FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Criticism of Mormonism/Books/American Massacre/Chapter 14
Response to claims made in Chapter 14: "Mountain Meadows, May 25, 1861"
| Chapter 13 | A FAIR Analysis of: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows A work by author: Sally Denton
|
Chapter 15 |
209
Claim
Brigham's trip south in May 1861 was "to insure the southern Utahns understood the need for silence on the subject of Mountain Meadows."
Author's source(s)
- Will Bagley, Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 246.
- Compare treatment in Blood of the Prophets: p. 246.
Response
- For a detailed response, see: Church blocked prosecution of Massacre?
210
Claim
Brigham is said to have ordered the cross and cairn at Mountain Meadows torn down.
Author's source(s)
- Wilford Woodruff journal, May 25, 1861.
Response
- For a detailed response, see: Brigham Young orders MMM monument demolished?
213
Claim
The "Godbeites" were "demanding disclosure" about the massacre.
Author's source(s)
- The author references a series of anonymous letters written under the pseudonym "Argus" that were published in the Utah Reporter between 1870 and 1871.
Response
- For a detailed response, see: Anonymous source: "Argus"
215
{{IndexClaim |claim= The "entire blame of the massacre was shifted to [John D. Lee's] shoulders." |response=
- The author's claim is false: This is clearly false. Contemporary government documents show that federal officials continued to "show...efforts by the federal machinery to prosecute others for at least eight years after Lee's trial." [1] If blame rested on Lee alone, this would make no sense.
- For a detailed response, see: Deal with Brigham to blame only Lee?
- For a detailed response, see: Prosecution for Mountain Meadows]]
215
Claim
The author claims that Lee was "regaling" his family with "the divinity of [Joseph] Smith and their one true religion."
Author's source(s)
- Brooks, Emma Lee, 57.
Response
- Prejudicial or loaded language
- LDS doctrine has never regarded Joseph Smith as divine.
- For a detailed response, see: Joseph Smith's status in LDS belief.
216
Claim
Former bishop Klingensmith is said to have claimed that the militia was "called out for the purpose of committing acts of hostility" against the emigrants, and that they were ordered to "kill all of said company of emigrants except the little children."
Author's source(s)
- "A MORMON MONSTROSITY": New York Herald, September 14, 1872. Philip Klingensmith affidavit, April 10, 1871, printed 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), 439-442.
- Brooks, Mountain Meadows Massacre, 238-242.
- Backus, Mountain Meadows Witness, 274-277.
- New York Herald, September 14, 1872.
- Compare treatment in Blood of the Prophets: p. 178.
Response
- For a detailed response, see: Bishop Philip Klingensmith
- Denton fails to tell us that the "former bishop" had admitted to participation in the murder, that his testimony was uncorroborated, and that he was deemed to be so unreliable that he was not called during the successful second trial of John D. Lee.
Notes