Mormon History: Law-Breaking And Its Legacy

The history of Mormonism is characterised by intense controversy and persecution, with early Mormons facing expulsion and violence from non-Mormon settlers. The Mormon movement, founded by Joseph Smith in the 1820s, is a religious movement within Christianity that led to the set of doctrines, practices, and cultures called Mormonism. Early Mormons were expelled from Jackson County, Missouri, and forced to settle in Clay County. In 1838, a Mormon War broke out, leading to the death of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. Brigham Young, Smith's successor, led the Mormon pioneers on a westward exodus to the Great Salt Lake in Utah, where they settled in 1847. Brigham Young is sometimes referred to as the American Moses for his role in the migration.

Polygamy

The roots of polygamy in the Mormon faith can be traced back to the 1830s, when Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, began to secretly practise polygamy. In 1831, Smith and Oliver Cowdery, who had joined the movement during the translation of the Book of Mormon, determined that they needed to obtain the Priesthood, or the authority to act in God's name. According to an account by Cowdery in 1834, they went into the woods near Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, where they were visited by an angel who gave them the "Holy Priesthood". In 1835, Smith and Cowdery stated that the angel was John the Baptist, and that the "Holy Priesthood" was specifically the Priesthood of Aaron, which included the power to baptise.

In 1838, Smith announced revelations that changed the name of the church to the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" and initiated the "Law of Tithing". It was also during this time that Smith began to teach other leaders about the doctrine of polygamy. In March 1844, Smith was said to have organised a secret council of the church called the "Council of the Kingdom", which included the practice of polygamy among its tenets.

In 1843, Smith announced two new practices: the first was that the dead could be baptised, and the second was that polygamy was permissible and, in certain cases, required. This caused great division among Mormons, with Brigham Young stating that he would rather die and Joseph Smith's wife Emma expressing opposition—even though the revelation expressly directed her to accept plural marriage. Smith would eventually have more than 25 wives, while Young would take 20 wives and father 57 children.

In 1852, the doctrine of polygamy was made public outside the church, leading to widespread condemnation. By this time, many Mormons (between 20 and 30 per cent of Mormon families) had entered into plural marriages as a religious duty, with the number of plural marriages reaching a peak in 1860. In 1853, Mormons who rejected the leadership of Brigham Young and never accepted the idea that polygamy was revealed doctrine held a conference in Wisconsin to found the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This organisation brought together many of the Saints who believed that the church should be led by members of the Smith family.

In 1862, the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act criminalised plural marriage in US territories, but President Abraham Lincoln declined to enforce it. Anti-polygamy activity increased in the following decades, and in 1878, the US Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds v. United States that religious duty was not a suitable defence for practising polygamy. Many Mormon polygamists went into hiding, and Congress began seizing church assets.

In September 1890, church president Wilford Woodruff issued a Manifesto that officially suspended the practice of polygamy. Although this Manifesto did not dissolve existing plural marriages, relations with the US markedly improved after 1890, and Utah was admitted as a US state in 1896. After the Manifesto, some Mormons continued to enter into polygamous marriages, but these eventually stopped in 1904 when church president Joseph F. Smith disavowed polygamy before Congress and issued a "Second Manifesto" calling for all plural marriages in the church to cease. The church subsequently adopted a policy of excommunicating members found practising polygamy and now actively seeks to distance itself from "fundamentalist" groups that continue the practice.

Violence and murder

The Mormon movement, which began in the 1820s, has a history of violence and murder. The movement's founder, Joseph Smith, was killed by a mob in 1844, along with his brother Hyrum. This sparked a succession crisis, with Sidney Rigdon, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, led by Brigham Young, and the High Council of Nauvoo, led by William Marks, all vying for control of the church.

The Mormon War in Missouri, which began in 1838, was a particularly violent episode in the movement's history. During this conflict, non-Mormon vigilantes drove the Mormons from Jackson County, and they were deprived of their homes and property. The conflict escalated, and in 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs ordered that the Mormons "must be treated as enemies" and be "exterminated" or driven from the state. This resulted in the Haun's Mill massacre, where an anti-Mormon mob killed 17 church members, including unarmed children.

Another violent incident involving the Mormons was the Mountain Meadows massacre in 1857. Mormon militia, led by John Lee, attacked a wagon train of settlers from Arkansas, slaughtering 120 men, women, and children. Only 17 children under the age of eight were spared. Brigham Young's role in this atrocity has been debated, but he was accused of covering up the truth of the crimes committed.

The practice of polygamy, or plural marriage, also led to violence against the Mormons. Rumours of polygamy increased anti-Mormon sentiment, and in 1852, when the doctrine was made public, it led to widespread condemnation. The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862 criminalized plural marriage in US territories, and in 1878, the US Supreme Court ruled that religious duty was not a valid defence for practising polygamy.

In addition to these larger episodes of violence, there were also numerous smaller-scale incidents of conflict and murder involving the early Mormons.

Conflict with non-Mormons

The early Mormons had a history of conflict with non-Mormons, which led to their migration across the United States. This was due to their unorthodox religious beliefs and the conduct of church leaders and members.

The first conflict occurred in Missouri, where the Mormons had settled in Jackson County, believing it to be the "center place" of the City of Zion. However, non-Mormon residents became alarmed by the rapid influx of Mormons and expelled them from the county in October 1833. The Mormons temporarily settled in Clay County but continued to face violence and were eventually driven out of the state in 1838. This conflict is known as the 1838 Mormon War.

