posted
The first thing that warms my heart about this article is the statement that nothing the Fancher party did or said could come close to justifying what happened to them. So often church history perspectives on these events were aimed at protecting young church members learning about them. You don't need a link, it's front and center at www.lds.org
I finished reading it, and I think it is a very good treatment granted the length alloted.
posted
Yes pooka, I read it too and agree with you as well about that statement. I found it interesting too to read what the descendants of the Massacre survivors who are LDS had to say.
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posted
"Those who had deplored vigilante violence against their own people in Missouri and Illinois were now about to follow virtually the same pattern of violence against others, but on a deadlier scale."
Yup.
Again, in a treatment of this size (it is to be published in the church magazine for September (distributed late August) it's not possible to go into a lot of the interesting details, but they did a great job of selecting which details really mattered. It won't do much for the descendants of John D. Lee (which was where I got my childhood lore and underlies a recent book by Wm. Bagley which basically blames everything on Brigham Young). I actually learned more about Colonel/Stake President Dame that I hadn't known.
I've been hearing about this upcoming book for at least three years, possibly longer. Up until this point, I would have said Juanita Brooks' Mountain Meadows Massacre was the best book, which also came through an academic press originally.
P.S. On the one hand, the article allows the reader to see that blaming groups for the crimes of individuals is how these kinds of tragedies come about, and so it isn't the churches fault. But I do think there are two things the church could apologize for in the same sense the state of Illinois apologized for the murder of Joseph Smith and the expulsion of Nauvoo. It was the Church's organization that resulted in the scale of the massacre, and the church's organization also kept the silence about who was involved. True, the church was at war with the United States at that time, so it couldn't be said to have obstructed justice, in my opinion. The church was satisfied to protect the men who were coerced into action by their loyalty to the church. But I do hope the church will extend a formal apology at some point.
quote:. It won't do much for the descendants of John D. Lee.
My great aunt's husband (my great uncle by marriage) was a grandson of John D. Lee. He had absolutely nothing good to say about the man. Perhaps his more recent descendents, the ones who never actually knew the man, feel more a need to defend him.
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posted
I thought it was kind of odd to end the article with quotations from descendants who are LDS.
I'm kind of curious about that. Earlier it says the children were returned to family in Arkansas, but at least some of the children must've remained in Utah and were raised by and as LDS.
quote:DALLIN H. OAKS, LDS Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: I have no doubt, on the basis of what I have studied and learned, that Mormons, including local leaders of our church, were prime movers in that terrible episode and participated in the killing. And what a terrible thing to contemplate, that the barbarity of the frontier, and the conditions of the Utah war and whatever provocations were perceived to have been given, would have led to such an extreme episode, such an extreme atrocity perpetrated by members of my faith. I pray that the Lord will comfort those that are still bereaved by it, and I pray that he can find a way to forgive those who took such a terrible action against their fellow beings.
Nowhere near an apology, but it is something to think about. I don't know of any leader of the Church who has come this close to a kind of apology. I will say that, considering how the MMM has been used by those against the LDS Church, I have no idea how an apology will placate anyone beyond "gottcha'" from those who care about this episode in any way.
"Earlier it says the children were returned to family in Arkansas, but at least some of the children must've remained in Utah and were raised by and as LDS.
Is that true?"
If there was any children that remained, we don't have any records of it that I know of. As far as is known all children were returned.
"It won't do much for the descendants of John D. Lee . . ."
The feelings of his descendents are nothing compared to the anger of those who relate to members of the Francher Party. You want to talk about people who hold a grudge as if this happened within a decade rather than more than 100 years ago. From the representative:
quote:Descendants want the site in the hands of a neutral third party because they believe the institutional church is complicit in the murders.
"It's not right for the people who had complicity to the killings to be the grave owner," said Bolinger, who discussed the issue with Jensen on April 25 in Salt Lake City.
"I asked him, 'How you do you think the Kennedy family would feel if the Lee Harvey Oswald family had control of the Kennedy tomb?"
I have heard, although cannot document, a relative of the Francher party saying something similar. However, they compared it to Muslim extremists having control of "ground zero" in NY.
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posted
I recall that President Hinkley's talked about it quite a bit.
Edit:
I should add that I have problems with the notion that it's the Church's place to apologize, because that assumes that the members who did those terrible things were following the teachings and desires of the Church.
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Puffy, you might be interested in reading this person who questionsrepentance and forgiveness in the event. Perhaps it was here that I had read the comparison to 911 ground zero. Anyway, brings up if it should be done just to be done, or if that causes its own set of problems.
