Mormon Richard Turley: Brigham did not order MMM

[_LifeOnaPlate]

I can't find the source but I do remember it being documented.

Thanks.

[_harmony]

That all said, I think the evidence establishes BY's culpability, as least for setting the stage that led to massacre. And for this, I believe, the Church should accept responsibility and apologize for BY's actions. Just my $.02.

This will happen when hell freezes over.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

I seem to recall that there is a crucial page missing from the journal of someone who met with Brigham Young before the massacre. Does anyone remember more of the details?

Juanita Brooks wrote this and was referring to Jacob Hamblin's diary (he was the southern Utah Indian MP at the time, and brought southern Utah Indian leaders to meet with BY in SLC on Sept. 1). Dimick Huntington's diary discusses this same meeting (I.e., the entry about BY giving the Indians the cattle on the south route).

Based upon my impressions of Levi Peterson's bio of Juanita I'm not convinced that her claims about things being ripped out of journals has much validity.

I have read a direct photocopy of Hamblin's diary. There does not appear to be anything physically missing -- all the pages flow -- at least in the critical days I was reading. [He does not mention, I might add, an encounter he later said he had with John D. Lee where Lee confessed to him.]

Apparently LDS Church researchers are convinced. Below is a quote from an article in the Deseret News on May 24, 2008:

Hamblin was in Salt Lake City at the time of the massacre and returned to his ranch near the massacre site 18 days after the murders to find two child survivors being cared for there by his wife. At Young's request, Hamblin wrote an account of his experiences that month, [Brian[ Reeves said..

"Two pages of that journal ended up missing. In 1969 it was given to the church archives. The pages preceding the missing ones tell of his journey to Salt Lake City before the massacre, noting that while there he was invited several times to the office of the First Presidency about "caching, probably caching of grain," Reeves said.

He said the LDS Church history library has another copy of Hamblin's journal from the time, made by clerks in June 1859, with the "two pages also removed from this volume. The missing section logically would have included his experiences in Salt Lake City and the things he learned about the massacre when he met LDS leaders in southern Utah on his way back home," Reeves said.

Images show someone intentionally removed pages from both the original and church's copy of Hamblin's journal. "We're still trying to sort out what happened," he said.

[_bcspace]

And for this, I believe, the Church should accept responsibility and apologize for BY's actions

I don't think it should play to that circus.

[_Scottie]

CFR!!! CFR!!! I DEMAND A CFR!!! CFR!!! lol... a**holes...

It's a valid CFR.

[_beastie]

Here is my view of this, and I admit it is pure speculation and not worth much. I have never seen enough evidence to convince me that BY planned and/or ordered the massacre. BUT the evidence does convince me that he instructed the Indians to engage the emigrant trains and steal their cattle, and specifically the Fancher party's cattle to the southern Utah Indian leaders he met with on Sept. 1, as part of his overall war strategy to stop all emigrant overland travel through Utah. Thus, per Dimick Huntington, BY instructed the Indians in northern Utah and in southern Utah to take the cattle on those major trails. Moreover, BY did this knowing that encouraging engagement between Indians and emigrants (particularly in the form of theft of cattle) would likely lead to violence and death (he said so to his apostles, recorded Wilford Woodruff, at the end of August 1857). BY may not have known that entire parties would be murdered, but he certainly knew that his plan for the Indians to steal cattle on the trail was highly explosive and would likely lead to murder by Indians of emigrants. BY also knew that the Fancher party was on the trail (and he later admitted the ONLY train on the trail) at the time of his Sept. 1 meeting with southern Utah Indian leaders. I sincerely believe that the initial attack, and then seige, of the Fancher party came about due to the direct orders of BY (and even if those particular Indians leaders at the Sept. 1 meeting couldn't rush back to the massacre scene in time, which I think they could, I believe that GAS took gave similar instructions on his tour of southern Utah in August 1857). I think the plan for massacre only came about after local Mormons shot the three men who had snuck away from the Fancher seige to seek help, and the resultant massacre was essentially a cover-up: I.e., the murder of everyone who could identify Mormon involvement in the Indian attacks on emigrant trains. At the same time I think the locals justified the slaughter, at least in part, on the 'oath of vengeance' covenant in the temple (as an aside, Dimick Huntington, in the presence of BY, raised this very argument during a Sept. 20 with Indian leader Arapeen, who appears to be the first who brought news of the massacre to BY and was waffling about helping the Mormons further; Dimick said something like, "Joseph's blood must be avenged!"). Of course, BY's later statment at the site about "vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I have taken a little" showed how he really felt about the massacre, but, to me, this is insufficient to establish that he ordered it. That all said, I think the evidence establishes BY's culpability, as least for setting the stage that led to massacre. And for this, I believe, the Church should accept responsibility and apologize for BY's actions. Just my $.02.

I think this is very reasonable.

It should also be pointed out that the violent rhetoric of the leaders of the time period, including BY, created a volatile environment in which faithful members of the church could honestly conclude that their leaders wanted them to engage in mass murder.

So even if it is not possible to prove BY directly ordered the massacre (and even if he did, like others here, I suspect the smoking gun has long since been destroyed), BY and other church leaders, in crucial ways, set up the environment that birthed MMM.

[_Trevor]

Based upon my impressions of Levi Peterson's bio of Juanita I'm not convinced that her claims about things being ripped out of journals has much validity.

Apparently LDS Church researchers are convinced. Below is a quote from an article in the Deseret News on May 24, 2008:

[Brian[ Reeves said..

"Two pages of that journal ended up missing. In 1969 it was given to the church archives. The pages preceding the missing ones tell of his journey to Salt Lake City before the massacre, noting that while there he was invited several times to the office of the First Presidency about "caching, probably caching of grain," Reeves said.

He said the LDS Church history library has another copy of Hamblin's journal from the time, made by clerks in June 1859, with the "two pages also removed from this volume. The missing section logically would have included his experiences in Salt Lake City and the things he learned about the massacre when he met LDS leaders in southern Utah on his way back home," Reeves said.

Images show someone intentionally removed pages from both the original and church's copy of Hamblin's journal. "We're still trying to sort out what happened," he said.

Hmmm... Looks like you were wrong on that one, Bob. Thanks for looking into that, Rollo.