The Mountain Meadows Massacre [Paperback]

Juanita Brooks (Author), Jan Shipps (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1991 | ISBN-10: 0806123184 | ISBN-13: 978-0806123189 | Edition: 3rd

In the Fall of 1857, some 120 California-bound emigrants were killed in lonely Mountain Meadows in southern Utah; only eighteen young children were spared. The men on the ground after the bloody deed took an oath that they would never mention the event again, either in public or in private. The leaders of the Mormon church also counseled silence. The first report, soon after the massacre, described it as an Indian onslaught at which a few white men were present, only one of whom, John D. Lee, was actually named.

With admirable scholarship, Mrs. Brooks has traced the background of conflict, analyzed the emotional climate at the time, pointed up the social and military organization in Utah, and revealed the forces which culminated in the great tragedy at Mountain Meadows. The result is a near-classic treatment which neither smears nor clears the participants as individuals. It portrays an atmosphere of war hysteria, whipped up by recitals of past persecutions and the vision of an approaching 'army' coming to drive the Mormons from their homes.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Juanita Brooks held appointment as a field fellow of the Henry E. Huntington Library and was enabled to carry out the original research for her book by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. She was the author of two other books and edited, with Robert Glass Cleland, A Mormon Chronicle: The Diaries of John D. Lee (Henry E. Huntington Library. 1955)

Jan Shipps is the author or editor of several books on Mormonism, including Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years among the Mormons.

Product Details

• Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr (Trd); 3rd edition (April 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806123184
• ISBN-13: 978-0806123189
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.8 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 85 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars First Authoritative, Honest Text About Mt. Meadows April 21, 2002

By Mark Lee

Format:Paperback

Juanita Brooks, a life-long southern Utahn, used her considerable native talent, her drive for the truth, and many years of effort to compile this first exhaustive, honest examination of the Mountain Meadows massacre. It is especially impressive given the fact that Ms. Brooks wasn't by vocation a historian or scholar. Her narrative is lucid and complete. Her analysis has proven, in the context of additional investigation, to be principally correct. Throughout it all, Ms. Brooks remained also a faithful LDS (Mormon) woman, in spite of her disappointments with her contemporary LDS church leadership as it related to her investigation. This should be a starting point for any serious student of the Mountain Meadows massacre. Ms. Brooks shows us a world of grays with very human characters whom she places into a carefully resurrected context.

136 of 153 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Thank you, Ms. Brooks June 14, 2000

By Missing in Action VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This was a hard story to tell. The Mountain Meadows Massacre is one of Mormondom's most infamous stories, and one which members have steered clear of for years. It is amazing that this book was written so long ago, and yet so many of us are still uninformed on what happened.

What Ms. Brooks has done is recreate the context in which this terrible act occurred. The Mormons of the southern colonies were in a highly aroused state knowing that the army of the United States was marching their way. The emigrant party was overly boisterous, deriding the Mormons, their leaders, and threatening to raise an army in California to return to destroy Utah. The Indians wanted some "action" against the "Merrycats" (Americans) in retaliation for the poisoning death of some of their tribe, and the Mormons new they needed the alliance of the Chiefs if they were to offer any kind of effective resistence to the army that would arrive that next spring. All of this contributed to a sense of mob action that every one of the participants would later regret. What is important about this book, however, is that it helps you understand that it was not a mere malicious act of vengence or wickedness; it came in the context of war, among a group of frightened farmers who had been driven from their homes by violent mobs at least two or three times in the past 15 years. Of course, it doesn't minimize the heinous act.....

It is also important in understanding the apparently diliberate sacrifice of John D. Lee, the only participant who was ever brought to trial, and who was ultimately executed at the Mountain Meadows. His loyalty to Brigham Young and the Church ultimately set him up to be the scapegoat, with the Church relying on the Book of Mormon phrase "it is better that one man should perish than a whole nation dwindle in unbelief." They knew that a fair trial would drag the upper eschelons of the Church hierarchy through the mud, and the preservation of the Church depended on that not happening.

While there are those who will criticize this work for some of its statistical inaccuracies (how many died in the Fancher party...), it is important to keep in mind that this book was written at a time when Mormon History was very difficult to obtain. It is remarkable that the story could be so well researched at all, and if there are errors, they certainly seem excusable to me. This book is still the standard for anyone who studies the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

58 of 65 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars the book that open the ugly chapter February 8, 2004

By lordhoot

Format:Paperback

This was the book that first got me interested in the Mountain Meadow Massacre, what I called the 9-11 of 19th Century. It was one of the biggest mass murders in the history of the American west and ironically speaking, the killers were white men, murdering white people in cold blood. With considerable courage, the author painted a very clear picture of what this massacre was all about and within her limited means, gave a cause and effect of the incident. I used that term "limited means" because the author was (now deceased) a member of LDS and she probably compromised some of more inflamatory elements of the massacre so other writers like Will Bagley and Sally Denton can go at it. Her defense of John D. Lee was bit surprising to me but I figured that she knew that Lee was nothing more then a scrapgoat for the Mormon Church. But she did not take any inroads to the actual responsibility of the massacre. Like I wrote in the earlier reviews on books written by Bagley and Denton, I would considered this book to be a valuable first book of three that honestly deal with the Mountain Meadow Massacre.