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posted
Juanita Brooks recorded that one of the children was not accounted for, and it was not known at the time whether her foster parents settled elsewhere, but that she met people who claimed to be the descendants of such a child.
I think the descendants they referred to were people who joined the church for other reasons. What a thing to find out while doing your geneaology. Or they may have known.
Re: John D. Lee, my grandfather grew up with one of his grandsons, which is where I got a lot of misinformation. The memorial at Lee's Ferry (over the Colorado river on Rt 89) indicates he was a very faithful and self-sacrificing in the years between the massacre and his prosecution. I think his autobiography, penned from death row, caused a lot of people to feel they could not be loyal to him and the church. But I don't think it was the case that he was a bloodthirsty demon.
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posted
At the movie theater the other day, I saw a poster for a movie about the massacre. The text on the poster made it seem pretty clear that the movie intended to be a condemnation of the LDS Church and of Brigham Young. I can't help but wonder if this article is intended to forestall some of the fallout from that movie.
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quote:ON SEPTEMBER 11, 1857, IN AN UNSPOILED VALLEY OF THE UTAH TERRITORY-- AND IN THE NAME OF GOD-- 120 MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN WERE SAVAGELY MURDERED.
WHO ORDERED THE MASSACRE, AND WHY, HAS BEEN HIDDEN IN A CLOAK OF SECRECY AND CONSPIRACY.
AND THE REPUTATION OF ONE OF THIS NATION'S MIGHTIEST RELIGIOUS FIGURES HAS BEEN PRESERVED AND PROTECTED.
UNTIL NOW.
I suppose it's conceivable they mean Lee, and not Brigham Young. But I doubt it, because I'd never heard of Lee before today, so I don't see how he could possibly be considered "one of this nation's mightiest religious figures." Furthermore, since he was executed for the crime, his reputation has not been preserved and protected either, so it seems likely they're talking about Young.
Joseph Smith is played by Dean Cain, by the way.
What's the relationship between Christopher Cain and Dean Cain, I wonder?
posted
The mean Young, I'm sure. I saw a preview for it on the plane. It had been mentioned in an Aaron Johnston blog at Nauvoo last year, but the film hadn't been picked up by a distributor at the time. I guess people weren't interested in angering Mormons, unless you are McCain or Giuliani. Who knows, maybe this will push Mormons into the third party this time.
In one sense the church did cover up the massacre, but at the same time the Federal government granted amnesty for war crimes at the conclusion of the Utah war. John D. Lee's blood is on the hands of the prosecutors who broke that treaty, in my opinion. Of course, most people don't care about John D. Lee. They figure there should have been others to die with him, rather than that he shouldn't have been executed.
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posted
Oh, yeah. It's meant to be against Young. Of course, they left out the letter that was sent by Young ordering the local leaders to leave them alone and to not molest them, and there is no evidence that says otherwise, but when questioned, Voight said that they weren't intending to make a historical movie, but entertainment.
Yeah, preserved and protected because of the historical record! Like it's something brave and groundbreaking to invent slander. It's one thing to do an expose. It's quite, quite another to invent crap and then pretend you're doing something noble.
In other words, it was done deliberately. This stinks. These people suck.
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(Edit: this was directed to Katie, who removed the comment I was responding to from her original post.)
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posted
It gets very sticky around the point of understanding that Mormons were more allied with Native Americans at that time than they were with the the U.S., given that the U.S. was sending an invading Army against them. Young did advise Native Americans that they were free to harass non-Mormons and spoil their belongings. The problem is that the massacre was so long vociferously credited to the "Indians" that it becomes impossible to tell the truth without offending those who have been falsely blamed.
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I'm excited for this movie. I hope Terrence Stamp (who plays Brigham Young) shrieks "Kneel before Zod!" at some point.
Unfortunately, its release date has been pushed back three times now. I'm beginning to fear it will go straight to video.
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Like I said, it was languishing, but I seriously think it is getting bankrolled by Republican competitors. That's where they put their Straw Poll money
You may be right, it just says August 24. It doesn't say "in theatres".
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posted
I guess we're gun shy because we've been hit so many times before, and unfortunately there is a significant segment of the population that will take this (as they do other historically-based movies) as the definitive account.
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posted
Well it seems understandable to be concerned. If this movie isn't direct to video but actually gets big-time theater release, and is actually popular, it would have the power to be very persuasive.
(And the presence of the poster in an AMC theater suggests to me that this movie will be in theaters, but of course I don't know anything about the film industry.)
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