Utah/Crime and violence/Castration in the 1800's

This page is based on an answer to a question submitted to the FAIR web site, or a frequently asked question.
This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.

Criticism

• I have read about a group of men (LDS) that went around castrating immoral men (who were also LDS) with the express permission of local church leaders. These events supposedly happened during the Brigham Young's administration. It is claimed that Brigham was aware of and approved of this and may have given the order. What can you tell me about this?
• I read that missionaries who selected plural wives from female converts before allowing church leaders to select from them first were castrated.

Source(s) of criticism

• Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), 297, 581n90 ( Index of claims ) (Quoting Quinn)
• D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Signature Books, 1994), 250-251.

Answer

Critics (often relying on D. Michael's Quinn's treatment) have over-simplified and sensationalized this event. Critics claim that Bishop Warren S. Snow forcibly castrated twenty-four-year-old Thomas Lewis, whose “crime” was wanting to marry a young woman that was desired by an older man as a plural wife. Critics also claim 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. Warren Snow's biographer explains the matter thusly:

1. 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 was not yet, and partly hyperbole designed to stir a sinful population to improvement. Some listeners like Snow got confused and took things literally. [See FAIR wiki article:Blood atonement]
2. The rumor that Lewis was being punished for competing against an older polygamist is likely false. Kathryn Daynes gives another example where Brigham Young advised a young woman to marry a single, young man against her parents wishes that she marry a older polygamist. ^{[citation needed]}
3. Even if there is an element of truth in point #2, Lewis was being transported to the penitentiary for a sexual crime. He was not an innocent who was attacked simply for desiring a marriage.
4. While being transported at night, Snow and his gang secretly intercepted Lewis and carried out the castration.
5. Joseph Young (Brigham's brother) of the Presidents of the Seventy later learned about the incident and was incensed and “entirely disapproved” of it.
6. When Brigham Young heard about Lewis' sex crime and the punishment, he reiterated his stance that the time for such measures was still in the future, and not to be implemented in the here-and-now.
7. Brigham did not think Warren Snow did what was right, but felt Warren was “trying to do right” and that he should be sustained in his calling as Bishop.
8. Warren wanted Brigham to write a letter to members in Sanpete county to explain Warren’s action. Brigham declined to do, indicating that that would make matters worse. “Just let the matter drop, and say no more about it and it will soon die away amongst the people,” Brigham counselled.
9. Snow's life and experience had given him a "violent and vengeful world view," which makes his decision to attack and maim Lewis more understandable.
10. Federal marshals and judges were aware of the Lewis incident, and sought Snow's capture. They were eventually instructed, however, by political leaders in Washington, to let the matter drop. Thus, it was a Gentile political decision not to prosecute Snow for his actions.^[1]

A second such event?

One other event from journals in 1859 reports an unnamed bishop supposedly castrating someone because they wanted to marry their girlfriend. Snow is named by one source in the 1859 account; given Brigham's reaction to the first event, it seems unlikely that Snow would do the same thing again.

His inclusion in an account of the second event may well be due to conflation, which may demonstrate how unusual such events were. It may be that rumor and frontier "urban legend" confused the Snow story with the passage of time.

As a presiding Bishop, Snow became increasingly unpopular with members in his area, and by 1860 was accused of malfeasance with tithing funds. Snow admitted to mismanagement, but denied any attempt to wilfully defraud the Church. (The same patience for Snow's weaknesses was also manifested in this case; he was forgiven by his congregation and the general authorities, even while they still insisted that he bore responsibility for his mismanagement.)

The Lewis affair was much talked about among Snow's critics in 1860; it may be that the rumor mill was already in motion by 1859.^[2]

There are no names given for the 1859 "event," and it is not known if this was just rumor, or who the participant(s) and victim were.

Conclusion

The castrated male was guilty of sexual assault, not merely competing for a woman's affections.

Despite the sexual assault, Brigham and other Church leaders did not approve the action taken by the local members.

Critics try to use this as an example of a "tip of the iceberg," problem, implying that many such extra-legal castrations occurred in Utah, and that the Church or its doctrines or leaders are somehow to blame. Such a characterization is unfair.

Given that in the 19th century there was a common tendency among non-Mormons for "frontier justice" to be carried out extra-legally, especially in the case of sexual crimes, its occurance in areas far from central Church control on one or two occasions is not particularly surprising.

Endnotes

1. [note]  John A. Peterson, "Warren Stone Snow, a man in between : the biography of a Mormon defender," Master's Thesis, BYU (1985) 112–122. off-site
2. [note]  Peterson, 126–133.