Saints Mountain Meadows Massacre Part 5

Answering Mormons Questions by Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson deals with 36 commonly asked questions by your LDS friends and neighbors. It's a great resource for Christians who want to share their faith with friends and loved ones.

Be sure to pick up your copy today at your favorite Christian bookstore. Viewpoint on Mormonism, the program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a biblical perspective. Viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism Research Ministry. Since 1979, Mormonism Research Ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now your host for today's Viewpoint on Mormonism.

What happened on September 11, 1857 in southern Utah, a place known as the Mountain Meadows? Welcome to this edition of Viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism Research Ministry.

And with me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague at MRM. We continue looking at the book Saints, No Unhallowed Hand, covering the years 1846 to 1893. And we are looking at a portion of the book that deals with a very tragic episode in LDS history known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I'm really surprised, Eric, at how many pages are devoted to this, because this is not a shining light in the history of the LDS church. I do commend the Mormon scholars for putting this in the book. I think there's a whole lot more that could be said. There's been several books written on the subject.

We have talked about three of those books, and we've referred to these three books throughout this series. The book does tell the story. And I think quite accurately that this did not happen all in one day. The local Indians, the Paiute Indians, had attacked the Fancher-Baker party on Monday, September 7th.

Very early, you have John Baker and Alexander Fancher are wounded. But the book does talk about what happened during those days. But September 11th is when it ultimately ended. And that's when the immigrants were killed, most of them, by Latter-day Saints. The question we've been asking is, did Brigham Young have anything to do with this?

And that's the big question. Now, most Mormons would say, Oh, no, no, no, absolutely not. In fact, the three historians that wrote Massacre at the Mountain Meadows, they very much deny that Brigham Young had anything directly to do with this. Although there are a lot of things that were going on at the time that I think many people would probably say that Brigham Young could have done things better. And because he didn't, this is what led to this. Now, despite the fact that the immigrants going through Utah really did not cause any problems other than perhaps say a few unkind things to some of the Mormons that they had encountered in Cedar City, we're to believe, according to the Mormon historians, that this is what led to the massacre. Now, the book goes on to talk about what happens on September 11th.

And this is told on page 266. The next morning, September 11th, 23-year-old Nephi Johnson was on a hilltop overlooking Mountain Meadows. Since he was fluent in the Paiute language, he was ordered to lead the Indians in the attack. Nephi wanted to wait until after hearing back from Brigham Young, but the militia insisted on striking now. Nephi believed he had no choice but to cooperate. Now, we should fill in some of the gaps here because a writer was sent to Salt Lake City to ask Brigham Young what to do with these immigrants that were coming through.

That man, Haslam was his name. That continues on, he watched as a sergeant in the militia carrying a white flag of truce, met one of the immigrants outside the company's barricade and offered to help the survivors. After the immigrants accepted the offer, John D. Lee approached the barricade to negotiate the rescue. He instructed the company to hide their guns and wagons and leave their cattle and goods as gifts for the Paiutes. John ordered the immigrants to follow him. Two wagons with the sick, the wounded, and small children led the way, followed by a line of women and older children. The older boys and men walked some distance behind, each one with an armed militia man at his side.

Some of the men and women carried young children in their arms. Nephi knew what would happen next. The immigrants would proceed toward the Hamelin Ranch. At some point, Higbee would signal each militia man to turn and shoot the immigrant next to him.

Nephi would then order the Paiutes to attack. Now we have to mention that the Hamelin Ranch is referring to Jacob Hamelin. He is not there, by the way.

Jacob Hamelin was not a part of this. But then you have Higbee. Higbee was a constable in Cedar City. Then it goes on to say that when the militiamen heard Higbee signal, most of them turned their guns on the men and boys and killed them instantly. Now, there's an act of treachery going on here because they are told to leave their guns behind. They were probably out of ammunition at this time anyway. So they are led outside of the protection of their circled wagons and they're led in single file and on a command. The command was, do your duty. The Mormons turned on the immigrants and fired on them. Within a few minutes, it was all over. Now you have Mormons involved in the murder of men, women and children, innocent men, women and children, unarmed men, women and children.

And so what do you do with this now? You've got to keep it quiet. Now, the book makes it sound like John D. Lee goes to explain what happened to Brigham Young and he lies to Brigham Young and doesn't include in the story that the Mormons were involved.

I don't know if I can totally believe that. And the reason why I have a hard time with that is because after the immigrants are killed, they are buried in shallow graves. And not long afterwards, a major by the name of James Henry Carlton is called to go investigate what took place at the Mountain Meadows. He was originally stationed in California at Fort Tejon. And then he goes to Utah. And when he gets there, he sees this devastating sight of bones, hair and clothing stuck to bushes in the area. He ends up burying the remains of those that he can find because now the children, the smaller children were taken into Mormon families because Mormons believe in what's called the age of accountability.

