St. Brigham at Sic et Non

[Rivendale]

Here are some instructive passages from Pioneer Prophet on St. Brigham:

There were more serious instances of vigilantism as well. In early April, according to Hosea Stout, the "Old Police" 'beat a man almost to death in the Temple." When Stout discussed the matter with Young, he learned that "he [Young] approved of the proceedings of the Police."

[Young] cared little about political theory or even basic questions of governmental structure. "[T]here is no difference in reality," Young said in 1849, "between a monarchy, despot and republicanism."

Young spoke of the Council of the Fifty as the embodiment of God's kingdom, and he explained its "prerogative to dictate [to] all other kingdoms on the earth." Despite such rhetoric, the Council possessed no autonomous power, and political decision-making always emanated from Young and a circle of close advisers. He maintained that he could "dictate this community better than any other man." Brigham Young was the Great Basin's theocratic sovereign.

At Winter Quarters, Young had talked of implementing the "law of God" if ordinary punishments did not stamp out sexual immorality. In the spring of 1849, frustrated with the behavior of young Mormon men, Young believed that time had come. . . . [In Young's view,] [t]here were plenty of "devils" in the valley . . . that deserved death and should leave before meeting their end. "If a man ought to be killed," he warned, "I just . . . pray that God may enable you to keep your commandments and not lose your cursed heads." It was time for gold-seekers and fornicators to leave the valley. "[Y]ou are in danger of more than you think of," he concluded.

In early March 1849, the Salt Lake City High Council tried [Ira West] on a string of allegations involving fraud and a failure to pay his debts. Young termed him a "thief and a swindler." Both Young and West attended the council meeting. "I want his head cut off right before this people," Young declared," and they to say Amen, or take some course to stop such infernal doings." . . . . Erastus Snow repeated the call for decapitation. "I want their cursed heads to be cut off the they may atone for their Sins," he stated, "that mercy may have her claims upon them in the day of redemption." . . . . "I told him in Winter Quarters he would forfeit his head," Young told the crowd, "there is no sin in killing him--the people may do as they please."

When discussing West's transgression, Young articulated the doctrine of blood atonement, which he and other Mormon leaders subsequently advanced publicly. Such ideas had been current among church leaders for some time. In Nauvoo, when a man named Irvine Hodges was murdered by a gang of his fellow thieves, Young explained that his killers, "had done even a deed of charity." By preventing him from committing further sins, the murderers had increased Hodges's odds of redemption.

Several weeks after the public auction of Ira West, Young denounced John Pack, a member of the Council of Fifty, for "divulging the secrets of this council" and for warning a man to leave the valley by "intimating that his Life was in danger." Young threatened to drop Pack from the council. . . . Pack pled for Young's forgiveness, suggesting he would have his head cut off if he transgressed again. . . . In the span of a few weeks, two men had promised Brigham Young their heads if they repeated their transgressions.

We can go on and on with this. Brigham Young was, indeed, a violent, murderous bully and tyrant. He was also one of the American West's most important, accomplished, and consequential persons. I can never advocate, however, ignoring the evidence of his faults, or smile on while others create fawning confectionary portraits of a man who was frankly responsible for a brutal tyranny. Sure, there have been worse people. In a way, Brigham is a piker of a tyrant. But anyone who claims to uphold the rule of law and believe in its principles, anyone who believes in the value and importance of the American Republic and its Constitution, cannot at the same time ignore Young's departure from anything broadly resembling any of those things.

Here is a man who married dozens of women and then sought to bring fornicators and adulterers to capital punishment. He is the very definition of "I got mine and you can lump it." Polygamy was a horrible social construct, disastrous even. Brigham sought to address some of its flaws--such as denying people the chance to marry the person they loved or, in some cases, marry at all--by visiting violence on the heads of his victims. It seems that Brigham neither cared for those his lifestyle caused to suffer, nor could he perform simple math.

What became of West? Supposedly this but not verified.

