The Ballad of Mountain Meadows, written by a Soldier
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The Fancher/Baker train were enmeshed in history to which they were unnecessary or vastly periferal. ''The Missouri Wild Cats,'' a Bushwacking militia, joined the Fanchers. At Bear River, a Militia killed 244 women, children and Elders. Sheep and 4000 peach trees were destroyed at Big Mountain. There Kit Carson and his militia, falsely promised compensation with intention to betray, and committed atrocities with Genocidal intent. (Archival 6-8-09) Mountain Meadows Material begins July, 2008.
Dedication
To
Jacob and Alvin Hamblin
Daniel Alexander Matheson
Alexander Matheson
Alva Matheson
Zella Matheson
Shivave
William Jackson
The Sacred Heart of God
Jacob and Alvin Hamblin
Daniel Alexander Matheson
Alexander Matheson
Alva Matheson
Zella Matheson
Shivave
William Jackson
The Sacred Heart of God
Followers
Pages, Kathleen Matheson Weber
CLICK TO ENLARGE PHOTOS,
On reading this blog . . .
I intended to begin my blog with the Mountain
Meadows and other oral traditions within which my life began. Two centuries now past.
Meadows and other oral traditions within which my life began. Two centuries now past.
When the raid of the polygamous YFZ Ranch occurred it was hard not to remember. Raids, friction imposed by the Federal Government have been Mormon History since before the Civil War. The Antipolygamy Manifesto of 1989 was adopted by a people exhausted by loss, their leaders in hiding, supplied wives and sons or living in friendly but remote indian villages many
were readying for the large scale emigration to Mexico.
The once verdant territorial South, originally the bread basket for the regional Indigenous population was
decimated by the foraging of California stock.
There was such a church food production effort
at the Church run Lee Ranch. There his wives and
were readying for the large scale emigration to Mexico.
The once verdant territorial South, originally the bread basket for the regional Indigenous population was
decimated by the foraging of California stock.
There was such a church food production effort
at the Church run Lee Ranch. There his wives and
children ran a Church Co-op affiliated with a small mill
that is now a State Monument. Mountain
Meadows was pasturage for stock, when ready
for slaughter, it was parceled out to the indigenous inhabitants whose range had been destroyed.
The Fancher/Bakers with their 800 cattle were not easy to entertain, nor were the instructions of Chuch leaders, to entertain a hard drinking militia from Missouri who bragged about crimes which had occured and which they insisted they had comitted, brandishing an heirloom smoking gun. With this, one of them said he had shot Joseph Smith. They swore to return with any number of the thousand Genocidal militia in California. These had already comitted well known and documented atrocities there, continuing int0 the 1990's.
John D Lee and his families suffered through the Missouri and Illinois periods. It was when one of the Missouri Wildcats, according to my Grandfather, said that he had raped his sixteen year old daughter in Missouri that John D Lee broke and said he could no longer hold the indians by the wrist.
His part in the massacre has been overplayed, since the army blamed it on the Indians he was in charge of the conduct and welfare of the local tribe. After the massacre, he maintained Lee's Ferry. With the threat of the return of the Feds, it was a heartsick John D. Lee who confessed to a massacre in which he played a complicated but vastly over-emphasized role.
Meadows was pasturage for stock, when ready
for slaughter, it was parceled out to the indigenous inhabitants whose range had been destroyed.
The Fancher/Bakers with their 800 cattle were not easy to entertain, nor were the instructions of Chuch leaders, to entertain a hard drinking militia from Missouri who bragged about crimes which had occured and which they insisted they had comitted, brandishing an heirloom smoking gun. With this, one of them said he had shot Joseph Smith. They swore to return with any number of the thousand Genocidal militia in California. These had already comitted well known and documented atrocities there, continuing int0 the 1990's.
John D Lee and his families suffered through the Missouri and Illinois periods. It was when one of the Missouri Wildcats, according to my Grandfather, said that he had raped his sixteen year old daughter in Missouri that John D Lee broke and said he could no longer hold the indians by the wrist.
His part in the massacre has been overplayed, since the army blamed it on the Indians he was in charge of the conduct and welfare of the local tribe. After the massacre, he maintained Lee's Ferry. With the threat of the return of the Feds, it was a heartsick John D. Lee who confessed to a massacre in which he played a complicated but vastly over-emphasized role.
There is an absurdly tragic bedrock to the Eastern American Genocide. It spread West between the Revolutionary War and the 20th Century as it padded in.
It is the conviction of the superiority of those at the top of the caste system over those below. Their manipulation of lives, dreams, cultural legacy, beliefs, creeds and faiths to realize a still-expanding hegemony at the expense of all who were on their own land before the invention of the chariot.
We cannot go backward, but neither should we try to impose who we are on others, or abandon them after we have destroyed what we made ours through deployment of one "doctrine" or another.
