Criticism of Mormonism/Books/American Massacre/Chapter 13

Response to claims made in Chapter 13: "Cedar City, April 7, 1859"


Chapter 12
A work by author: Sally Denton
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Response to claim: 190 - According to "historian Polly Aird," the Parrish and Potter murders committed during the Mormon reformation were "the best documented case of killing for the sin of apostasy" and "involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down"

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

According to "historian Polly Aird," the Parrish and Potter murders committed during the Mormon reformation were "the best documented case of killing for the sin of apostasy" and "involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down."

Author's sources: Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 44/3 (Fall 2001): 196-237.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources

Evidence indicated that Brigham Young had nothing to do with the murders.


Question: Were Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy responsible for the "Parrish-Potter" murders?

Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville

It is claimed that Brigham Young and the entire Church hierarchy were responsible for the murder of two apostates, called the "Parrish-Potter" murders.

Local members may well have been responsible for the murder of Potter and Parrish. But, the account is remarkable not—as the some claim—because it was so emblematic of "blood atonement" or the murder of apostates, but because it was an anomaly.

As discussed here, violent crime and vigilantism in Utah was much less frequent than elsewhere in the Union, especially on the frontier.

There is likewise no evidence, beyond several testimonies taken two years after the murders that only suggest that the murders were orchestrated by the Church, that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the murder.[1] And, Bagley (and Denton who follows him) are wrong in claiming that local Mormons did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice—they were indicted by a Mormon grand jury.

Polly Aird has written the most descriptive account[2] to date of the murder in Springville, Utah, of Mormon apostates William and “Beason” Parrish and spy “Duff” Potter. At the time, Aird found the evidence regarding Brigham Young’s foreknowledge of the crime conflicting enough to call for further analysis.[3] Witnesses reported a letter from Brigham Young being present at meetings where killing the Parrishes was plotted by the bishop of Springville, Aaron Johnson, and other local leaders. However, conspirators were told not report to higher authorities and William Parrish was threatened with death if he attempted to go to Brigham Young to appeal for recovery of illegally confiscated horses. Parrish’s widow visited Brigham four months later, and reported he was unaware of events in Springville. Young undercut the actions of the local perpetrators by arranging for some of the horses to be returned, but did not investigate much further.

Ardis Parshall discovered a copy of Brigham Young’s letter that set events in motion.[4] The contents exonerate Young from being an accessory before the fact.[5] Brigham warned that two non-Mormon ex-convicts (John Ambrose and Thomas Betts) might attempt steal livestock from a farm in Spanish Fork or somewhere else on their way to California. Brigham advised vigilance so that Bishop Johnson’s guards would avoid the mistake “of not locking the door until after the deed is stolen.” However if a theft “should occur we shall regret to hear a favorable report; we do not expect there would be any prosecutions for false imprisonment or tale bearers left for witnesses.” Young was essentially authorized extra-legal violence in the event that specific individuals were fleeing the territory with stolen livestock. Such a response was typical for such a serious crime in the western frontier and Brigham had presented his views on deterring theft in 1853.

William MacKinnon described the conditions Brigham Young labored under while trying to prevent a recurrence of Ambrose and Betts’s earlier crime spree.

Brigham Young was then beset by crushing personal, leadership, and health problems that would have sapped the patience and stamina, if not the judgment, of many leaders. Among Young's most obvious burdens were completing the faltering Reformation; recriminations over the large-scale loss of emigrant life among the Willie and Martin handcart companies; the unexpected death on December 1, 1856, of his second counselor Jedediah M. Grant, spearhead of the Reformation; a troubling rash of livestock thefts; a mysterious, debilitating illness that kept Young absent from church services for weeks; worries about the viability of restless Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and Carson Valley; anxiety over the launch of his ambitious, expensive Y.X. Carrying Company; congressional efforts to eradicate polygamy, truncate Utah's borders, repeal its organic act, and split the offices of Utah's governor and superintendent of Indian affairs; and a continuing deterioration in federal-Mormon relations that threatened both Utah's bid for statehood and Young's hold on the governorship.[6]

In targeting the Parrish family, Aaron Johnson convinced others that the letter gave him license to use extra-legal measures in widely different circumstances than those outlined by Brigham Young. Later in life Johnson defended Young from being complicit in murders, yet sometimes condoning or pardoning the abuse of criminals:

“How about Brigham Young, and his Danites, his Destroying Angels? Didn’t Brigham and his Angels kill a lot of men in Salt Lake City during the early days there?” I was asked. I replied “Brigham Young was not a murderer. He was a man a vision, one who did much to establish peace, and good order in Salt Lake City and elsewhere.” “Judgement to the line and righteousness to the plummet was his slogan.” Brigham Young had men around him who aided in ridding Salt Lake City of gamblers and desperados. “Your Mayor and police are doing the same here Nelson. You are trying to do as Brigham did, to have a clean town.”[7]


Response to claim: 190 - The author mentions the "execution-style killing of six California emigrants"

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

The author mentions the "execution-style killing of six California emigrants."

Author's sources: *No source provided.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader

Without a source or evidence, it is impossible to assess this claim. The burden of proof is on the author. Which immigrants? When? How killed?


Response to claim: 190 - The author mentions that "castration and murder of another apostate"

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

The author mentions that "castration and murder of another apostate."

Author's sources: *No source provided.

FAIR's Response

Question: Did Bishop Warren S. Snow forcibly castrate twenty-four-year-old Thomas Lewis?