Several decades later the Salt Lake Tribune, citing an anonymous informant, asserted that West and another transgressor had been murdered. The reporter almost certainly used John D. Lee's journal to write his account. Lee's diary, however, does not reveal West's fate. West and Thomas Burns simply disappear from Mormon history at this point.

There was also the Aiken Murders.

Although this slaughter did not involve as many people as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, it was certainly one of the cruelest deeds the early Mormons ever perpetrated.
J. H. Beadle gave the following information concerning this cold-blooded transaction:
"The party consisted of six men... on reaching Kaysville, twenty-five miles north of Salt Lake City, they were all arrested on the charge of being spies for the Government!... The Aikin party had stock, property, and money estimated at $25,000. Nothing being proved against them they were told they should be 'sent out of the Territory by the Southern route.' Four of them started, leaving Buck and one of the unknown men in the city. The party had for an escort, O. P. Rockwell, John Lot, ____ Miles, and one other. When they reached Nephi, one hundred miles south, Rockwell informed the Bishop, Bryant, that his orders were to 'have the men used up there.' Bishop Bryant called a council at once, and the following men were selected to assist: J. Bigler (now a Bishop,) P. Pitchforth, his 'first councillor,' John Kink, and ____ Pickton....
The selected murderers, at 11 p.m., started from the Tithing House and got ahead of the Aikins', who did not start till daylight.
The latter reached the Sevier River, when Rockwell informed them they could find no other camp that day; they halted, when the other party approached and asked to camp with them, for which permission was granted.
The weary men removed their arms and heavy clothing, and were soon lost in sleep... the escort and the party from Nephi attacked the sleeping men with clubs and the kingbolts of the wagons.
Two died without a struggle. But John Aiken bounded to his feet, but slightly wounded, and sprang into the brush.
A shot from the pistol of John Kink laid him senseless. 'Colonel' also reached the brush, receiving a shot in the shoulder from Port Rockwell, and believing the whole party had been attacked by banditti, he made his way back to Nephi.
With almost superhuman strength he held out during the twenty-five miles... ghastly pale and drenched with his own blood, staggering feebly along the streets of Nephi.... his story elicited a well-feigned horror.

"Meanwhile the murderers 'had gathered up the other three and thrown them into the river, supposing all to be dead. But John Aiken revived and crawled out on the same side, and hiding in the brush, heard these terrible words:
" 'Are the damned Gentiles all dead, Port?'
" 'All but one — the son of a b___ ran.'
"Supposing himself to be meant, Aikin lay still till the Danites left, then... set out for Nephi.... To return to Nephi offered but slight hope, but it was his only hope...
He sank helpless at the door of the first house he reached, but the words he heard infused new life into him.
The woman, afterwards a witness, said to him, 'Why, another of you ones got away from the robbers, and is at Brother Foote's.'

" 'Thank God, it is my brother,' he said, and started on. The citizens tell with wonder that he ran the whole distance, his hair clotted with blood, reeling like a drunken man all the way. It was not his brother, but 'Colonel.'...

"Bishop Bryant came, extracted the balls, dressed the wounds, and advised the men to return, as soon as they were able, to Salt Lake City....

"According to the main witness, a woman of Nephi, all regarded them as doomed.
They had got four miles on the road, when their driver, a Mormon named Wolf, stopped the wagon near an old cabin: informed them he must water the horses; unhitched them, and moved away.
Two men then stepped from the cabin, and fired with double-barreled guns; Aikin and 'Colonel' were both shot through the head, and fell dead from the wagon.
Their bodies were then loaded with stone and put in one of those 'bottomless springs' — so called — common in that part of Utah....

