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Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows/Use of sources/Rape by Albert Hamblin
| Double standards of skepticism | A FAIR Analysis of: Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows A work by author: Will Bagley
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Gift of salt |
Questions
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- Critics claim that Jacob Hamblin's son Albert raped two women at the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and Jacob was later to blame these on John D. Lee.
Answer
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There is no evidence for these claims.
Source(s) of the criticism
- Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 151, 304–305.
Detailed Analysis
One reviewer noted:[1]
- Rumors should not trusted. Some of the rumors Blood of the Prophets repeats are despicable. One good example of the book's misuse of rumor is its analysis of Jacob Hamblin's testimony from the second trial. Blood of the Prophets theorizes that Jacob Hamblin's sixteen-year-old adopted Indian son, Albert, participated in massacre atrocities by raping two young women and that Jacob later suggested that Lee committed the rapes (pp. 304—5). The explanation we are offered is complicated and illogical. Blood of the Prophets says that Hamblin, who was not at the massacre, transferred responsibility for the atrocity from Albert, who claimed to be an observer of the massacre while herding Jacob's sheep, to Lee himself to "settl[e] old scores" with Lee (p. 305). In other words, Blood of the Prophets suggests that Hamblin raped two young victims, and to make things right somehow, or to make somebody pay for the crime, Jacob Hamblin pinned the crime on Lee.
- This rape story is fantasy. The massacre is a sad story, but to heap upon it this salacious story is tabloid sensationalism. Beadle's book and the Salt Lake Daily Tribune are responsible for this rumor. Blood of the Prophets should have relied on the transcript of the trial because there is nothing in the transcript to suggest this story. [Juanita] Brooks, who relies upon the transcript, criticized these stories of rape as "impossible tales" that are "passed on as fact." Blood of the Prophets, with no evidence at all, says these tales "cannot be discounted entirely" (p. 151).
== Notes ==