Mormon History
Mountain Meadows Massacre Mormon Excuse - 1869
The Deseret News – December 1, 1869
"MOUNTAIN MEADOW MASSACRE."
In the
delivery of the lecture "Six Months in Utah," by Mrs. St. Clair, on Tuesday last
at the Theatre, there was an allusion made by the to what is known as the
"Mountain Meadow Massacre." There was nothing in her treatment of this point in
her lecture that was offensive to her audience; but she evidently was unfamiliar
with the facts, and as a general misapprehension exists abroad in relation to
them, simple justice demands that they be correctly stated. Our silence upon
this subject is frequently construed as an evidence of the inability of the
people of this Territory to defend themselves against the cruel charges which
have been made against them in connection with that tragedy.
It is almost a pity to break this silence now, for there is a class of
anti-Mormon writers whose entire stock of trade consists of the "Mountain Meadow
Massacre," and a few other acts of violence which have occurred in this
Territory, and upon which they ring constant changes, holding the massacre over
our heads somewhat as an old schoolmistress would a rod over a naughty child. We
scarcely know how these threats and menaces sound to people who live outside of
this Territory; but they only excite either amusement or contempt here where the
facts are understood.
After Governor Alfred Cumming reached this city and was fairly installed in
office -- considerable having been said about the massacre of a company of
emigrants at Mountain Meadows the previous Fall -- ex-Governor Young urged upon
the Governor and U. S. District Attorney Wilson the propriety of taking steps to
investigate this occurrence. In the wish for a thorough examination he was
seconded by the entire community, for all felt that most cruel and unjust
aspersions had been cast upon them. To render what aid he could President Young
profferred to go with the Federal officers to the vicinity of the outrage and,
use every effort in his power to sift the matter to the uttermost, and discover
the guilty ones. But this was no part of the policy of the Judges who were then
here, nor the attaches of the camp. Such a course would settle the question; but
they were interested in keeping it open.
At Provo in the Spring of 1859, a Grand Jury on U.S. business undertook the
investigation of the "Mountain Meadow Massacre." They requested the U.S.
District Attorney, Mr. Wilson, a citizen of Pennsyvania, to be present with them
and examine the witnesses. Two Indians, Mose and Looking-glass, had been
committed for the crime of rape perpetuated upon a white woman and her daughter,
a girl of ten years. In the midst of the investigation of the Mountain Meadow
case, the Judge, John Cradlebaugh, called the Grand Jury into the court room and
administered to the members an abusive lecture and summarily discharged them! At
the same time he turned the savages Mose and Looking-glass loose upon the
community. The Grand Jury protested, but in vain, against this unwarrantable
proceeding by the Court. District Attorney Wilson, also reported that he was
present at the deliberations of the Grand Jury, and, at the request of its
members, had examined the witnesses and that the Jury were proceeding in the
matter efficiently. Thus ended the attempt to have the transaction investigated
judicially.
From the earliest years that white men traveled through the country now
incorporated in the southern portion of this Territory and the northern part of
Arizona, outrages upon the Indians were frequent. When Colonel Fremont passed
through the southern desert in 1842, his party killed without any provocation,
several Pah-Ute Indiansa near the Rio Virgen. When New Mexico was organized,
Governor Calhoun, Superintendent of Indian Affairs recommended to the Department
aatt Washington the extermination of the Pah-Utes. Emigrants passing through by
the southern route to California had also frequently shot them whenever they
came in sight. To such an extent had this custom prevailed that when President
Geo. A. Smith and party made the settlement at Parowan, Iron County, in January,
1851, then 200 miles from settlements on the North and upwards of 500 on the
South, a delegation of Pah-Utes from New Mexico, now Arizona, visited him and
besought that the indiscriminate shooting of Indians by emigrants should cease,
as they were disposed to be friendly and wished to trade with them. President
Smith could only speak for his own people.
From all that is known respecting the company of Arkansas emigrants who were
killed at Mountain Meadows, they conducted themselves in a hostile manner
towards the Indians wherever they saw them. At Corn Creek, Millard Co.,
President George A. Smith, who was coming from a visit to the southern
settlements in company with several friends, found a company of emigrants
camped; they had about thirty wagons and a considerable herd of stock. He and
his party crossed the creek and camped about forty yards from them. Three of the
company visited his camp, and one was introduced as the Captain of the company.
After inquiring where President Smith and party were from, he asked if there was
any danger to be feared from the Indians who were camped nearby. He was told
that if his company had committed no outrage upon the Indians there was no
danger. Next morning early, while President S. and party were hitching up, the
Captain of the emigrant company again joined them. He pointed to an ox which had
died during the night and wished to know if the Indians would eat the animal. He
was told they would ;that they were in the habit of eating cattle that died and
that if he would give it to them they would be thankful. As President S. was
starting, one of his party asked him what the Captain was doing over at the dead
ax with a bottle in his hand. He replied that he was probably taking a drink.
The Indians ate the ox and ten of their number died. It had without doubt been
poisoned. A portion of these Indians were Pahvantes and others were Pah-Utes who
lived in the vicinity of the Mountain Meadows, and were on a visit to the
Pahvantes. There is reason to believe that this company poisoned the spring
also, for thirty head of cattle which drank of its waters died with every
symptom of poisoning. The Pah-Ute Indians who survived, returned with the news
of the death of their companions. But the company that had occasioned their
death was not lost sight of. Another outrage had been added to the long list
which had been accumulating from the days when Fremont had passed through their
country, and they were resolved to wreak a terrible revenge. They rallied all
the neighboring Indians and when the emigrants reached "Cane Spring" in the
Mountain Meadows, they attacked them.
