Killings and aftermath of the Mountain Meadows massacre

Infobox civilian attack
title = Mountain Meadows massacre


caption =
location = Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory
date = September 7–September 111857
time =
timezone =
type =
fatalities = 100–140 members of the Fancher-Baker wagon train of Arkansan emigrants to California
injuries = <17
perps = Nauvoo Legion (Local Iron County Mormon Militia), Paiute Native American auxiliaries
weapons = guns, Bowie knives MMMeadowsSeriesUnderInfoBox

The Mountain Meadows massacre was a mass killing of the Fancher-Baker wagon train at Mountain Meadows in Utah Territory in September 1857. It began as an attack, quickly turned into a siege and eventually culminated on September 11, 1857, in a mass killing of the unarmed emigrants by the militia after they surrendered to the Mormons. The entire incident involved members of the local Mormon militia and local Paiute tribesmen recruited by the militia.

The Arkansas emigrants were traveling to California shortly before the Utah War started. Mormons throughout the Utah Territory had been mustered to fight the invading United States Army, which they believed was intended to destroy them as a people. During this period of tension, rumors among the Mormons also linked the Fancher-Baker train with enemies who had participated in previous persecutions of Mormons or more recent malicious acts.

The emigrants stopped to rest and regroup their approximately 800 head of cattle at Mountain Meadows, a valley within the Iron County Military District of the Nauvoo Legion (the popular designation for the militia of the Utah Territory). [The Utah Territory militia technically included every able-bodied Mormon in the region between ages eighteen and forty-five (Harvnb|Shirts|1994; Harvnb|MacKinnon|2007]

Initially intending to orchestrate an Indian massacre,Fact|date=August 2007 two men with leadership roles in local military, church and government organizations, [Harvnb|Lee|1877|p=214.] Isaac C. Haight and John D. Lee, conspired for Lee to lead militiamen disguised as Native Americans along with a contingent of Paiute tribesmen in an attack. The emigrants fought back and a siege ensued. Intending to leave no witnesses of Mormon complicity in the siege and avoid reprisals complicating the Utah War, militiamen induced the emigrants to surrender and give up their weapons. After escorting the emigrants out of their fortification, the militiamen and their tribesmen auxiliaries executed approximately 120 men, women and children. [Harvnb|Hamblin|1876 stated he buried over 120 skeletons); James Lynch (1859) reported there were 140 victims; in Harvnb|Thompson|1860|p=8,82, Superintendent Forney reported 115 victims; a 1932 monument states about 140 were involved in the massacre less 17 children spared; while Brooks' (introduction, 1991) believes 123 to be exaggerated, citing several reports of less than 100. The 1990 monument lists 82 identified by careful research of descendants of survivor ( [http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/inmemory.htm] and states that there are others still unknown. See also Harvnb|Bagley|2002.] Seventeen younger children were spared.

Investigations, interrupted by the U.S. Civil War, resulted in nine indictments in 1874. Only John D. Lee was ever tried, and after two trials, he was convicted. On March 23 1877 a firing squad executed Lee at the massacre site.

Massacre

On Friday, September 11 two Mormon militiamen approached the Fancher party wagons with a white flag and were soon followed by Indian agent and militia officer John D. Lee. [ Lee was a scribe for the Council of 50 and a friend of both Joseph Smith, Jr. and Brigham Young] Lee told the battle-weary emigrants he had negotiated a truce with the Paiutes, whereby they could be escorted safely to Cedar City under Mormon protection in exchange for leaving all their livestock and supplies to the Native Americans. [Shirts, (1994) Paragraph 9] Accepting this, they were split into three groups. Seventeen of the youngest children along with a few mothers and the wounded were put into wagons, which were followed by all the women and older children walking in a second group. Bringing up the rear were the adult males of the Fancher party, each walking with an armed Mormon militiaman at his right. Making their way back northeast towards Cedar City, the three groups gradually became strung out and visually separated by shrubs and a shallow hill. After about 2 kilometers, all of the men, women, older children and wounded were massacred by Mormon militia and Paiutes who had hidden nearby. A few who escaped the initial slaughter were quickly chased down and killed. Two teenaged girls, Rachel and Ruth Dunlap, managed to clamber down the side of a steep gully and hide among a clump of oak trees for several minutes. They were spotted by a Paiute chief from Parowan, who took them to Lee. 18 year old Ruth Dunlap reportedly fell to her knees and pleaded, "Spare me, and I will love you all my life!" [Gibbs (1910) p. 36.] (Lee denied this). 50 years later, a Mormon woman who was a child at the time of the massacre recalled hearing LDS women in St. George [St. George is about 15 miles from the Mountain Meadows.] say both girls were raped before they were killed. [Gibbs (1910), Part 3 under heading "The Massacre", paragraphs 16-19]

