A Comment on a September Dawn Review

OK--what this has shown me is that the anti mormon propogandathat partly defined the Victorean Era can still evoke its fell archetype, a tiny number todays Mormons knew anything about the anti-Mormon Genre revivified in September Dawn. Those of us whose Ancestors were under military orders at that time and somewhere between the Plat River on the East and Arizona in the South,
Salt Lake on the West and Idaho in the North, want to know how to help you feel better. If it is something you want the Church to do we may have influence there.

Our bones and the bones of the Indians who fought with us in the more than two years
of war with Federal Troops who would have
opened the door to many years of Genocide
and torture are impossibly mingled with those of your Ancestors, as may some of
our Ancestors. Jacob Hamblin, who carefully disinterred and inventoried the
mass grave, said that there were far more
than anyone had come forth to claim.

At this time Mormon Graves, if not buried
in the town cemetary, were not marked for fear of desecration. Sometimes a cairn may have been built, or a lace beadspread or
tablecloth lain over their bodies, their clothes taken to better secure the survival of those who remained alive. We scorched the ground to keep the wolves off the bodies sometimes, if there was time, if it was safe. Scots Thistle might be planted to
make it not worth it to disturb the ground.

Why assume that we are so callous as you do. Great blocks of context are omitted both from September Dawn and from the discussion. The illussion of religious fanatisism and intolerance as motivation for the Massacre only feeds the fire of hatred.

There were 6 million Indians in the United States when white men came here. Centuries later there were aproximatly 1/100th this number. The vast majority of these were killed as the Fancher/Baker party were killed, women and children hundreds of thosands upon hundreds of thousands.

Brigham Young is demonized, after 10 years of California Massacres by Militia who like the Mormons retained their military structures of rank and purpose.

The self-expressed purpose of the Missouri hired Guns was renewed Genocide against Mormons and Indians alike. The kind of Massacre that occurred at Bear Creek in the North. They bragged about participating in anti-Mormon Atrocities, brandished guns which
they said fired fourty balls into the
much beloved predecessor of Brigham
Young, who in times of peace was more
of a practical man and buffoon, than the tyrannical deamonic image portrayed in September Dawn.

Revolutions, expulsions and mass killings were rife from the Ukraine to the seacoast slums of Europe. In Denmark most of the non-conformists who did not join the well provisioned Mormon parties moving West were expelled into cities where the average life span was only 25.

Mass killings of Jews were rife. The Prussian King said that only onr family, that of the eldest son could inherit property, the rest would be killed if they did not leave. My great greatgrandfather and his brother left to avoid the draft into this Genocidal Prussian Army, whose ways were much like Hitler's.

Though his brother never joined and continued to California so the story goes,
or did he fight and die pursuing criminals
who had broken away from the Meadows. This was not Prussian Draft, it was Defense of Home and Country, of the kindley light that had led him so far.

My Great, Great, Grandfather died in bed, a very old man. He refused to either participate in the massacre or mass buriel of the Emigrants--I think he beleived that resistance best expressed his dissaproval, and his employer was a known participant, there was no reprisal and he kept the job he was using to save money for his marriage to my much younger grandmother, whose father had said she could not marry him until she was Eighteen and knew her mind.

Propoganda is simplified to hammer home a single message, or a few messages. History is vastly complex. I am sad for the Emigrants who lost their lives, my sympathy is harder to find for the fetid Missouri Wildcats, estimated locally to have been 6-8 men. If there were 200 as some accounts have claimed, this hard drinking subset may have set the fate of the rest. Only two got away and these were tracked by the local indians near Vegas--this and arguing for the lives of the Emigrant Women and Children was the only involvement, according to three generations of Indian leaders, that these tribes had in the matter.

The Mormons were Northerners, they welcomed Free People of color into their cities. When papers were declaring their positions on this issue, they clearly said so.

Those who took the Oregon trail due to the impression created by the massacre went to a state whose State Literature portrays the
Genteel perversion of Gentlemen from Missouri. Free People of Color if men, were given 2 years to leave Oregon, if women 3 years. Afterwords they were flogged every two months if they remained. Slaves were sold by the court to any who would purchase them for the shortest term.

Black People, Slaves, were not allowed to live with their masters, though these were largely House Slaves and often relatives.As was Sally Deming, Jefferson's Consort--she was his wife's half sister. All slaves were made to live in WWI tents in camps outside town limits.

The Oregon Laws, like its Constitution
were written by a single Judge who ruled with tyranical force. The Cross on Skinners Butte, visable through Eugene, is hundreds
of feet high and drew people from throughout the state when it was burned in the late twenties.

At the time of the Massacre, the guard hired by the Fanchers, were our enemies. Like the Klan, the Know Nothings of California were sworn to kill Catholics
and Mormons among others.

September Dawn may have told a gripping story, ‘’based on’’, as the press release fairly admitted, true events. Not a portrayal of the people and events as they occured--its purpose was to incite hatred.

My family has been involved in documenting events surrounding the massacre since the time of the trials, my great grandfather was a toddler living in a slaving indian village, but there was no detail of the massacre that he did not know.and has been a strong supporter of the monument.
I need to get back to my own work.

[At this editing, my eyes are relatively
rested and I found some unfortunate errata.
I need to stop now for fear of making more]

The site is best read from the early entries last July. I had just lost a kiney, nearly dying.

My purpose was to tell the story of my Grandparents involviement in the documentation of Southern Utah History, including the events at Mountain Meadows,
a few, key to understand this story, which they may not have told to anyone else.
The blogs are best read from July upward pardon the errata, but I havn't got back to edit all of them.