The Mormons then moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, where they enjoyed a period of relative peace and prosperity. However, tensions rose again in the mid-1840s due to the Mormon practice of polygamy and their growing political power. In 1844, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon movement, was killed by a mob while in police custody. This led to a leadership crisis within the Mormon community and further exacerbated tensions with non-Mormons.

In 1846, the Mormons, led by Brigham Young, began their exodus from Illinois and eventually settled in the Salt Lake Valley, which was then part of the Republic of Mexico. This journey, known as the Mormon Exodus, was challenging and dangerous, and many Mormons suffered hardships and even death along the way. The Mormon pioneers are celebrated annually on July 24 in the State of Utah, known as Pioneer Day.

The conflicts between early Mormons and non-Mormons were driven by religious and ideological differences, as well as competition for land and resources. The Mormons' unorthodox beliefs and practices, such as polygamy, often provoked opposition and hostility from non-Mormons. These conflicts ultimately shaped the migration and settlement patterns of the Mormon community as they sought to find a place where they could practise their religion freely and without persecution.

Brigham Young's leadership

Brigham Young was an American religious leader and politician who was the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1847 until his death in 1877. Young was an early convert to the church, having been baptised in 1832, and was a close associate of Joseph Smith, the founder of the church. Young assumed leadership of the church after Smith's murder in 1844, during a period of escalating conflict with "anti-Mormons" in Illinois and Missouri.

Young's leadership was instrumental in the westward expansion of the church. He led the Mormon pioneers from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, where he founded Salt Lake City. Young also served as the first governor of the Utah Territory from 1851 and established many successful settlements in Utah, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, and Wyoming. He was an advocate for education and founded the institutions that would later become Brigham Young University and the University of Utah.

Young is known for his practice of polygamy, having taken more than 20 wives and fathered 57 children. He is also considered to have instituted a ban on men of black African descent from being ordained to the church's lay priesthood. Young's leadership style has been described as autocratic, and he was an iron-fisted administrator who stabilised Mormon society and gave it cohesion.

The Mormon War

The 1838 Mormon War, also known as the Missouri Latter-day Saint War, was a conflict between the Latter-day Saints and their neighbours in Missouri. It was preceded by tensions and episodes of violence dating back to the initial Latter-day Saint settlement in Jackson County in 1831.

The Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, were a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter-day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York in the 1820s. The movement split into several groups following Smith's death in 1844, with the majority following Brigham Young.

In the early 1830s, an influx of members of the Church of Christ (Latter-day Saint), then headquartered in Kirtland, Ohio, began settling in Jackson County, Missouri. According to Latter-day Saint belief, Independence, Missouri, and the surrounding area were to become the "City of Zion", and church leadership in Missouri was directed to purchase land extensively in the area. This clashed with the interests of non-Latter-day Saint Jackson County settlers. The Latter-day Saint settlers' cultural and political differences, economic cohesion, and their proselytising among Native Americans and African Americans also contributed to growing animosity. Most Latter-day Saints were originally from New England, the Ohio Valley, and Great Britain and, unlike their Southern neighbours, generally opposed slavery.

Harassment against the Latter-day Saint settlers turned violent in 1833. In October 1833, the Latter-day Saint storehouse in Independence was sacked, vigilantes destroyed their printing press, attacked their settlements on the outskirts of the city, and eventually forcibly expelled them from Jackson County. These episodes of violence informed the patterns of conflict between the Latter-day Saints and other Missouri residents over the course of the Mormon War. The expelled Latter-day Saints sought refuge in the neighbouring counties, especially in Clay County.

Peace was disrupted on 6 August 1838, when a brawl erupted at an election in Gallatin because Latter-day Saints were blocked from voting. In October of that year, vigilantes laid siege to DeWitt, Carroll County, demanding the Latter-day Saints' departure. A militia was sent to DeWitt to disperse the vigilantes and settle the peace. However, they mutinied and joined the siege, forcing the Latter-day Saints to evacuate the settlement.

Hearing rumours that the vigilantes had marched to Daviess County, the Danites (a Latter-day Saint vigilante group) preemptively struck the settlements of Millport and Gallatin, further escalating the conflict. In response to the Battle of Crooked River in late October 1838, Lilburn Boggs, the Governor of Missouri, issued Missouri Executive Order 44, which accused the Latter-day Saints of rebellion and ordered them to leave Missouri on pain of death. On 1 November 1838, they surrendered at Far West. Latter-day Saint leaders were accused of treason and sent to Liberty, where they were jailed until their April transfer to a Daviess County prison. While travelling to Daviess County, the guards released the prisoners, including Joseph Smith. After their release, the freed men joined with the Latter-day Saints who were gathering in Quincy, Illinois.

During the conflict, 22 people were killed: three Latter-day Saints and one non-member at the Battle of Crooked River, one Latter-day Saint prisoner fatally injured while in custody, and 17 Latter-day Saint civilians at Hawn's Mill. An unknown number of non-combatants died of exposure and the hardship of being expelled from their homes in Missouri during the winter. All of the conflicts in the Latter-day Saint War occurred in a corridor 100 miles (160 km) to the east and northeast of Kansas City.

The Illinois Mormon War of 1844–1845, which resulted in the death of Joseph Smith, and the subsequent exodus of the Mormons to Utah, also led to conflict. The Utah War of 1857–1858, also known as the Mormon War, was an armed confrontation between Mormon settlers in the Utah Territory and the armed forces of the US government. The conflict escalated from tensions over governance and autonomy within the territory. There were several casualties, predominantly non-Mormon civilians. Although the war featured no significant military battles, it included the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where a Mormon militia murdered about 120 settlers travelling to California.

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