Criticism of Mormonism/Books/American Massacre/Chapter 12

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Response to claims made in Chapter 12: "Camp Scott, November 16, 1857"

Chapter 11

A FAIR Analysis of: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows A work by author: Sally Denton

Chapter 13

Response to claim: 165 - Brigham Young had "seen to it that Van Vliet heard nothing of Mountain Meadows"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

The author claims that during meetings with U.S. Army Quartermaster Captain Stewart Van Vliet, Brigham Young had "seen to it that Van Vliet heard nothing of Mountain Meadows," and that the "Mormon leaders worried that if van Vliet relayed news of the situation to Johnston, an invasion of Utah Territory would be expedited."

Author's sources: *No source provided for this particular claim, although the following citation is Van Vliet quoted in T.B.H. Stenhouse, Rocky Mountain Saints: a full and complete history of the Mormons, from the first vision of Joseph Smith to the last courtship of Brigham Young (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 357.

FAIR's Response

Mountain Meadows Massacre | Others Involved

Others Involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre

Responsibility for the Mountain Meadows Massacre extended beyond its principal organizers and included numerous local militiamen, settlers, and some Native Americans who participated in the siege, the killings, and subsequent efforts to conceal the crime. The degree of involvement varied significantly among participants, making it difficult in some cases to determine individual culpability with precision. Historians must often rely on conflicting testimony and incomplete records when reconstructing the actions of specific individuals. The available evidence nevertheless indicates that the massacre was not the work of a small handful of leaders alone but involved a broader network of local participants acting in different capacities. Understanding the event, therefore, requires examining both the actions of its principal leaders and the wider community that contributed to its execution and cover-up.

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Colonel Thomas Kane

Critics who use the Mountain Meadows Massacre to attack the Church often mention non-Latter-day Saint Col. Thomas Kane. Kane was a good friend to the Saints prior to Joseph Smith's death, and he was also briefly involved in the Massacre issue. There are two issues raised by critics in conjunction with Kane:

1. Some blame Kane for helping Brigham Young to cover up the Massacre
2. Some paint Kane as ridiculous, vain, or foolish—this is apparently done on the theory that anyone who likes or helps the Mormons must either be evil or a dupe.

One reviewer noted:

The claim that Kane was responsible for covering up the massacre (p. 47) finds no support in history, nor does Denton cite primary sources for her view other than Kane's participation in advising Young to respond to federal inquiries in 1858 (p. 208). As I point out in my review of Bagley's Blood of the Prophets, the massacre investigation spanned decades and involved sitting presidents, cabinet members, attorneys general, federal district attorneys, federal marshals, territorial marshals, and more. Kane was out of the picture shortly after the massacre."

Negative portrayal

Denton's American Massacre portrays Kane as arrogant, effeminate, hypochondriacal, and delusional about fame. Wrote one reviewer of her portrait:

Denton's discussion of Kane is mercilessly out of context. Biographies and journals of nineteenth-century 'Renaissance' men reveal that many accomplished men adopted what appear today to be affectations of self-importance and prolixity. Stenhouse, no advocate of Brigham Young nor necessarily fair with his sources when discussing Mormonism, treated Kane respectfully in his nineteenth-century work, Rocky Mountain Saints. Stenhouse tells us that 'in the relations of Col. Kane with the Mormons at that time, there was exhibited evidence of the highest Christian charity and personal heroism of character.'"

George A. Smith

Some wish to make Brigham Young and apostle George A. Smith complicit in the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Thus, it is claimed that prior to the massacre, George A. Smith is alleged to "have carried orders to Cedar City leaders to incite their people to avenge the blood of the prophets" (Denton, 186).

John D. Lee is wrong on those events which we can verify, and no other evidence supports this claim.

One reviewer dismissed the thin evidence upon which this claim rests:

"This argument assumes Brigham Young had formulated the plan for destruction when the Fancher train was still in Salt Lake City on 5 August 1857. There is no evidence of material provocation by the Fancher train at this early stage except from persons with no reliable basis upon which to provide testimony....Nobody has ever offered any believable evidence that George A. Smith gave instructions to Haight and Lee to massacre the train. John D. Lee is the only person who purported to offer evidence of these instructions," and Lee had a clear motive to lie to save his own skin and make his memoirs more marketable. "Lee's claim that George A. Smith met Lee in southern Utah on 1 September 1857 (an approximate date deduced from Lee's text) with orders of destruction was impossible because Smith was hundreds of miles away in Salt Lake City on that very day, as well as the day before.

Captain Stewart Van Vliet

From Robert D. Crockett:

Army Quartermaster Captain Stewart Van Vliet came to Salt Lake City on 8 September and left after midnight on 14 September 1857 to arrange for the advancing army's provisions. Denton tells us that Brigham Young carefully shielded Van Vliet to hear nothing of the massacre, because if Van Vliet came to know about it, "an invasion of Utah Territory would be expedited" (p. 165). There is no historical support for this claim. The claim is also impossible to support. Because the massacre was not over until 11 September 1857,23 there is no possibility that Brigham Young could have known of the massacre before his last meeting with Van Vliet on 13 September 1857."

