Mormonism’s 9/11 at Mountain Meadows — ‘The entire massacre was a cover-up’

On his deathbed, Nephi Johnson muttered over and over, “Blood, blood, blood.”

As a young man, Johnson had been among dozens of Latter-day Saints who executed nearly 100 members of two emigrant companies traveling to California across Utah on Sept. 11, 1857.

A leader, John D. Lee, representing the territorial militia, went into the emigrants’ wagon fort, waving a white flag, and promising them safe passage if they put down their arms and came out. Instead, as the emigrants emerged to walk in a single file, the militiamen shot the men at close range, and then helped Paiutes slaughter women and children.

That horrific assault lives on as the bloodiest stain on the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In 2008, Richard E. Turley Jr., Ronald W. Walker and Glen M. Leonard explored in excruciating detail the infamous and inexcusable episode in “Massacre at Mountain Meadows.”

Now comes the follow-up volume, “Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath,” by Turley and Barbara Jones Brown. It examines how church leaders in southern Utah tried to cover up the crime, how investigations were thwarted, how justice was delayed and denied and how men like Johnson were haunted for decades by their involvement. They also answer a key question: What did church prophet-president Brigham Young know and when did he know it?

Here are excerpts from The Salt Lake Tribune’s “Mormon Land” podcast with Turley and Brown.

What were the conditions in Utah, including the relationship between Latter-day Saints and the federal government, leading up to the attack?

Turley • In 1857 and 1858, the Utah territorial militia was at war with the federal government. President James Buchanan had sent out troops and the Latter-day Saints in Utah were worried about what those troops were going to do to them.…Also, during this time, Brigham Young had launched what he called “a reformation.” He felt his people were spiritually declining, and he wanted to bring them back to a greater spirituality. Associated with that, there was a lot of very strong rhetoric.

Many people, including some historians, believe Brigham Young ordered the massacre. What did your research prove?

Brown • Before the massacre takes place, Isaac Haight, who is the Cedar City Stake [regional] president, and also the militia major in Cedar City, sends a letter to Brigham Young, saying something to the effect of “there are some immigrants here and we’ve been having some issues with them.” Unfortunately, that letter to Young did not survive, so we don’t know exactly what it said. Haight was asking what they should do about it. He sends it with an express rider to Salt Lake City. That letter arrives on Sept. 10 1857. Brigham Young and his adviser Daniel H. Wells craft a letter to send back to Haight. (We have a record of that.) And in that response, Brigham Young said, “If those who are there will go in peace, let them go.” Unfortunately, that express rider did not arrive in Cedar City until Sept. 13, after the massacre occurred. The next thing Brigham hears about it is on Sept. 29 1857, when John D. Lee comes to Salt Lake City to report the crime. He lies about it.

Do you think Lee was expecting a different reaction from Brigham?

Brown • This is where the victim blaming begins. Lee’s saying terrible things about the emigrants. He’s saying that they were part of the mob in Missouri and Illinois. He’s saying that they said Joseph Smith should have been killed a lot sooner than he was. He says that they were poisoning springs, which led to the death of some Indians and a Mormon boy near Fillmore. And he’s expecting Brigham Young to maybe say, “these people deserve to die.” But Young was sickened by [Mountain Meadows] and interrupts Lee and says, “Stop, I can’t stand to hear any more.”

Turley • ...By 1859, Brigham Young is unsettled about what he’s heard [about the massacre]. And the federal government has arrived in the form of judges and prosecutors. And so, there’s an initial trial in March, not a trial, but an initial court in Provo in March of 1859. It does not go well. But after that, Brigham Young says I want this prosecuted, so he goes to the federal district attorney. And he says to him, do this your way, you know, we’re not going to prosecute in our courts, you do it your way in your courts with your people.

If Brigham didn’t order it, how did the Latter-day Saints in Cedar City decide to kill the emigrants?

Turley • The entire massacre was a cover-up. What happens initially is there is a minor conflict in Cedar City [over reprovisioning the wagon trains]. The people in Cedar City know that Brigham Young’s wartime policy is to preserve cattle and grain, in case they’re under siege by the federal army.…[The emigrants] took their complaint to Isaac Haight, who saw riders coming to his door and interpreted them as a mob and sent a rider to the local marshal to arrest them. He wasn’t able to. The emigrants just said, “We’re going to hurry on down the trail,” so they left thinking everything was OK. …Haight calls John D. Lee, a man he knew was strong, and asked him to gather up some people and attack the company. When they go down into the valley of the Santa Clara, it will be easy to shoot from the cliffs. Lee and the people he’s with decide “why wait?” and they attack early. In the meantime, Haight has taken all of this to his council in Cedar City on a Sunday. Council members don’t back what they’re doing. They say, “That’s not consistent with our faith.” And so he sends a couple of runners out to stop Lee. Unfortunately, they don’t get there until after the first attacks occurred and people have died. Ultimately, they decide “if we let them go on to California, while an army is approaching us from the East, they’ll raise an army from the West, and we’ll be pinched in the middle. And it’s either our families or their families.” They make the horrible — and in many ways irrational — decision to murder everyone.

