why me wrote:AtticusFinch wrote:
Can you please provide the news stories from California that called from killing Mormons? Were they anything like the call by BY to kill non Mormons?
Why would Mormons kill innocent emigrants?
Since the founding of their church in 1830, Mormons had been heavily persecuted and attacked. They had been chased from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois and then finally to Utah. In Missouri, at Haun's Mill, 18 Mormons had been massacred and 13 injured. The governor of Missouri had even issued an extermination order against the Mormons, forcing them to leave Missouri or be killed.
The church's founder, the prophet Joseph Smith, had been tarred and weathered, falsely accused and imprisoned several times, and ultimately killed alongside his brother.
In 1857 the federal government sent 1,500 United States troops to Utah to deal with what it thought was a rogue sect. Tensions were high in Utah in 1857.
Because of all the past persecution and fear of being attacked or imprisoned by federal troops, it's likely that local Mormons who participated in the Mountain Meadows Massacre acted out of a deep fear and paranoia.
http://mountainmeadowsmassacre.com/
The newspapers in california were none to friendly to the polygamous Mormons in Utah.
Ah...and LDS site. Was hoping for something a tad more objective. But I forgot with whom I was dealing