Notes (click to expand)

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Response to claim: 165 - Brigham did not preach the sermon at the church meeting attended by Van Vliet because he was "too furious to conduct the service"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

The author claims that Brigham did not preach the sermon at the church meeting attended by Van Vliet because he was "too furious to conduct the service."

Author's sources: No source provided. Likely Stenhouse.

FAIR's Response

Response to claim: 165 - Brigham made an "oblique but unrecognized reference to the massacre at Mountain Meadows" to Van Vliet"

The author(s) of American Massacre make(s) the following claim:

The author claims that Brigham made an "oblique but unrecognized reference to the massacre at Mountain Meadows" to Van Vliet when he said "if the government dare to force the issue, I shall not hold the Indians by the wrist any longer...you may tell the government to stop all emigration across the continent, for the Indians will kill all who attempt it."

Author's sources: Bancroft, 505.

FAIR's Response

167

Claim
Any "Mormon man" who defied Brigham's declaration of Martial law would be "put to death."

Author's source(s)

• Brigham Young proclamation, alternately dated August 5 and September 15, 1857, original copies located in Special Collections, Marriott University Library, University of Utah. Reprinted in Fielding, Unsolicted Chronicler, 395;
• T.B.H. Stenhouse, Rocky Mountain Saints: a full and complete history of the Mormons, from the first vision of Joseph Smith to the last courtship of Brigham Young (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 358-59.

Response
 FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources

167

Claim
The author states that "any man who defied Young's orders would be put to death was made evident in his statement "When the time comes to burn and lay waste our improvements, if any man undertakes to shield his, he will be sheared down."

Author's source(s)

• Young quoted in Waite, 50.
• See Brigham Young, (13 Sept 1857) Journal of Discourses 5:232.

Response

• Denton uses a secondary source, when she could have easily verified Brigham's words in the Journal of Discourses.
•  Misrepresentation of source: In context, Brigham's word assume a different tone. Immediately following the phrase quoted by the author, Brigham says "Now the faint-hearted can go in peace; but should that time come, they must not interfere." This is not a threat of death to those who would not participate.
• See: Disobey Brigham and be sheared down?

167

Claim
The date of Brigham's proclamation "was changed from August to September" in order to destroy evidence that it authorized the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Author's source(s)

• Gibbs, Mountain Meadows Massacre, 11.

Response
 FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources

172

Claim
The author claims that "droves of Saints leaving California for Utah" and "a matching number leaving Utah of a crisis of conscience spurred by the events of Mountain Meadows" were "doomed to pass over the site of the slaughter."

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

•  Mind reading: author has no way of knowing this.: the author needs to provide some evidence for this supposed "crisis of conscience."

172

Claim
Ann Eliza Young claims that she "knew instinctively, as did many others, that something was being hidden from the mass of the people."

Author's source(s)

• Ann Eliza Young, Wife No. 19, or the Story of a Life in Bondage...(Hartford, Conn.: Custin, Gilman & Company, 1876), 229.

Response

•  Absurd claim: So now, Ann Eliza's intuitions are serving as evidence. Ann Eliza was writing later in life as an anti-Mormon lecturer, and used all the anti-Mormon tropes.
• See Hugh W. Nibley, Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass: The Art of Telling Tales About Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (Vol. 11 of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by David J. Whittaker, (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1991),413–468. ISBN 0875795161. GL direct link GL direct link

173

Claim
It is claimed that Brigham Young instructed John D. Lee to write a letter laying the blame for the massacre on the Indians.

Author's source(s)

• No source provided.

Response

• As noted on the notes for p. 142, local leaders had planned to blame the Indians long before Brigham Young even knew of their intentions, or instructed them to leave the immigrants alone.

173

Claim
Brigham is claimed to have told Chief Walker's successor Arapeen to "help himself to what he wanted" of the "spoils of the slaughter."

Author's source(s)

• Dimick B. Huntington Journal, September 20, 1857.
• Compare treatment in Blood of the Prophets: p. 170a.

Response

•  Quotes another author's opinion as if it were fact: Denton again follows Bagley completely uncritically, and makes the same errors.
•  History unclear or in error: Indian chief Arapeen given booty?

176, 180

Claim
Colonel Thomas Kane is portrayed as arrogant, effeminate, a hypochondriac, and with delusions of fame.

Author's source(s)

•  ^[ATTENTION!]
• Compare treatment in Blood of the Prophets: p. 198.

Response

•  Presentism or anachronism: Thomas Kane
•  Quotes another author's opinion as if it were fact: Denton seems to rely heavily on Bagley's treatment here.

186

Claim
Prior to the massacre, George A. Smith is claimed to "have carried orders to Cedar City leaders to incite their people to avenge the blood of the prophets."

Author's source(s)

• No source provided. (Likely Bagley)

Response

• For a detailed response, see: George A. Smith carried orders?

186

Claim
George A. Smith was "sent south not to learn the truth, but to devise an explanation for church leaders could provide to external enemies..."

Author's source(s)

• Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 212.

Response

•  Double standard: Double standards in evidence

186

Claim
George A. Smith "went to lengths to characterize the victims as cowards."

Author's source(s)

• George A. Smith report in Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, p. 242.

Response
 FAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources

Notes (click to expand)

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