Bullets fly and arrows whiz amid screams of agony during the chaos that is the “American Primeval” treatment of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, a merciless attack carried out in southern Utah by Mormon militiamen against a wagon train of emigrants from Arkansas in 1857.
The atrocity marked a moment when long-oppressed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, fearful of outsiders disturbing their hard-won peace, resorted to violence against civilians, slaughtering all but the youngest children.
As “glad” as she is to see the massacre remembered, Barbara Jones Brown, director of Signature Books and co-author of the critically acclaimed “Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath,” warns that there is little recognizable as real in the Netflix version of the carnage.
Brown and Darren Parry, former chair of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation and author of “The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History,” appeared on a recent episode of The Salt Lake Tribune’s “Mormon Land” podcast for a side-by-side comparison of history and Hollywood as it relates to the massacre. (Below are excerpts of that conversation, edited for clarity.):
What does the series get wrong and right about how the massacre began and how it was carried out?
Brown • The massacre took place during the Utah War.
Which was what?
Brown • It was a conflict between the U.S. government, in which it sent troops to occupy the Utah Territory, and the local Latter-day Saint leaders and settlers, who wanted to resist those troops coming into their territory.
The series was very confusing to me. In it, the massacre seemed to take place just a few miles outside of Fort Bridger, in modern-day Wyoming. In fact, the attack took place hundreds of miles away in southwest Utah, near what is today St. George.
The perpetrators of the massacre did not wear hoods. In the show, it looked like the KKK, but wearing potato sacks on their heads. In reality, they did not need to wear hoods because they wiped out all the witnesses who were adults. The only people who survived the massacre were 17 young children ages 6 and under, most of whom were babies and toddlers. And they were spared only because they were considered “too young to tell tales” by the Mormon militia.
The series seems to depict the militia as marauders just coming into the camp. Can you describe how the violence actually unfolded?
Brown • The way the massacre occurred was actually so much more brutal than the way it was portrayed.
There was an initial attack by the Mormons, who were intending to run off their cattle. It didn’t work. So they kind of got into a skirmish and the Arkansas immigrants quickly circled their wagons. A five-day siege set in.
Ultimately, on Sept. 11, 1857, Mormon militiamen, through false promises of protection, said that they were there to rescue the immigrants from the attacking Indians, tricked them, had them walk out and then slaughtered all of them. So not a single Mormon was killed or even hurt in the massacre.
They did go through afterward and shoot in the head any survivors who weren’t killed in that final massacre. And they did loot the bodies. There is a story of one of the perpetrators pulling a gold watch off the body of one of the victims as depicted in the show. So that part was accurate.
What about the involvement of Natives in the area?
Brown • As the series showed, there were a small number of Paiutes involved. We don’t know from the historical record how many were there, but I do want to say that it was relatively small compared to the entire Paiute Nation and the Mormon militiamen who carried this out.
The Mormons tricked, if you will, or got some small number of Paiutes involved because they wanted to blame the whole massacre on them, and that’s exactly what they did. And so, unfortunately, the Paiute Nation has unjustly borne blame for this, when the focus needs to be put on the white perpetrators who actually orchestrated this.
In the series, the Paiute say, ‘We participated in the massacre so we could get women and cattle.’ That was a complete falsehood. The Paiute were promised cattle, and that’s what they got.
(Matt Kennedy | Netflix) Derek Hinkey, portraying Red Feather, gets a touchup from makeup department head Howard Berger on the set of "American Primeval."
How accurate was the portrayal of the different Native tribes in the series? What felt authentic and what felt like Hollywood?
Parry • There wouldn’t have been any Paiutes up by Fort Bridger ever. There would have been plenty of Shoshone. I loved the storytelling around the Shoshone and their culture. They were really honored by the series in a good way.
What about the culture was authentic?
Parry • The clothing was wonderful. The language was spot-on. It showed that small village where they had a matriarch, who pretty much was the ruler of the small group of Shoshones that were there. And that makes perfect sense to us. We live in a matriarchal society. Our women were our leaders and strong. And so to have a woman who showed strength like that was really one of the highlights for me.
Brown • Another question we’ve been getting on this note was whether there was scalping at Mountain Meadows as portrayed in the series.
Parry • That was really confusing to me, because that would have never happened.
