outrage against them. He shows how they were already expecting a showdown by the US Army because of their famous polygamy, their refusal to install a reliable court system, and Brigham Young's tendency to make pronouncements like "I live above the law and so do this people." When the Fancher party passed from Salt Lake City into the impoverished southern Utah, interpreters were available to rally the Indians, and the book gives evidence that Young himself had encouraged the Indians to seize the valuable stock of the well-supplied wagon train. Various church officials of the region organized the Indians, and painted themselves up to look like Indians; this happened without a doubt, though church officials will disagree that it happened to the extent that Bagley has well documented. All, saving some children under seven years old, were slaughtered in separate scenes of bloody chaos. The questions about Brigham Young's involvement before the massacre will always remain, and Bagley shows how the Mormons have argued that their prophet could not have committed any such evil. The evidence he gives here is plain, however.

Bagley not only gives a history of the massacre and its aftermath, but also a history of the histories about it, graciously noting how much he has depended on the work of Mormon historian Juanita Brooks. Bagley has confirmed most of Brooks's findings, and has new material to report. This is not just newly-found fading documents from dusty archives, although there is plenty of that. He can summarize new forensic evidence, from a dig to make a new memorial at the Mountain Meadows site in 1999; the bones, some of women and children, had not been damaged by the clubs or tomahawks of Indians, but by the bullets of Mormons. Bagley's smooth narrative makes fascinating reading, and his well-referenced arguments clear up much of what happened at Mountain Meadows, before, during, and after the massacre. He writes that although there is much obscure in the matter, "Its causes and effects are not an impenetrable mystery." He shows that those who think of themselves as God's anointed have chosen to rely on mystery and have failed to admit or atone for crimes that history has made plain.

This book challenges Juanita Brook's "Mountain Meadows Massacre" as being the most authoritative book dealing with the subject. Brook's book was well-written and meticulously researched. However, Brooks was too accepting of unsupported statements and failed, perhaps, to reach certain logical conclusions.

For those who are unaware, in 1857, an unfortunate group of pioneers traveling by covered wagon from Arkansas passed through Utah Territory on their way to California. The journey happened to coincide with the murder of LDS Church Apostle, Parley P. Pratt, in Arkansas shortly before. It also occurred at the same time President Buchanan was sending the United States Army to Utah to gain control over the "disloyal" Mormons. In September of 1857, as the pioneers were camped in the Mountain Meadows west of Cedar City they were initially assaulted by a group of Indians (there may have been Mormon settlers dressed as Indians among the group as well). When several days of hard fighting failed to destroy the pioneers, a group of Mormons appeared on the scene and pretended to negotiate a ceasefire with the Indians. As soon as the Arkansas pioneers laid down their guns, they were than slaughtered by a group including both Mormons and Indians. It is estimated 120 people were butchered in this fashion.

Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever tried in a court of law for this crime and that occurred twenty years later after a massive cover-up took place involving church leaders and the whole community in southern Utah. Lee alone paid the penalty for this event. He was executed by firing squad in 1877 for his role in the massacre.

Many haunting questions remain unanswered: 1. How many Mormons were involved in the massacre? 2. Was the massacre the result of action by local church leaders, or a directive from the President of the Church? 3. Why did the church allow the property of the emigrants to be looted by settlers and Indians? 4. Why was there a need to cover-up the details of this incident for so many years afterwards? 5. Why was John D. Lee the only man punished for the crime?

Bagley's answers are more disturbing than anything that has ever been written about the massacre so far. He concludes that the killing of the settlers had to be ordered in some fashion by high church leaders. And, it is difficult to explain away the actions of Apostle George A Smith who left Salt Lake City and rode south at the time to condemn the pioneers in the wagon train, at the same time they arrived in Salt Lake City. It is also difficult to explain away the journal entries of Dimick Huntington which provide support for the theory that church leaders encouraged Indians to attack the pioneers.

Bagley is subject to criticism because much of any account of the massacre is simply "interpretation". Bagley chooses to interpret evidence to blame church leaders. In fact, the evidence may be capable of different interpretations. Perhaps, Bagley doesn't give Brigham Young enough credit for the letter he sent to the Southern Utah communities instructing them to leave the pioneers alone. (which somehow arrived just a day or two too late to prevent he massacre). Also, its difficult to rely on much of anything John D. Lee said. Lee wrote and said many contradictory things about the massacre. Additionally, his statements may have been motivated by a desire to escape criminal responsibility for his acts. Much of the other evidence in the book is both dated and circumstantial.

However, if there is a conclusion that can be drawn from the book it is this. The true and complete story of the massacre has never been told. Obviously, there is much more to it than has ever been explained. That the church participated in a coverup of the events cannot be denied. And, one has to ask why, if no one "higher up" had any culpability for what occurred.

Will Bagley is to be applauded for tackling a difficult subject and having the courage to reach the conclusions that he has. Perhaps, his book will result in more thoughtful research and inquiry into this subject.

Now a new book by historian Will Bagley is going to cause the Mormon Church even more consternation as he attempts to lay blame for the massacre directly at the feet of second LDS President Brigham Young. This was a theory privately held by Brooks, but she could not prove this at the time of her book. On page 363 Bagley writes, "A historian's professional and personal conclusions often differ, as was the case with Brooks' final assignment of responsibility for the massacre at Mountain Meadows. In the last revision of her book, she stressed the importance of Young's manipulation of the Indian leaders and the military orders placing `each man where he was to do his duty.' She retained her original conclusion that the existing evidence did not prove that Brigham Young and George A. Smith specifically order the massacre, but it showed they `set up social conditions that made it possible.' In a private letter to Roger B. Mathison of the University of Utah Library, she went much further: she had `come to feel that Brigham Young was directly responsible for the tragedy.' John D. Lee, she believed, would make it to heaven before Brigham Young."

Bagley states, "Claiming that Brigham Young had nothing to do with Mountain Meadows is akin to arguing that Abraham Lincoln had nothing to do with the Civil War" (p. 379). He discounts the vilification of the Arkansas immigrants/victims as nothing but lies perpetrated by the murderers themselves. Bagley recognizes the complicated events leading up to the tragic event, but he makes it clear that one cannot overlook the fact that this was an act to avenge the blood of Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt who was killed in May of 1857 by the legal husband of his 12th wife, Eleanor McLean, in Arkansas. Bagley's "smoking gun" (?) is the journal of Dimick Huntington, a source never seen by Brooks. Huntington recorded a meeting that Young had with local Indians on September 1, 1857 where he agreed to give the emigrants' cattle to the Indians. Says Bagley, "He [Young] encouraged his Indian allies to attack the Fancher party to make clear to the nation the cost of war with the Mormons" (p. 379).

Bagley's book is a must read for anyone who wants to get beyond the LDS Church spin on this very thorny issue. Mormon Church historian Richard Turley and his loyal band of researchers will be coming out next year with what will certainly look like a rebuttal to Bagley's conclusions. Regardless, "Blood of the Prophets" is sure to shake up many Mormons who for the first time will realize that it is quite possible their second president was responsible for the murders of 120 innocent men, women, and children.