All of the Mormon participants in the massacre were then sworn to secrecy. [Shirts, (1994) Paragraph 11] The many dozens of bodies were hastily dragged into gullies and other low lying spots, then lightly covered with surrounding material which was soon blown away by the weather, leaving the remains to be scavenged and scattered by wildlife. [Shirts, (1994) Paragraph 10]

urviving children

Approximately seventeen children were deliberately spared because of their young ages. [Multiple sources claim that Lee protested and prohibited the death of all children that were assumed to be under the age of eight, and directed that they be placed in the care of one who was not involved in the massacre. See for example, http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/jdlconfession.htm. Not all of the young children were spared, however; at least one infant was killed in his father's arms by the same bullet that killed the adult man.] In the hours following the massacre Lee directed Philip Kingensmith and possibly two others [John D. Lee's "Confessions" state that he directed Knight and McMurdy to take charge of the children as well] to take the children (a few of whom were wounded) to the nearby farm of Jacob Hamblin, a local Indian agent. [" [http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/klingensmith.htm Testimony of Philip Klingensmith] " (July 23 - 24, 1875). First Trial of John D. Lee.] Later, under the direction of Jacob Forney, the non-Mormon Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah, the children were placed in the care of local Mormon families pending an investigation of the matter and notification of kin. However, some accounts relate that Lee sold or bartered the children to whatever Mormon families would take them. Sarah Francis Baker, who was three years old at the time of the massacre, later said: "They sold us from one family to another." [Bagley (2002), Chapter 13, page 237 also Brooks (1950), Appendix X]

Aftermath

The Pauites reportedly received a portion of the Fancher party's significant livestock holdings as compensation for their part in the massacre. [Carleton (1859), "Lee told Brigham that the Indians would not be satisfied if they did not have a share of the cattle. Brigham left it to Lee to make the distribution."] Many of the murdered emigrants' other belongings (including blood stained and bullet-riddled clothing stripped from the victims' corpses) were brought to Cedar City and stored in the cellar of an LDS warehouse as "property taken at the siege of Sebastopol." [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mountainmeadows/carletonreport.html] There are conflicting accounts as to whether these items were auctioned off or simply taken by members of the local population. Some of the surviving children subsequently claimed to have seen Mormons wearing their dead parents' clothing and jewelry. [Weekly Stockton Democrat; 5 June 1859. As quoted at this website http://1857massacre.com/MMM/WeeklyStocktonDemocrat.htm. "Both [Becky Dunlap] and a boy named Miram recognized dresses and a part of the jewelry belonging to their mothers, worn by the wives of John D. Lee, the Mormon Bishop of Harmony. The boy, Miram, identified his father's oxen, which are now owned by Lee.]

In 1859, two years after the massacre, Brevet Major James Henry Carleton arrived in the area "to bury the bones of the victims of that terrible massacre". "I saw several bones of what must have been very small children. Dr. Brewer says from what he saw he thinks some infants were butchered. The mothers doubtless had these in their arms, and the same shot or blow may have deprived both of life." "Hamblin himself showed Sergeant Fritz of my party a spot on the right-hand side of the road where had partially covered up a great many of the bones." [ [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mountainmeadows/carletonreport.html Brevet Major J. H. Carleton's Report on the Mountain Meadows Massacre (May 1859) ] ] .Carleton later said it was "a sight which can never be forgotten." After gathering up the skulls and bones of those who had died, Carleton's troops buried them and erected a rock cairn inscribed with the words, "Here 120 men, women, and children were massacred in cold blood early in September, 1857. They were from Arkansas", along with a cross bearing the words, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord". According to legend, on the Fourth anniversary of the massacre, Brigham Young himself came upon the monument and ordered it to be torn down. "Vengeance is mine" he said to have muttered "and I have taken a little". [ [http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/program/episodes/four/mountain.htm PBS - THE WEST - Mountain Meadows ] ]

Meanwhile Forney and Governor Cummings directed Hamblin and Carleton to gather up the surviving children from local families and transport them to Salt Lake City, after which they were united with extended family members in Arkansas and other states. [After the massacre, the decision was made to take the children to the nearby Hamblin home; however, Hamblin was gone at the time of the killings. Hamblin's testimony in this regard is as following (Q=attorney in Lee's trial; A=Hamblin): "Q: What became of the children of those emigrants? How many children were brought there? A: Two to my house, and several in Cedar City. I was acting subagent for Forney. I gathered the children up for him; seventeen in number, all I could learn of. Q: Whom did you deliver them to? A: Forney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Utah." [http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/hamblin.htm] Also, see the Carelton report, referenced elsewhere in this article.] Several Mormon families claimed and received financial compensation from the federal government for the children's care and even protested that the amounts paid were insufficient although the conditions some of the children lived under were severely criticised. [Carleton (1859), "these Mormons ...dared even to come forward and claim payment for having kept these little ones barely alive..."]

Carleton issued a scathing report to the United States Congress, blaming local and senior church leaders for the massacre, however years later only Lee was charged with murder for his involvement. Lee's first trial ended in a mistrial but he was convicted on re-trial and executed by firing squad at Mountain Meadows.

The causes and circumstances of the Mountain Meadows Massacre remain contested and highly controversial. Although there is no evidence that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the massacre, the involvement of various church officials in both the murders and concealing evidence in their aftermath is still questioned. [Shirts, (1994) Paragraph 11] Moreover, while by all accounts native American Paiutes were present, historical reports of their numbers and the details of their participation are contradictory.

Notes