Among other policies, he continued the limitations on African American participation in the church, instituting a ban on Black men receiving the Mormon priesthood. College volleyball's opening weekend ended with a fan banned from Brigham Young University's athletic facilities and statements expressing regret from two universities and the governor of Utah. Young extensively promoted his theology of blood atonement, which held that certain crimes and sins were so vile that they could not be forgiven until a debt had been paid in blood. (Right) John D. Lee. They were murdered by a small Mormon militia and its Indian allies in a horrible ploy: after a four-day gun battle with their attackers, the pioneers accepted a truce that turned out to be a deadly lie. Earlier versions featured only Jesus or angels appearing to Smith. Brigham Young (pictured) is revered by Mormons as the second prophet of modern times. Young, himself, was subjected to house arrest for several weeks in 1872 and jailed briefly in March 1875. Join the celebration! All Rights Reserved. While the church leaders temper and strong words at the pulpit earned him a reputation for coercion, in truth, those who knew him best often spoke of his caution and his abhorrence of bloodshed. A CONFESSION etched on a newly discovered lead sheet has shaken the Mormon Church by linking its revered leader, Brigham Young, with one of the worst massacres in American history. . Anti-Mormons have long claimed that Mormon leader Brigham Young ordered the massacre. Brigham Young tried to stop the massacre. Brigham Young's adopted son. In 1870, church leaders quietly excommunicated Isaac Haight, John D. Lee, and militia leader George Wood. Some Mormons say that some of the scrolls must still be missing, but Smith included facsimiles of the scrolls in his translation and they are clearly misinterpreted, with female figures listed as male, canopic jars indicated to be idolatrous gods, and the Egyptian fertility god, Min (depicted in a painted relief above), labeled God, sitting on his throne. The image of Min in the facsimile included in Mormon scriptures is sporting a comically exaggerated erection. How many 5 letter words can you make from Cat in the Hat? There are no other trains going south that I know of. No. Brigham Young wasn't the only latter-day prophet to have such close experiences with death. In 1857, at the time of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Brigham Young, was serving as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and as Governor of Utah Territory. Brigham Young was the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from 1847 until his death in 1877. Of course, there's also the Opening Ceremony, the Cougar Run, a football game, and more. Beginning in the 12th century and continuing for hundreds of years, the Inquisition is infamous for the severity of its tortures and its read more. Everybody (Source Codes) The emigrants fell back to a defensive position, and the ambush became a siege. Even though Young blessed it as a place to begin anew,his fears of continued religious persecution may have caused him to order a massacre. When he isnt exploring the dark secrets of various religions, he is a major sci-fi/fantasy geek and the lead editor and author for The Elders Blog on Elders of Genova. The Anglican Church began its existence with a purging of Catholics. A wagon train of around 120 emigrants, mostly families from Arkansas, was bound for California. During Wyatt Earps later years, while he was living in Hollywood, were there any silent films or voice recordings made of him. In this inspiring look at near-death experiences, authors Brent and Wendy Top illustrate how numerous recorded accounts of near-death experiences relate to Latter-day Saint teachings. The founder of the religion, Joseph Smith, began claiming he had been commanded by God to take additional wives after his first wife caught him having sex with their teenage maid in the barn. In short, the massacre is best explained by cascading local events in a setting of extreme excitement and fear. In return for surrendering their weapons, the emigrants would be allowed safe passage to Cedar City. He was also the founder of Salt Lake City and the first governor of the Utah Territory, United States. If Washington continued to appoint office seekers and corrupt demagogues, Utahs citizens would send them away., Faced with this blatant insubordination, Buchanan ordered an army of 2,500 troops to Utah to install Alfred Cumming as the new governor. With no additional evidence, some historians have pointed to a Native American council held in Salt Lake City on September 1, 1857. Nor did Pratts death stir blood lust. Sources conflict. Despite the fact that the leader of the Mormon Church is supposed to relay Gods will to mankind, though, Brigham Young espoused some terrifyingly racist ideals. Matthew Easton, a 24-year-old political science major, told an audience of thousands, "I'm not broken." The facts are these: Young spoke out against revenge killings. Cold Milk 07. On the other hand, Mormons have insisted that the massacre was perpetrated by local members acting without sanction from headquarters. https://www.history.com/topics/religion/brigham-young. Simpson murdered his wife. James Haslam, who rode the 500-mile circuit in six days, recalled, Young told me [when riding back south] . . At Four Corners, in the southeast, Utah meets Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona at right angles, the only such meeting of states in the country. Women in Utah were treated like a commodity, with Church apostle Heber C. Kimball once observing, I