"Meanwhile Rockwell and party had reached the city [Salt Lake City], taken Buck and the other man, and started southward, plying them with liquor.... they reached the Point of the Mountain.
There it was decided to 'use them up,' and they were attacked with slung-shots and billies.
The other man was instantly killed.
Buck leaped from the wagon, outran his pursuers, their shots missing him, swam the Jordan, and came down it on the west side. He reached the city and related all that occurred, which created quite a stir.
Hickman was then sent for to 'finish the job,' which he did as related in the text." (Brigham's Destroying Angel, pp. 206-210)

Bill Hickman claimed that he was summoned to Brigham Young's office. When he arrived, he asked President Young what he wanted.
Young answered: " 'The boys have made a bad job of trying to put a man out of the way. They all got drunk, bruised up a fellow, and he got away from them at the Point of the Mountain, came back to this city, and is telling all that happened, which is making a big stink.'
He said I must get him out of the way and use him up." (Ibid., p. 128)
Hickman goes on to say that the last surviving member of the Aiken party trusted a man by the name of George Dalton.
Dalton was able to lure the man out to a secluded spot beyond "the Hot Springs three miles north of the city" where Hickman was waiting in ambush and shot him "through the head." (Ibid., p. 129)
The next day Bill Hickman "went to Brigham Young's, told him that Buck was taken care of, and there would be no more stink about his stories.
He said he was glad of it. Buck was the last one of the Aiken's party..." (pp. 129-130)

Credit to R/Mormon and u/WillyPete

[Kishkumen]

I really, really don’t understand people who dismiss BY’s blood atonement doctrine as mere rhetoric. Any leader who does not understand the power of their words to move people to action and teaches such things is not fit to be a leader.

[drumdude]

Dan has also said the point is to make exceptional religious artwork that appeals to people outside of the religious context. He wants to be Mormonism’s Michelangelo.

I think it’s pretty obvious he is failing at that, too.

I have no issue with these movies being made or with the quality of the results. I enjoyed the first one well enough. Everybody Wang Chung sent me his BluRay of it, and I will hold onto that. I will see this new one, too. I just don’t buy into the historical narrative that the LDS Church has built around these events, and I stand by my view that BY was a bully and a tyrant. I never said he was worthless or that he did not accomplish a lot. People are complex. When hagiography enters my life, I feel compelled to challenge it.

Don’t trust in the arm of flesh, after all.

Even I have been surprised to see the incandescent hatred expressed in some quarters recently for Brigham Young and even for today's Church leaders, It seems so obviously . . . well, unhealthy, to say the least of it..

One academic-type grandly expresses his disdain for those who seek.[sic] to defend dead historical figures, but he plainly relishes attacking dead historical figures, and he seems utterly oblivious to the asymmetry of his attitudes.

Oh well. Humans can be quite strange. It really shouldn't surprise me any more.

How Daniel can read what you wrote and so grossly misinterpret it is beyond me.

[Kishkumen]

Even I have been surprised to see the incandescent hatred expressed in some quarters recently for Brigham Young and even for today's Church leaders, It seems so obviously . . . well, unhealthy, to say the least of it..

One academic-type grandly expresses his disdain for those who seek. to defend dead historical figures, but he plainly relishes attacking dead historical figures, and he seems utterly oblivious to the asymmetry of his attitudes.

Oh well. Humans can be quite strange. It really shouldn't surprise me any more.

How Daniel can read what you wrote and so grossly misinterpret it is beyond me.

There is a level on which the very cultured DCP is an uncomplicated fellow. He defends his church. Anyone he perceives to be criticizing or attacking that church is by definition unjustified and wrong, perhaps even mentally ill, in his book. It is so predictable that you can’t really get angry with him over it. If you do anything in this vein to set him off, well, someone like me well knows the inevitable consequences. He’s not gonna think it all through. He’s not gonna look for nuance or register any attempt at seeing both angles. You said the bad thing, and you will hear about it.

Frankly, it is what makes him such an asset to the LDS Church.

