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Case Study C: Mountain Meadows Massacre

Overview

On September 11, 1857, a group of Mormons in Utah Territory massacred a wagon train of approximately 120 settlers, mostly from Arkansas and Missouri, sparing only 17 children. The circumstances of what became known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre are complicated, reflecting the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and its trouble relations with the United States government and American society. Years of tense relations and episodes of open conflict had driven the Mormons ever westward until they found what they hoped to be a land in which to practice their faith in peace. The Mountain Meadows Massacre, however, showed that such peace would be hard to maintain.

By most accounts, these events are best understood as part of a wider episode known as the Utah War, in which some 1,500 U.S. military troops had been dispatched toward the Mormon enclaves in the western regions of North America, which had yet to be formally incorporated into the United States. The Federal Government considered the Mormons an unruly, even treasonous, band and aimed to pacify them by force. Though these troops ultimately did not engage the Mormons significantly on the battlefield, knowledge of their advances put the Mormons on high alert. Meanwhile, wagon trains of settlers continued to pass through the territories, and though their intentions were peaceful, they sparked distrust among the much-persecuted Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints (LDS), who feared the soldiers might use protecting the settlers as pretext to attack, or even infiltrate settler wagon trains.

Events were complicated by Mormon efforts to make common cause with local Native American tribes, especially the generally peaceful Paiutes, in resisting European settlers. When tensions boiled over in Mountain Meadows, the Mormons initially sought to pin blame on the Paiutes, but though some Indians had skirmished with the settlers, it quickly became clear the Mormons had done the vast bulk of the killing. In fact, the failure of these attempts to involve the Paiutes may have accelerated the Mormon’s resort to slaughter.

Adding to the tragedy of these events, the Mormon militia charged with confronting this particular group of settlers had shown serious hesitation to attack and had sent a messenger to the upper levels of LDS leadership to confirm their orders. The Mormon’s top leader, Brigham Young, had personally penned a reply on September 10 decisively ordering the militia to let the wagon train proceed unmolested, but it arrived too late to stop the massacre.

Below are a number of resources for gaining a better understanding of this case of the intersection of religion and violence, followed by suggestions for employing ideas from the book in making sense of this case.

Resources

A good start

  1. A reliable, brief, scholarly history:

    2. https://mountainmeadowsmassacre.com/what-is-the-mountain-meadows-massacre
    (This account is endorsed by the official Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: see
    https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2007/09/the-mountain-meadows-massacre?lang=eng)

  2. An efficient documentary video: “Mountain Meadows Massacre” (5:37) (This appears to be from the History channel):

    3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8kcqpTkj6k

Digging deeper

  1. “The Aftermath of Mountain Meadows,” from the Smithsonian:

    2. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-aftermath-of-mountain-meadows-110735627/

  2. A longer documentary video: “The Mountain Meadows Massacre” (54:50):

    3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mai5F1O10oI

  3. This is perhaps the most reliable of the several available book-length studies:

    4. Walker, Ronald W., Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard. Massacre at Mountain Meadows. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

  4. Feature Film:

    5. September Dawn (2007), directed by Christopher Cain and starring Jon Voight.
    Information at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473700/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Applying the book to this case

  • The Mountain Meadows Massacre (MMM) clearly involves the kinds of identity formation and maintenance considered by Durkheim (ch. 4) and other scholars influenced by Durkheim, such as James K. Wellman Jr. and Kyoko Tokuno (see pp. 25, 70–1). Consider the following questions raised at the end of ch. 4, addressing them to the MMM:
    • Is religion a key component of group identity in this case? Does religion help provide differing identities for groups that are in conflict with one another?
    • Can we discern specific ways that religion helps generate a sense of in-group/out- group identity and ways that religion helps define and maintain the boundary between groups in this case?
    • Are groups competing over access to resources, material or symbolic? If so, are the groups arrayed according to differing religious identity?
    • Does religion overlap significantly with politics in this case? Are the two, religion and politics, working in tandem to generate violence? Is it perhaps difficult to determine where religious concerns end and political ones begin?
  • Victor Turner (ch. 5) focuses attention on “liminal” states outside of established social structures. The entire Mormon community might be seen as persisting in a state of liminality, perceived by themselves and others as “betwixt and between” the prevailing social categories and hierarchies. In light of ch. 5, how might this state of liminality have been generated and reinforced among the Mormons (and/or the settlers), and how might it have contributed to the violence of the MMM?
  • Max Weber (ch. 6) suggests that religious communities, or portions of them, can adopt a stance of “ascetic pessimism.” This can include a sense that the world is in disarray and out of alignment with the will of God, necessitating potentially violent human intervention to correct this situation. Do you see elements of such ascetic pessimism in the MMM, either among the Mormons or among the predominantly Christian anti-Mormon groups?
  • The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints might be seen as having some features of a classic sectarian movement (ch. 8), challenging some foundational religious beliefs and practices of the dominant, church-level groups of American Christians. Review the characteristics of a sect and consider whether the MMM reflects any of the typical sectarian forms of religious violence.
  • Ch. 9 explores a variety of “building blocks” of religious traditions that can readily contribute to religious violence. Which of these building blocks do you see in the context of the MMM? For example, what roles might ideas and practices of prophecy and revelation, sacred space, or apocalyptic expectations play in the MMM?
  • The appendix of the book offers a typology of violence. Based on the categories explored there, what specific forms or elements of violence do we see in the MMM? For example, the tendency for people to see their own violence as justified in terms of self-defense is widespread and potent. Can we see in the MMM efforts to frame violence as self-defense?