Bishop Warren S. Snow and a group of men forcibly castrated twenty-four-year-old Thomas Lewis

Bishop Warren S. Snow forcibly castrated twenty-four-year-old Thomas Lewis. The popular story is that Lewis's alleged crime was wanting to marry a young woman that was desired by an older man as a plural wife. It is claimed that Brigham Young wrote in a letter his approval after the fact in 1857. The full story gives a somewhat different picture of these events.

Lewis was being transported to the penitentiary at the time that this event occurred

Lewis was not attacked simply for desiring a marriage. Samuel Pitchforth noted that the attack occurred at night as Lewis was being transported to the penitentiary for an unspecified crime. Pitchforth was the clerk of the Nephi Ward, who knew Bishop Snow well and wrote his account very shortly after the incident. John A. Peterson, in his December 1985 Master's Thesis, notes that "the sermons delivered in the Manti ward, the spirit of the times, the form of punishment itself and the record of Brigham's reaction to it make it clear that Lewis had committed a sexual crime." [8] The attack was aided by the individual who had been transporting Lewis to prison, and it appears to have been in retribution for the crime that Lewis committed. While being transported at night, Snow and his gang secretly intercepted Lewis and carried out the castration.

According to his biographer, Snow's life and experience had given him a "violent and vengeful world view," which helps in understanding his motivation to attack and maim Lewis.

Federal marshals and judges were aware of the Lewis incident, and sought Snow's capture. However, they were eventually instructed by political leaders in Washington to let the matter drop. It was a Gentile political decision not to prosecute Snow for his actions.[9]

Given that in the 19th century there was a common tendency for "frontier justice" to be carried out extra-legally, especially in the case of sexual crimes, its occurrence in areas far from central Church control is not particularly surprising. Castrated males were guilty of sexual assault or incest, not for competing for a woman's affections.

This event occurred during the Mormon Reformation, when inflammatory rhetoric called for harsh punishment for sin and crime

These events occurred during the Mormon Reformation, when inflammatory rhetoric called for harsh punishment for sin and crime. For Brigham the time for the actual implementation of such punishment had not yet actually arrived, and was primarily hyperbole designed to stir a sinful population to improvement. Some listeners like Snow took things literally.


Response to claim: 190 - The author mentions "blood atonement killings by Danite Porter Rockwell"

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

The author mentions "blood atonement killings by Danite Porter Rockwell."

Author's sources: *No source provided.

FAIR's Response

Response to claim: 193 - The author claims that there was a "burgeoning traffic of apostates now fleeing Zion" because of the Mountain Meadows affair and that this was "the largest emigration up to that time, overshadowing even the California gold rush of 1852"

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

The author claims that there was a "burgeoning traffic of apostates now fleeing Zion" because of the Mountain Meadows affair and that this was "the largest emigration up to that time, overshadowing even the California gold rush of 1852."

Author's sources: *Aird, 197.

FAIR's Response

Response to claim: 200 - Paiute chiefs said that they were not there at the beginning of the massacre and only became involved "under written orders from Brigham Young"

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

Paiute chiefs said that they were not there at the beginning of the massacre and only became involved "under written orders from Brigham Young."

Author's sources: U.S. House of Representatives, Utah and the Mormons, 17.

FAIR's Response

Fact checking results: This claim is false

Paiute chiefs would have been unable to read any letter from Brigham Young, even if such had existed. [10]


Notes

  1. ↑ Sally Denton, American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, (Secker & Warburg, 2003), 190. quoting Polly Aird, "Escape from Zion: The United States Army Escort of Mormon Apostates, 1859," Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 44/3 (Fall 2001) :202. Aird notes, based on the testimonies taken by John Cradlebaugh, that "[s]everal testimonies taken two years after the murders suggest the direction of the plot [of the Parrish murders] involved the entire church reporting line from Brigham Young down to Aaron Johnson, bishop of Springville."
  2. ↑ Polly Aird, "'You Nasty Apostates, Clear Out': Reasons for Disaffection in the Late 1850s," Journal of Mormon History 30 (Fall 2004): 129–207 off-site
  3. ↑ Aird p. 191
  4. ↑ Ardis Parshall, ˜'Pursue, Retake & Punish': The 1857 Santa Clara Ambush," Utah Historical Quarterly 73 (1): 64-86 off-site
  5. ↑ Brigham Young to Aaron Johnson, Feb. 3, 1857, CR 1234 1, Box 3, Letterpress Copybook Volume 3, Pages 345-363in Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2 vols., DVD (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, [Dec. 2002],
  6. ↑ William MacKinnon, “‘Lonely Bones’: Leadership and Utah War Violence.” Journal of Mormon History 33 (Spring 2007): 121–78 off-site
  7. ↑ Paul H. Peterson, "The Mormon Reformation," PhD Dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1980, 176–199 citing Aaron Johnson Autobiography p. 95-96
  8. ↑ John A. Peterson, "Warren Stone Snow, a man in between: the biography of a Mormon defender," Master's Thesis, BYU (1985), 115; citing Samuel Pitchforth Diary of Samuel Pitchforth 1857-1868,typescript CHD. The author notes that "no minutes of any civil or church trial for Thomas Lewis' crime have been found but Pitchforth makes it clear that Lewis was under arrest and on the way to the city salt lake city to be taken to the penetentiionary (sic)."
  9. ↑ John A. Peterson, "Warren Stone Snow, a man in between: the biography of a Mormon defender," Master's Thesis, BYU (1985), 112.
  10. ↑ Robert D. Crockett, "The Denton Debacle (Review of: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857)," FARMS Review 16/1 (2004): 135–148. off-site
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