'Barbarism' of the emigrants murdered at Mountain Meadows?

[_Doctor Steuss]

Would love to see Bagley review the book for the NYT..

I think a review by Bagley would be really interesting (and worthwhile).

Apparently the book is supposed to lead up to the 9/11 but does not discuss the actual massacre or cover up. that's part two...
to be released no doubt in the year 2020 ..

LOL.

[_truth dancer]

Yeah, all those innocent children, and moms with their little babies were barbarians, wanting to destroy the LDS church. What else were the Mormons supposed to do?

(sigh)

~dancer~

[_antishock8]

The MMM is the most overplayed piece of anti-Mormon propaganda. I'm so sick and damned tired of that issue being constantly used to hound Mormons, and I'm an apostate. So the Mormons killed a 100+ men, women, and children. So what?

You want massacres? Ok:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus

http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/m ... _atro.html

What about the rise of the Ottoman empire? Anyone want to guess how many Christians were murdered as Islamic armies conquered half the Christian world?

This is ridiculous. I've never seen a group so beat up over a smallish massacre. These Mormons these days don't like the MMM, don't care to repeat anything close to that, don't want to have anything to do with blood atonement... Nothing. But damn if the critics aren't always fuckin' throwin' that crap in their faces.

Critics. You're yammering at the wrong people. damned Christ.

[Guest]

I don't blame the current LDS Church -- I get upset when there are denials or an attempt to demonize those victims long dead. I won't apologize for that, either.

There was a massacre. It was horrific and there is nothing wrong with recognizing it for what it was. Hopefully with continued goodwill and conversations the descendants and the Church may come together for forgiveness and understanding.

[_rcrocket]

So the emigrants got massacred, in part, because they were 'barbaric'?

I think it more accurate to say that the emigrants were massacred because the Mormons thought or claimed they were barbaric. News reports of the Fancher train abuses quickly made it to the Los Angeles press.

Whether they were indeed barbaric rests upon the eyewitness testimony of murderers in large part. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. But, if they were as the witnesses testified, there was no basis for the massacre.

[_Mister Scratch]

At least one of the authors (Richard Turley) of this new MMM book is not a historian at all, but a lawyer. Secondly: yes, there were reports that the emigrants were "rowdy" or "profane," or whatever else. I don't really know why this made it into the book, or why Turley & et. al. would suggest that this was a reason/justification for that massacre. Frankly, I find that very distasteful.

[_rcrocket]

At least one of the authors (Richard Turley) of this new MMM book is not a historian at all, but a lawyer. Secondly: yes, there were reports that the emigrants were "rowdy" or "profane," or whatever else. I don't really know why this made it into the book, or why Turley & et. al. would suggest that this was a reason/justification for that massacre. Frankly, I find that very distasteful.

I imagine that just about anything connected with the Church is distasteful to you. You cry wolf far too often with phrases turned exactly like that. Why should we accept your anonymous assault on Rick before you have even read his book. (I mean really now, you obviously DON'T ever read any books at all on Mormon history, do you?)

Turley is a historian, although more of an achivist -- branch of the study of history. He hasn't practiced law for many years.

He is a published historian and unlike Quinn (except for Quinn's queer studies book) has published in an independent academic press.

He is a member of the Utah State Historical Records Advisory Board, a member of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

I also know him personally, and he is a close relative, so I admit to my biases.

[_Mister Scratch]

At least one of the authors (Richard Turley) of this new MMM book is not a historian at all, but a lawyer. Secondly: yes, there were reports that the emigrants were "rowdy" or "profane," or whatever else. I don't really know why this made it into the book, or why Turley & et. al. would suggest that this was a reason/justification for that massacre. Frankly, I find that very distasteful.

I imagine that just about anything connected with the Church is distasteful to you. You cry wolf far too often with phrases turned exactly like that. Why should we accept your anonymous assault on Rick before you have even read his book.

You don't have to. I'm basing my commentary on the remarks Chap linked to in his OP.

Turley is a historian, although more of an achivist -- branch of the study of history. He hasn't practiced law for many years.

It seems to me that he was inserted into this Church position due to his training in rhetoric and manipulation of the facts, and his ability to discern what sorts of historical materials in the archives might be "damaging" to the Church.

[_Chap]

So the emigrants got massacred, in part, because they were 'barbaric'?

I think it more accurate to say that the emigrants were massacred because the Mormons thought or claimed they were barbaric. News reports of the Fancher train abuses quickly made it to the Los Angeles press.

Whether they were indeed barbaric rests upon the eyewitness testimony of murderers in large part. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. But, if they were as the witnesses testified, there was no basis for the massacre.

In your first sentence you correct the description on the Amazon website, which read:

The authors find responsibility almost everywhere: in the escalating tensions between the federal government and Mormon authorities, in the 19th-century American culture of violence, in the barbarism of the emigrants and in the unchecked hunger for vengeance the Mormon militiamen felt toward Americans who had opposed their faith.

According to that, the 'barbarism of the emigrants' is just a brute fact alleged (so it is said) by the authors, not a mere opinion of those LDS involved in the massacre.

But then you go on to refer to the fact, which you allege, that "News reports of the Fancher train abuses quickly made it to the Los Angeles press". You do not say "alleged abuses", and thus your phrasing implies that you believe that the people on the Fancher train did commit "abuses" to an extent that is worth raising in the context of explaining why the massacre occurred.

So I am puzzled. Do you or do you not think that acts actually committed by any of the emigrants by way of 'abuses' contributed in a significant way to the occurrence of the massacre?

(I appreciate that you do say that nothing the emigrants did could have justified their being murdered by the LDS militia).

[_TAK]

Crockett:

I think it more accurate to say that the emigrants were massacred because the Mormons thought or claimed they were barbaric. News reports of the Fancher train abuses quickly made it to the Los Angeles press.

News reports planted by the church in the early stages of the cover up.