| The best historical source that I am aware of is "The Mountain Meadow
Massacre" by Juanita Brookes. Since it has been a number of years since I read
her book and I don't have my own copy, the information I am giving in this reply
is by memory.
Mountain Meadows is between Cedar City, Utah (my home town) and St. George.
It was on the wagon trail from Salt Lake City to Southern California.
The event concerned a wagon train of people from Missouri. While traveling
though Utah (in 1857 I believe), they were boasting that they had been among
the people who had massacred the Mormons in Missouri during the 1830's.
Because of this tempers and emotions were high among both them and the
residents of the area. In addition, the Indians were upset with the travelers
because, if I remember correctly, the Indians thought their water holes had been
poisoned by them.
The travelers stopped in Mountain Meadows to rest and were soon surrounded
by the Indians. The Indian Agent, John D. Lee, was contacted in Cedar City
and went to the site. Other men from Cedar also came there during the next
day or so.
For reasons which I don't know and don't recall if Ms. Brookes outlined in her
book, the men from Cedar at the Meadows decided to kill the people in the wagon
train.
In the meantime, when Church leaders in Cedar heard of the entrapment of the
travelers at Mountain Meadow, they immediately sent a rider to Salt Lake
asking Brigham Young for guidance in the matter. He replied that the
wagon train must be allowed to continue its journey at all costs, but by the
time the rider returned (500 mile round trip by horse), it was all over.
This event was tragic, as all murders are. Only one person was convicted
of the crime by the courts, John D. Lee. However, all persons involved will be
held accountable by God for their actions.
As far as historical documents show, and Ms. Brookes is a fair and reasonable
historian, the massacre was the result of individual actions and not a
conspiracy by the Church or by Brigham Young.
As an interesting sidelight, family tradition states that my great grandfather
Samuel Leigh changed the pronunciation of his surname from 'lee' to 'lay'
because rumors were rampant in Cedar that relatives of the dead people were
coming to avenge the deaths and Samuel didn't want his family to be mistaken
for being related to John D. Lee.
Allen
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| I read a different version (of history) somewhere else, stating
that the Utah Historical Society erected a marker commemorating
the location of the "Mountain Meadow Massacre". Soon afterwards,
the State of Utah reportedly responded by buying this land from
the federal government. Utah then destoryed all markers, structures
and trees, and then salted the soil to prevent regrowth of any
vegetation at the site of the "massacre".
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