Kingdom in the West (Kingdom in the West, V. 1) [Hardcover]

Thomas Bullock (Author), Will Bagley (Author)

Book Description

Series: Kingdom in the West, V. 1 | Publication Date: March 2000

The slaughter of a wagon train of some 120 people in southern Utah on September 11, 1857, has long been the subject of controversy and debate. Innocent Blood gathers key primary sources describing the tangled story of the Mountain Meadows massacre. This wide array of contrasting perspectives, many never before published, provide a powerful and intimate picture of this “dastardly outrage” and its cover-up. A fine addition to the Kingdom in the West Series.

The documents David L. Bigler and Will Bagley have collected offer a clearer understanding of the victims, the perpetrators, and the reasons a frontier American theocracy sought to justify or conceal the participants’ guilt. These narratives make clear that, despite limited Southern Paiute involvement, white men planned the killing and their church’s highest leaders encouraged Mormon settlers to undertake the deed.

This compelling documentary record presents the primary evidence that tells the story from its contradictory perspectives. The sources let readers evaluate and track the evolution of such myths as the Paiutes’ guilt, the emigrants’ provocation of their murderers, Brigham Young’s ignorance of what happened, and John D. Lee’s sole culpability. Clearly revealed is the part Utah authorities took in blocking the investigation until it became expedient to sacrifice Lee.

Together, these narratives show how the massacre’s story has been continually distorted and then revealed over 150 years—and how the obfuscation and cover-up continue. Innocent Blood conveys the encompassing impact the atrocity had on people’s lives, then and for generations after. It is a valuable sourcebook sure to prove indispensable to future research.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Independent historian David L. Bigler is a Utah native, a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, and a University of Utah graduate in journalism. He received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Southern Utah State College at Cedar City, now Southern Utah University. He retired as director of public affairs for U.S. Steel in 1986 to devote full time to Mormon and western history. He is a fellow and an honorary life member, Utah State Historical Society; a former director, Utah State Board of History and Friends of University of Utah Libraries; and past president, Oregon-California Trails Association. His books and articles have won awards from the Utah State Historical Society, Westerners International and The Mormon History Association. His books include The Gold Discovery Journal of Azariah Smith, University of Utah Press, 1990; Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847-1896, Arthur H. Clark, 1998; Army of Israel: Mormon Battalion Narratives, with Will Bagley, Arthur H. Clark, 2000; A Winter with the Mormons: The 1852 Letters of Jotham Goodell, Marriott Library, University of Utah, 2001; Fort Limhi: The Mormon Adventure in Oregon Territory, 1855-1857, Arthur H. Clark, 2003; and, with Will Bagley, Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Arthur H. Clark, 2008. He and his wife, Evah, reside in Roseville, California.

Will Bagley is an independent historian who has written about overland emigration, frontier violence, railroads, mining, and the Mormons. Bagley has published extensively over the years and is the author and editor of many books, articles, and reviews in professional journals. Bagley is the series editor of Arthur H. Clark Company's documentary history series, KINGDOM IN THE WEST: The Mormons and the American Frontier. Bagley has been a Wallace Stegner Centennial Fellow at the University of Utah and the Archibald Hannah, Jr. Fellow in American History at Yale University's Beinecke Library. Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows has won numerous awards including a Spur Award from Western Writers of America, the Bancroft History Prize from the Denver Public Library, Westerners International Best Book, and the Western History Association Caughey Book Prize for the most distinguished book on the history of the American West. So Rugged and Mountainous: Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California, 1812-1848 is the first of four volumes of Overland West: The Story of the Oregon and California Trails Series.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 420 pages
• Publisher: Arthur H Clark (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870622749
• ISBN-13: 978-0870622748
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,253,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Will Bagley has written and edited more than twenty books on overland emigration, frontier violence, railroads, mining, the creation of computer search technology, and the Mormons. Some love him, some hate him, but his work has won every major prize in Western History--an Old Joe, the Spur, the Wrangler, the Caroline Bancroft, the John W. Caughey Prize for the year's most distinguished book on the history of the American West, and the Merrill J. Mattes Award for Excellence in Writing. He is not "anti" anything: he simply tries to tell the stories and find the truth of what happened.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Great Insights Into the Mountain Meadows Massacre, November 17, 2008

By 

Gnarly1 (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives of the Mountain Meadows Massacre ( (Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier) (Hardcover)

Will Bagley and David Bigler are unsurpassed in their knowledge of 19th Century Utah history. Bagley, and to a lesser extent Bigler, have drawn the wrath of the Mormon Church and LDS "scholars" because of their unwillingness to buy the traditional propaganda promulgated by the Church regarding the cold-blooded murder of 120 pioneers headed for California in 1857.

This book, part of the KINGDOM OF THE WEST SERIES published by The Arthur Clark Co., gathers together the most important documents relating to the Massacre. The story of "what really happened" at Mountain Meadows was, quite surprisingly, well known very soon after the slaughter, despite desperate attempts by Brigham Young and his cohorts to cover it up and shield the guilty. Americans outside of Utah who were familiar with the conditions in Young's "kingdom" had no trouble concluding that it was white Mormons, not poor, docile Southern Utah Indians, who were the prime movers in the event.

However, it took years to thoroughly debunk the LDS two-pronged story line. One, that it was Indians who did the murders. Either the immigrants poisoned the Indians' water supply, which resulted in the death of several Indians who ate dead cattle that drank the poisoned water, or, alternatively, that the travelers directly poisoned the beef carcasses consumed by the Indians. Second, that the migrants deserved what they got because they had traveled through Utah antagonizing the Saints and bragging about their role in the deaths of Church founder Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum thirteen years earlier. (The wagon train was from Arkansas. There is no known connection between any member of the train and those who murdered the Smiths. Likewise, there was no connection between the travelers and the then recent death of the beloved Apostle Parley P. Pratt in Arkansas. The train left Arkansas before Pratt's murder at the hands of a man whose wife was seduced by Pratt into becoming his 12th wife.)

While the Church no longer claims that the Baker-Fancher party "had it coming," it nonetheless clings to the implausible argument that Young was not fully informed concerning the degree of culpability of the participants in the Massacre for years after it occurred, and that only the local Southern Utah yokels, not high Church authorities, were responsible. (See MASSACRE AT MOUNTAIN MEADOWS by Walker, Turley and Leonard (2007), the Church's unofficial official version of the Massacre, commissioned in response to Bagley's BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS (2002)).

This book is a very valuable companion to Bagley's book and others on the Massacre. It will be of interest primarily to those with a fairly substantial knowledge of both the Massacre and the Utah of 1857. Like all of Bagley's and Bigler's work, it is extremely well researched and thoughtfully presented.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars for YEARS, LDS, Inc. LIED about the MMM...., July 7, 2009

By 

Anders Tronsen (Carnation, Washington United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives of the Mountain Meadows Massacre ( (Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier) (Hardcover)

including classes at church colleges....but thanks to Juanita Brooks, Will Bagley, et al., the TRUTH is 'finally out'.

the LESSON that they don't want people to hear/understand is: Sometimes you have to disobey authority (what LDS is built on-around) in order to do the right thing (this case REFUSE TO BE INVOLVED)

Turley, aka the master of obfuscation & Denial on behalf of his employer, the lds church, did a half-way job of trying to out some more details, but:
This Story will continue to roll unless/until the Q15 & friends apologize unconditionally for the MMM, to the victims descendents, and offer to neogotiate compensation...which the LDS people should be GLAD to offer!
(witness the History Channel first week of July 09)
LDS & Christians preach 'coming clean' all the time!; where were /are they on this one?