After the attack was made the first intimation of it received at Parowan was by
Indian runners to Ouwanup, a chief of the Pi-edes, in that vicinity, who was
summoned to assist them. From the Pi-edes the citizens learned something about a
difficulty between the Indians and a company of emigrants, and succeeded in
keeping them from joining the Pah-Utes. Rumors still arriving that a battle was
going on, a party of citizens from Cedar started for the purpose of relieving
the travelers; but arrived too late. They succeeded, however, in rescuing a few
children, who had been preserved by the Indians, agreeably to their custom,
victorious, of keeping children to trade.
Another company, which was following the Arkansas company, fired upon some
Indians near Beaver and wounded one of them. The Indians appeared determined to
destroy them, and they probably would have done so, had not Col. Dame of Parowan
sent a detachment of militia, who pacified the Indians to some extent, and
guarded the company on their road some three hundred miles.
The above is a brief outline of the circumstances connected with this massacre.
The determined policy of the enemies of the people of this Territory has been to
not investigate this transaction. During the years 1858-9 an army of several
thousand men were stationed in the Territory without any employmnet. The Federal
Judges who were here at that time were the open and avowed enemies of the
people; and it is probable that, with such force to back them, it there had been
the least probability of criminating the "Mormons," they would have suffered so
good an opportunity to pass? The fact is, the newspaper rumors concerning this
affair answered a better purpose than investigation in affording an excuse for
keeping up of sustaining troops where they were not needed.
There has never been a time when President Young and the people have not been
ready to give every aid in their power to have this occurence rightly examined.
Note 1: The above article in the Deseret News was unique for its time.
The paper's editor, Apostle George Q. Cannon, remarks: "Our silence upon this
subject is frequently construed as an evidence of the inability of the people of
this Territory to defend themselves against the cruel charges which have been
made against them in connection with that tragedy." While it was Cannon's lot to
put this message in print, little of its defense "against the cruel charges" was
actually penned by Cannon himself. Except for the opening two paragraphs, most
of the text closely follows an undated draft letter preserved in the papers of
Apostle George A. Smith. A cataloger has added the notation "Nov. 1869" in the
corner of Smith's draft letter, and it likely was penned during the final days
of that month. In fact, a very similar text is reproduced in the LDS "Journal
History of the Church," under the date of Nov. 25, 1869, in the form of a
personal letter, sent from George A. Smith to "Mr. St. Clair" (who was no doubt
the husband of the "Mrs. St. Clair" who gave the public lecture entitled "Six
Months in Utah"). To what extent Mrs. St. Clair's lecture actually inspired the
reaction of George A. Smith, in producing a statement regarding the massacre, it
is impossible to discern at this late date. Possibly Smith's attention had
already been drawn to the matter, by the Nov. 1st public remarks made by Brigham
Young, Jr. in Philadelphia (see the News of Nov. 24th, above). -- In his
2002 book, Blood of the Prophets, historian Will Bagley says, "[Juanita]
Brooks... identified Cannon as the article's author, but the text is derived
from a George A. Smith letter." Since Apostle Cannon edited and added to Smith's
original text, the Dec. 1st News article may properly be identified as
the Nov. 1869 Cannon-Smith statement of LDS apostolic instruction on the subject
of the Mountain Meadows massacre.
Note 2: George A. Smith's claim -- that his party of travelers witnessed Captain
Fancher poisoning the carcass of an ox at Corn Creek in Aug. 1857 -- is an
incredible allegation. Possibly the emigrants did offer such an ox to the
resident Indians at that time; and possibly Smith did encounter the "Captain" of
the wagon train at that time, but Smith's bold assertion, that "There is no
doubt but that the whole accumulated wrath of the Pah-Utes against American
travelers from the wanton massacre by Fremont's men to the poisoning of the ox
and the spring at Corn Creek by the Arkansas party was avenged at the Mountain
Meadows," stands as an obvious fabrication. The fact that Smith would say such a
thing, after the passage of more than a decade, during which time the essential
facts of the massacre had been well exposed, indicates that he was purposely
misdirecting the attention of the Deseret News readers to Indians,
instead of the southern Utahans whom Smith knew had planned and carried out the
mass murder. Apostle Smith's falsehoods did not stand for even a few months, and
the following year Mormon leaders like Erastus Snow and Brigham Young were
admitting the involvement of some of their own people in the 1857 massacre.
Note 3: It is utterly impossible that Apostle George A. Smith could have been so
ignorant of the actual facts of the massacre, as he pretended to be at the end
of 1869. Smith was well acquainted with the people of southern Utah. He knew
that some of them had been accused, indicted and published around the world for
their participation in the massacre and its aftermath -- the cover-up -- the
disposal of the stolen property. Smith's evident willingness to blame the
Indians for the entire affair, along with his readiness to see them discovered
and brought "to justice," are inexcusable sins in the public actions of this
ordained "prophet, seer and revelator" and "special witness for Jesus Christ."