So they purposely tried to spare the younger children and they were put into Mormon homes where they remain until families eventually came and got them. Carlton buries the remains of those that were killed under what's known as a rock cairn, a stack of rocks. And at the top of that rock cairn, he has a Bible verse. What Bible verse does he use?

Ventious as mine, saith the Lord. Brigham Young comes on the scene not long after that and he sees this rock cairn with that verse on the top. Brigham Young comes on the scene years after it happens. He sees the rock cairn and then what happens? Well, he looks at it and there's a sign there that says, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord and I will repay.

According to the story, Young gazed at it for a while. Then he ordered the monument torn down. And then he said this, vengeance is mine and I have taken a little. Why would Brigham Young say that if he was totally unaware that Mormons were involved? Why would he say something like that? Why would he order the monument to be torn down?

See, these are questions that I have to ask and I'm sure a lot of people are asking. If Brigham Young was really innocent of the truth, did not know that Mormons were involved, why would he make that comment and why would he have the monument torn down? If he really believed that only Indians were involved, the Paiutes were involved, wouldn't you think a man, a religious man like Brigham Young, having compassion for those who were mercilessly slaughtered, allow a monument to stand to their memory?

Why would he want that monument to be torn down? And this has been an issue with the church for all these years since because it has left a black mark on the church. When this story got out, the Mormon missionaries who were going out were not being allowed to go into homes because they said, oh, we've heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and they told them to not come inside. So basically a lot of missionaries came back home. They were not very successful in what they were trying to do. But Bill, you had a chance to go to the 150th anniversary of this event and there was a big to-do there. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, they had a lot of the descendants from the Fanchers and Bakers there.

I got to meet some of them. And then they had a meeting under a big tent and Henry B. Eyring, a member of the First Presidency of the church, spoke. And in that speech that he gave, he mentioned how the church had regret for what had happened there. And that was misunderstood to mean that the church was apologizing.

And I remember when he said that and I thought, oh, that's going to be taken and twisted. And sure enough, it was reported that the church had apologized for what had taken place at the Mountain Meadows on September 11, 1857. And the church had to come out with a statement to make sure people understood the church did not apologize for what happened. They merely had regret.

They did not apologize for it. And why do you think that's the case? There were a lot of theories about that. One was that maybe the descendants might bring against the church a lawsuit for the death of their ancestors. Now, I never got that impression in talking to any of them or listening to any of the talks that I heard them give. But that could have been a reason. In fact, when Gordon B. Hinckley was out at that site before then, a lot of people said that his statements were kind of like they were written by an attorney. He was very careful in what he said. And I don't know if that was true or not. That was just the assumption that some have made.

But the church has never apologized for what happened at the Mountain Meadows. I always thought, why not take the high road and apologize for it? And whatever repercussions happen after that, meet it. If the descendants decided to sue, pay it. You've got the money. We know they have the money. They have, what, over 100 billion in some account waiting there. They could have easily used some of that or from some other source and just get it over with.

Sadly, Eric, you know how it is. Sometimes the LDS church misses a lot of good opportunities to do what's right. They could have easily apologized for that. They could have offered their condolences, said this should have never happened. Brigham Young should have never allowed this to happen.

The buck stops with Brigham Young. But no, what did the church do? The church puts its blame on these lower lieutenants, these local leaders like Isaac Hayton, John Higbee and people like that, John D. Lee.

Nobody's really in the grand scheme of things rather than, in my opinion, take the high road and just say, you know what? This is wrong. This should not have happened. Yes, Brigham Young did say some things that could be misconstrued and probably could have led to the demise of these innocent people.

But the church did not do it. John D. Lee would eventually be held liable for this terrible event. And what's interesting is that John D. Lee, one man, paid the price for what took place on that date in 1857.

And he goes back 20 years after the fact, 20 years after the fact, 1877. And John D. Lee is going to be executed for what all these Mormons did. It wasn't just John D. Lee who did it. There were a number of Mormon males involved in this. None of them paid any price whatsoever as far as their life being taken. But John D. Lee was the only scapegoat. He wasn't too happy about that either. And he said some things that some have interpreted to believe that he was implicating Brigham Young.

Some say not so much. The book says that during the trials, and this is quoting from page 430, prosecutors and reporters had hoped that John, John D. Lee, would implicate the prophet in the massacre. But even though he was angry with Brigham for not shielding him from punishment, John had refused to blame him for the murders. I would encourage you to read the Confessions of John D. Lee and see what conclusions you draw from that. But that's basically the tragic story of the mountain meadows, which as we said earlier in this week, is tied to a lot of the teachings that were given during what was called the Mormon Reformation. . Thank you for listening. If you would like more information regarding Mormonism Research Ministry, we encourage you to visit our website at www.mrm.org, where you can request our free newsletter, Mormonism Researched. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint on Mormonism. .