American
Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 11, 1857
by Sally Denton
Book Description:
In September 1857, a wagon train passing through Utah laden with gold
was attacked. Approximately 140 people were slaughtered; only 17 children
under the age of eight were spared. This incident in an open field called
Mountain Meadows has ever since been the focus of passionate debate: Is
it possible that official Mormon dignitaries were responsible for the massacre?
In her riveting book, Sally Denton makes a fiercely convincing argument
that they were.
The author–herself of Mormon descent–first traces the extraordinary
emergence of the Mormons and the little-known nineteenth-century intrigues
and tensions between their leaders and the U.S. government, fueled by the
Mormons’ zealotry and exclusionary practices. We see how by 1857 they
were unique as a religious group in ruling an entire American territory,
Utah, and commanding their own exclusive government and army.
Denton makes clear that in the immediate aftermath of the massacre,
the church began placing the blame on a discredited Mormon, John D. Lee,
and on various Native Americans. She cites contemporaneous records and
newly discovered documents to support her argument that, in fact, the Mormon
leader, Brigham Young, bore significant responsibility–that Young, impelled
by the church’s financial crises, facing increasingly intense scrutiny
and condemnation by the federal government, incited the crime by both word
and deed.
Finally, Denton explains how the rapidly expanding and enormously rich
Mormon church of today still struggles to absolve itself of responsibility
for what may well be an act of religious fanaticism unparalleled in the
annals of American history. American Massacre is totally absorbing in its
narrative as it brings to life a tragic moment in our history.
Hardcover from Knopf
Book Published: 17 June, 2003 |
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