[Kishkumen]

Also, I should say that I never meant to imply that one cannot judge historical figures. I do not condone as something to emulate Roman slavery or Caesar’s adulteries or slaughter of Gauls. I do rail against people whitewashing those evils and worshiping Rome or Caesar. I feel exactly the same about LDS history. On the other hand, I embrace my roots and by no means repudiate them as especially evil. I embrace the Classical world, Judaism, Christianity, Western Europe, American history, and Mormonism as my roots and my first responsibilities to grapple with, not because I jingoistically insist that they are superior, but because I am attached to them, embedded in them, and they provide my window onto the world. I am more likely to be bitingly critical of things I have some stake in. Otherwise, I probably would care a lot less.

[Dr. Shades]

It's clear, however, that the ideal of equal visitation would not be the case, and that Young would inevitably like some of his wives, probably a few of them, very much more than the others.

Wife No. 19 makes it perfectly clear that this was, indeed, the case.

Try as he might to be fair, . . . How does a man truly cherish 30 wives equally?

Although the author of the aforementioned book doesn't come right out and say it in as many words, one anecdote that she relates for humorous effect has the side, uh, effect of demonstrating that Young did not treat his wives in any way fairly and saw no need to even pretend to do so:

She sets up the scene by relating that Brigham and his wives, at least the ones who were present, all ate dinner together nightly. There were always two tables, a large one for the inferior wives and a much smaller one for Brigham and his elite wives. On the former was always set out meager gruel, while at the latter was always set out a sumptuous banquet.

One night, a (presumably older) wife from the inferiors' table stood up, walked to the elite table, helped herself to the quality food, then went and sat back down without saying a word. The entire room went aghast.

Now, Ann-Eliza's point--and takeaway--was how humorous the blatant audacity was, while the two tables of inferiors and superiors was merely her visual set-up. As for me, my takeaway was the blatant favoritism fostered by Brigham Young, who displayed not one iota of care for the feelings of the women who married him.

[Kishkumen]

Although the author of the aforementioned book doesn't come right out and say it in as many words, one anecdote that she relates for humorous effect has the side, uh, effect of demonstrating that Young did not treat his wives in any way fairly and saw no need to even pretend to do so:

She sets up the scene by relating that Brigham and his wives, at least the ones who were present, all ate dinner together nightly. There were always two tables, a large one for the inferior wives and a much smaller one for Brigham and his elite wives. On the former was always set out meager gruel, while at the latter was always set out a sumptuous banquet.

One night, a (presumably older) wife from the inferiors' table stood up, walked to the elite table, helped herself to the quality food, then went and sat back down without saying a word. The entire room went aghast.

Now, Ann-Eliza's point--and takeaway--was how humorous the blatant audacity was, while the two tables of inferiors and superiors was merely her visual set-up. As for me, my takeaway was the blatant favoritism fostered by Brigham Young, who displayed not one iota of care for the feelings of the women who married him.

If accurate, then this is exactly the kind of thing that informs my objections to polygamy. It is the kind of thing that counts against claims that BY was a decent man.

[drumdude]

A few quotes from polygamous wives:

“Here was my husband,” she said, “gray headed, taking to his bed young girls in mockery of marriage. Of course there could be no joy for him in such an intercourse except the indulgence of his fanaticism and of something else, perhaps, which I hesitate to mention.”
-Sarah Pratt speaking of her husband, the apostle Orson Pratt who dated a 16-year-old girl (and then married her) when he was 57. (Van Wagoner 1986, pp. 92)

“God will be very cruel if he does not give us poor women adequate compensation for the trials we have endured in polygamy.”
–Mary Ann Angell Young, Brigham Young’s second wife

“I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.”
-Helen Mar Kimball, Mormon Polygamy: A History, p. 53

[Gadianton]

She sets up the scene by relating that Brigham and his wives, at least the ones who were present, all ate dinner together nightly. There were always two tables, a large one for the inferior wives and a much smaller one for Brigham and his elite wives. On the former was always set out meager gruel, while at the latter was always set out a sumptuous banquet.

What a story...

Boy, would I like to meet Brigham Young. What a complex and interesting character!

[Kishkumen]

What a story...

Boy, would I like to meet Brigham Young. What a complex and interesting character!