would think nothing more of taking a wife than of buying a cow. Men married additional women to show their status as righteous men who were devoted to their faith and would often marry more women than they could afford to support, keeping the less-liked wives in other towns and forcing them to earn their own living. Brigham Young was probably the most oft-married man in 19th-century America. Justice John F. Kinney was appointed in 1854, and quickly fought with Young over statutes designed to protect polygamists. They looted and gutted shops and set fire to numerous homes, stores, and government buildings until nearly all homes in Daviess County not owned by Mormons were destroyed. Hearing this, Brigham Young preached fiery sermons encouraging the saints to lift the sword and slay them.. Are there books about other independent women of the early West? Wouldnt these events have kindled Youngs anger and led him to seek revenge? Brigham Young https://www.mormonnewsroom.org Thousands of exhausted, freezing pioneers marching across dozens of inches of snow in the dead of night, their end goal hundreds of miles away, all led by one man: Brigham Young. But its not a formula for good history. . In August 1857, Young reactivated the Nauvoo Legion, a militia first created in pre-exodus Illinois. Mormons are a religious group that embrace concepts of Christianity as well as revelations made by their founder, Joseph Smith. When Mormons were living in Daviess County, Missouri, he delivered a fiery oration on Independence Day of 1838 in which he promised that the Missourians who Mormons felt were persecuting them (the sentiments had some justification although Mormons did their fair share of antagonizing as well) would need to stop any disputes with the Mormons or face a war of extermination. As any attorney knows, the problem with a guilty client is he acts guilty, and after the massacre Brigham Young never behaved like an innocent man. Courtesy: Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When I learned that Orrin Porter Rockwell, the notorious Mormon lawman and Danite, had rushed Mrs. Pratt across the plains in record time, I knew what happened at Mountain Meadows. The Latter-day Saint community [in Las Vegas is] vibrant across every facetpolitically, public service, charitable. While looking at a Tombstone photo, I saw a sign that says mule and ox shoes to order. On September 11, 1857, 120 men, women and childrenpioneers from Arkansas headed for Californiawere massacred after being promised safe passage through a Southern Utah valley known as Mountain Meadows. Justice for his peoples wrongs was heavens responsibility, not his, he said. Park City, Utah, United States. It's time to Hike and Light the Y and attend the much-anticipated BYU Spectacular! Historian D. Michael Quinn succinctly describes Youngs actions shortly after the massacre: Apostle Wilford Woodruff, the official church historian, recorded that when Young first visited the mass burial site, he said that the memorial plaque should read: Vengeance is mine and I have taken a little.. Later in 1841, Young served a mission to Cincinnati and its environs with Franklin D. Seventeen children who were too young to remember the attack were spared. Even though Mormon scriptures had numerous rules governing polygamy that included requirements that the first wife approve of subsequent marriages and bans on one man marrying mothers, daughters, or sisters, the rules were completely disregarded. In early 1846, Young and an advance group began an arduous journey some 1,300 miles across the plains and over the Rocky Mountains. Despite the fact that the Book of Mormon (which Smith said he translated by the power of God) denounces polygamy, Smith didnt stop with two wives and, before he died, he had married close to 40 women and possibly many more. He wasn't elected or picked to lead the Saints west, he was foreordained to lead them and gained their love and belief in his guidance. The evidence has been so corruptedsuppressed, destroyed, and fabricatedits hard to determine the date the murders took place, let alone trace all the ins and outs of the conspiracy behind the crime. The massacre lasted less than five minutes, but when it was. Young said that the company that was used up at Mountain Meadows were the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and connections of those that murdered the prophets; they merited their fate, and the only thing that ever troubled him was the lives of the women and children, but that under the circumstances this could not be avoided. Who is Katy mixon body double eastbound and down season 1 finale? When I began writing about the massacre, I realized trying to prove anything about this appalling crime would prove only that I was an idiot. TUCKER CARLSON: You always imagine in your mind's eye that it's evil men who destroy society: wild-eyed, spit-flecked dictators pounding the podium to demand the annihilation of their enemies. What type of electrical charge does a proton have? In 1835, the Three Witnesses selected Young as one of the inaugural members of the Quorum of the Twelve. He stopped at the cairn the U.S. Armys First Dragoons had raised in 1859 over the grave of the emigrants whose scattered bones they had collected and buried. Young returned east to lead a second company of Mormons to the region in late 1847, and in 1848 was officially selected as the churchs new president. Youngs fiery discourses calling for blood and vengeance, his encouragement of Indian attacks on wagon trains and the lies he told to cover up the crime all show he was intimately involved in fomenting a vicious act of vengeance.