Brigham Young, while serving as both Utah’s governor and Indian superintendent in 1857, never raised a finger to find out what happened or recover the wagon train’s property from the murderers. Four months after the massacre, in his official report of the largest slaughter of American emigrants in the history of the Oregon, California and Mormon trails, Young charged the Arkansans in the wagon train had murdered four Indians with poison. “This conduct so enraged the Indians that they immediately took measures for revenge.” The evildoers fell victim to “the natural consequences of that fatal policy which treats Indians like wolves or other ferocious beasts.” For 13 years, Young insisted Mormons had nothing to do with the massacre: Indians killed the emigrants, who simply got what they deserved.

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Powerful men can obstruct justice or try to suppress the truth for a variety of reasons, but personal guilt drives most coverups. Several Mormon historians have made recent attempts to refute Juanita Brooks’ conclusion that “Brigham Young was accessory after the fact, in that he knew what happened, and how and why it happened.” Their efforts seem unwise, especially since Brooks observed, “Evidence of this [Young’s involvement] is abundant and unmistakable, and from the most impeccable Mormon sources.” But Mormon historians as distinguished as Thomas Alexander now insist that Brigham Young investigated the massacre repeatedly over 15 years yet somehow never figured out whodunit. This newly imagined creation, Brigham as Mr. Magoo, might sell in Utah Valley, but elsewhere it will probably not fare well. Young knew the names of the Mormons who participated in the wholesale atrocities, Robert Glass Cleland and Juanita Brooks concluded 51 years ago. “Brigham Young was not a credulous simpleton: he was not duped or hoodwinked: he was not misinformed.”

When historians confront a complex historical event, they try to develop an interpretation that provides the simplest explanation of the evidence—a task complicated when evidence is destroyed, manufactured and relies on testimony of young children or men with blood on their hands. After writing Blood of the Prophets and Innocent Blood, I believe the atrocity is best explained as a calculated act of vengeance. It was not retribution, which is the just application of punishment for a bad act, but revenge, which simply involves getting even and is not particular about who gets the ax.

In May 1861, after destroying the monument the U.S. Army raised over the graves of the victims in 1859, Young told Lee that those “used up at the Mountain Meadowes were the Fathers, Mothe[rs], Bros., Sisters & connections of those that Muerders the Prophets; they Merittd their fate, & the only thing that ever troubled him was the lives of the Women & children, but that under the circumstances [this] could not be avoided.” Lee’s story is difficult to challenge, since a Mormon apostle confirmed the quote that he ascribed to the prophet: “When he came to the Monument that contained their Bones, he made this remark, Vengence is Mine Saith the Lord, & I have taken a litle of it.”

Coverups Never Ending

Yet another battle in the ongoing war over how the story of Mountain Meadows will be told may begin soon. Mormon historians Richard Turley, Ronald Walker and Glen Leonard claim Oxford University Press will release their opus, Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, next year. They have been making the same claim every year for the last five years, but give them credit: They’ve got their story and they’re sticking to it. This is not, lead author Turley insists, an “official” history, despite the fact that the LDS Church has seemingly spent millions of dollars subsidizing the project.

Since the book has not appeared, it would be unfair to judge a pig in a poke, but a “press release” handed out at the book’s 2002 announcement—“Forthcoming in 2003 from Oxford University Press!”—has me waiting on the edge of my seat. “Tragedy at Mountain Meadows takes a fresh look at one of Mormon history’s most controversial topics,” it promises. The work will be drawn “from documents previously not available to researchers.” Like me, I suppose, although sources at the church’s historical department have told friends “Bagley got everything of significance” at LDS Archives. Ah well, “this spell-binding narrative offers fascinating conclusions on why Mormon settlers in isolated southern Utah deceived the emigrant party with a promise of safety and killed the adults and all but a few of the youngest children.”

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