What was Brigham Young’s involvement, if any, in the massacre, and what did he know about it?
Brown • Did he order the massacre? No. It’s incontrovertible that he did not order the massacre. But did he contribute to a scenario and environment in which the massacre could take place? Absolutely,
When Young learns that the troops are on their way to occupy Utah’s settlements, the Latter-day Saints, who have been violently driven in the past two decades from Missouri and Illinois, fear the Army’s intentions and don’t want the Army to come in.
Young comes up with all kinds of resistance strategies, one of which was to burn the supply trains and just keep the Army so they cannot make it into Utah settlements before the snow sets in. The other strategy was encouraging cattle raiding of immigrant cattle companies by Indians. And he’s threatening the United States government — in media and his speeches and so forth — that if the troops come into Utah, he and the Mormons will no longer “keep the trails safe for immigration.”
(Matt Kennedy | Netflix) Kim Coates, center, portrays Brigham Young in an episode of "American Primeval."
When did Brigham learn that the massacre had happened?
Brown • Rumors about the massacre started spreading north almost immediately after it occurred. And John D. Lee, who was one of the lead perpetrators of the crime, rode north to Salt Lake City.
On Sept. 29, he went into Young’s office. Apostle Wilford Woodruff was also in that meeting. Fortunately, Woodruff recorded that very day what Lee was saying, and Lee lied to Brigham Young and said it was an all-Indian massacre. Young asked him if any white men were involved. Lee said no — it was just the Indians and that the militiamen just went out the next day to bury the dead.
Lee ends up being one of nine men indicted for the crime. Years later, he is caught, and there’s enough evidence against him that he is convicted and executed.
What did you think of the series’ portrayal of Brigham Young?
Parry • I’ve always kind of given Brigham Young a break. He had a hard job bringing the Saints west and creating a new Zion and so forth. But his rhetoric and how he talked and how some of his words may have incited some of his people and empowered them through Manifest Destiny — you can almost do anything in the name of Manifest Destiny. And we have clear indication of that in 1850, when the Saints were having problems with the Timpanogos Natives in Utah County.
The locals wanted to completely annihilate the Timpanogos band. Brigham Young preached in a meeting, saying we don’t want to kill them but we need them to move. Eventually, though, he relented and signed an extermination order in 1850 for those members of the Timpanogos band who wouldn’t move. That extermination order was carried out.
Brown • I’m glad that Darren brings up the fact that there were other massacres of Native Americans by Latter-day Saints in Utah. That’s important to make that point.
In general, what were relations like between the Mormon settlers and the Native Americans they displaced?
Parry • Well, it’s kind of a roller coaster. I mean, church founder Joseph Smith, when he dealt with the Native Americans, it’s almost as if he placed them on a pedestal. His successor, not the same. He thought Latter-day Saints might be able to treat these people in a good way, as long as they give them the land and what they want. But expansion and taking over land was by far the goal, and whatever took place to get it was OK, because, you know, it’s God who wants them to be here.
One of the more colorful characters in the series is Jim Bridger, especially in his interactions with Brigham Young. Were these scenes accurate?
Brown • That was just really odd to me. The filmmakers have Brigham Young riding all around Fort Bridger. And again, Fort Bridger is hundreds of miles from Salt Lake City, where Brigham Young’s home was and where the headquarters of the church was. He was nowhere near the troops as they were approaching. In fact, he was really afraid of the approaching troops. That’s why he was resisting and setting up Mormon militia to try and stop them from coming.
(Matt Kennedy | Netflix) Shea Whigham, left, plays Jim Bridger and Kim Coates portrays Brigham Young in an episode of "American Primeval."
Did Latter-day Saints burn Bridger’s fort?
Brown • The Mormons forced him to sell it in 1855, and they burned it down in 1857 before these events transpired in the show. The motivation behind why they burned down Fort Bridger was to stall the troops.
What is your advice for anyone who’s about to watch the series?
Brown • I would just recommend that when you’re watching it, please understand the whole thing is highly, highly fictionalized. There’s so much great history on the Utah War and the Mountain Meadows Massacre and Brigham Young that people can go read and learn the truth about.
Parry • We’ve got to sit down and have hard conversations — not because we can make things right for those people who died that day, but the world that we live in today really begs for healing. It’s about bringing awareness to a hard subject and fostering dialogue.
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