6 comments:
The soda bill is funny. Our root beerwas 5 percent alcohol and my uncles and friends used to raid their cellers and drink it behind the shed
until they were pretty loopy.
I wasn't allowed because I was a guuurl. Notice this is 1 percent and the concern is about girls getting their hands on it. Goodness, they might giggle.
Kathleen
The song is very moving. But the war
began a year and more before the Mountain Meadows. Much of this goes back to the Nauvoo period. Joseph Smith was promised protection if he gave himself up, protection not only for himself but his city,
Gentile promises didn't mean much in those days. A Brother in our ward named Clegg had an ancestor who moved to Missouri with his congregation and the minister came along.
When the people were driven out in the winter, he asked his preacher to take his 3 year old until he was settled in Nauvoo. When he returned for her there was a great
deal of merriment at his expense.
The minister directed him to the outhouse where he found his daughter, partly decomposed with
her blond curls floating in excrement.
We may have been terrified of the California Militias, some of which we knew as the Indians knew them.
My ancestors did the only thing we could think to do. We did not glory in it, we were not sadistic,
and for what small comfort it offered, we made it quick.
We couldn't go thru it again and the militia(s) traveling with the
train had no other glee.
It did give us time to settle civil matters in the state before the story broke--we sorrowed for the innocent, but their deaths saved our lives.
I am a pacifist, but for those who
believe in war, wasn't it a practical, if cold hearted trade off.
Kathleen
The cartoon covers too much ground in too little feed. It muddles beeifs
from many scattered settlements, and even Mormon religions formed by
people too weak to make the trip west
who formed the RLDS Church headed by
Emma Smith after her husband;sdeath.
The idea that Joseph Smith died for our sins is bizare. The closest thing I ever heard was a hymn, Praise to the Man.
'Mingling with God he
will plan for his Brethryn,
Death will not conquer
the hero again.
The Adam God hypothesis was believed by Brigham Young, but never by most members. It became
controversial when the Journal of
Discourses was republished.
Bishops vary in their wisdom and capacity to give council and advice.
When I was at BYU the first counselor called me in and said that my room mate had turned me in
for not abiding by the Branch President's 10 o'clock curfew.
Achill went down my spine. I left,
walked home, and called the Ward
Town Bishop. He set up a pre-maeital meeting for a few days later. This was one of the finest Bishop I've ever had.
Some people are just too timid to reject council that is inappropriate.
The blue room is in the Manti Temple. My Great Grandmother was married there twice. Her first husband died, she married her second husband there, my parents were married there and so was I.
It is exquisite in it's carving
and painted detail.
This is a crass piece, offensive,
and in places just false.
Science Fiction is very popular
in Mormonism and the finest writer
in the Church both has seminars for Sci Fi writer and edits a magazine for the weak in faith, where I get the idea he has to walk on eggs.
Mormonism is complex and its legacy
is in places confused. We are still suffering from the assasination of Joseph Smith--it is our work, particularly as writers,
to improve what Joseph could not in
full humility and our magic underwear.
The hope was that a very brief period of killing would prevent prolonged suffering, since the men in Cedar City--not the best and brightest, these were up North managing the main war--felt backed entirely against the wall.
There was also the Eastern Seaboard Indian system where the serious of the crime was to equal the amount of suffering. So, and this was largely to make the Indians feel better about the business, all were to die as simultaneously as possible.
I doubt the Parly Pratt matter had much to do with this, though he was grieved, and still is. When a
writer dies something irreplaceable is lost.
Personally I believe in the legality of Polygamy--a law called the
Edmund Tucker Act was passed, I believe in 1872, was passed against ''Cohabitation''. A law called the Smith Act was passed in
the early 1970's and was the law
until perhaps 7 or 8 years ago.
Then the Bible Thumpers got into it and Children's Services in Utah became very difficult to provide.
Provisions against polygamy, when religiously based, is based on the
Separation of Church and State, when there is the income to support the family.
I am sad when girls marry too young sometimes, but some have told me that the children they bore
when young gave them the happiest years of their lives.
The Anglican Archbishop of North Africa has said that there is nothing in the Bible that condemns
polygamy today or yesterday and has declared it allowable.
Kathleen
The fifth frame, with the man leaning on the
quartz monument, may well be my Great, Great Grandfather.
He left for Scotland on a mission at
that time, and I suspect he may have been called
to speak to the theories of William James, he took
a Chair in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Edinbourogh about the same time.
My Great Great Great Grandfather attended St. Anthony's for three years until his family emigrated to Matheson, Onterio. His family was left behind in Liverpool, where the life expectancy was twentyfive,
when his children were adults, the family emigrated. This was about the time of the Massacre.
He was probably a translator. His wife lived among the Panguich tribe alone, and later distributed flour.
My great-grandfather was nearly sold to the Spanish, but the persistant neighbor was relatively
jovial, just trying to talk some sense into the poor white girl who was pregnant again.
Kathleen
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