What was the involvement, if any, of the Paiutes?

Brown • The idea was to make it look like an Indian massacre, and then lay the blame on them. So the Paiutes were separated from the militia, who killed the men that they were walking with. The Paiutes were dispatched by Nephi Johnson, an Indian interpreter, to kill the women and children.

Turley • In the end, Nephi Johnson was feeling real guilt for his part and late in life confessed to a Latter-day Saint leader that white men did most of the killing.

How many children survived the massacre?

Brown • Seventeen…. The oldest was 6, a few younger than 6, and most of them were toddlers, or babies, aged 2 and under.

How many total victims were there?

Brown • We have an appendix of all of the emigrants who’ve been able to be identified so far. We counted those up, and it ... comes to 88. The number that Jacob Hamblin estimated to the army in 1859 was 120, when he buried their remains. Everybody’s been saying, “We’ve got to find those remaining 30.”… When we started working on the aftermath of the massacre, in this book, we found two very early sources that are shared just the day after the massacre. One of the militiamen ... tells a passing group of ... emigrants ... the day after that he has counted up 95 victims. And then, John D. Lee, when he’s telling about the massacre in his congregation on Sept. 13, says 96 victims…. Even if one person was murdered, it’s horrific. Using 88 is not to try and make the massacre look less heinous than it was. It’s so that descendants of victims and others can now rest assured, we probably have pretty much the names of everyone who lost their lives there.

Turley • In addition to the 95 or 96, we do know of three who tried to escape to California who were killed. We know of some who left and tried to go to settlements who were killed. So, we don’t have an exact number. Roughly 100 is somewhere in the ballpark.

How was this covered up?

Brown • At first, when the militia and the perpetrators return to their settlements, they’re bragging at church about what had happened. They’re saying, “Oh, hooray for Israel.” But when Young’s letter arrives, saying “let them go in peace,” they start covering up and saying, “Don’t ever talk about what Lee said on Sunday or we will cut off your tail just below the ears.” …Newspapers figured out immediately what happened, then federal investigators, in 1859, start investigating it.

Did Brigham Young help cover it up?

Turley • Initially, when he writes to Washington about it, he’s very much following this idea that the murders were caused by bad emigrants doing bad things to Indians, which in turn, caused those Indians to massacre emigrants. And I think Brigham Young knew, in fact, that was not true. That this was done, probably as a result of this policy of having whites and Indians raid companies as part of that [war] policy. It was all intended to be nonviolent, but somehow or another things went awry in southern Utah. Lee led him to believe that it was Paiutes who went awry without white help. I think Brigham felt some degree of guilt. …Over time, I think he begins to realize “we’ve got to take care of this or the shadow of it will never be off our territory.”

Why was Lee the only one executed? What happened to the others?

Turley • There were nine people who were indicted by a federal grand jury in September of 1874. They ended up arresting five out of the nine. And they work to try to get the evidence they need on all of them, but the evidence is just better on John D. Lee….What we show is that beginning around 1862, with the great floods [of emigrants] that hit the western United States at that time, the participants in the massacre began to lose their spoils from the massacre. They begin to live lives of poverty and being on the lam. Even though these people may not have been executed the way Lee was, they do get some punishment in this life. And then, of course, by their theology, they have to face the consequences in the next.

How has this research affected you?

Turley • It has haunted me. It has given me nightmares. It’s caused me even in the middle of the day to zone out. I find myself mentally at the Mountain Meadows, waving my arms, screaming and yelling, “Stop before we get started.” Where I found comfort, and, I believe Barbara’s the same, is that we have befriended many of the descendants of the victims of the massacre. And we have tried with them to get whatever late justice we can get for these people.

Brown • [Researching the chapter about the massacre details for the first book], I would often be sobbing at work. I was so grateful I had an office with a door I could close. At the time I was working on it, I recognized I was the same age as many of these emigrant women and had children the same age that they had. And I just would think of them and what they went through….Then, after Rick and I started working on “Vengeance Is Mine,” I was doing some family history work and discovered I was a direct descendant of a perpetrator. All of these experiences have been incredibly moving for me.

To hear the full podcast, go to sltrib.com/podcasts/mormonland.

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