Product Details

• Format: NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Studio: A&E Home Video
• DVD Release Date: April 25, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000F6ZC48
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,890 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

This is the tragic story of the government's failure to respect freedom of religion, which led to the worst civil atrocity in America prior to the Oklahoma City bombing.

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8 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but odd, September 3, 2007

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Dr J (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Search of History - Mormon Rebellion (History Channel) (DVD)

The Mormon Rebellion--50 minutes
This is a most curious video, in that several not well-known episodes in American history are discussed. The History Channel is to be commended for that. However, it tries to link two totally unrelated incidences under the umbrella term "Mormon Rebellion." The facts are reasonably good, but the conclusions are ludicrous.

Let's begin with the actual 'rebellion.' President Buchanan sent an army to Utah to enforce some bill, ostensibly about polygamy. Even the video admits that this action was more for the weak Buchanan to show some force somewhere. Nevertheless, the Mormons get wind of the invaders and set up defenses. The short of it is that a deal, which removed Brigham Young from the territorial governorship, is struck and no shots are fired. The problem is that it is very difficult to see how a group of people who had been severely persecuted, had their petitions to the federal government for protection ignored, THEN supplied a large body of men to fight for that government (see my review of "More Precious than Gold: The Mormon Battalion"), and then applied for statehood, could be in rebellion!! The Mormons had more than proven their loyalty to the United States. Naming this episode a rebellion is preposterous.

The second part of the video is about the Mountain Meadows Massacre-the largest number of deaths inflicted on any wagon train in American history. It is a sad story. It turns out that a group of renegade Mormons, acting against orders from Brigham Young, enlisted some Paiute Indians to attack a wagon train of immigrants, some of whom probably had been involved in the persecutions of the Mormons in the Midwest. After the immigrants laid down their arms, expecting protection from white men, the Mormons opened fire and killed more than 100 of them. Not until 20 years later was a member of the attackers, one John Lee, brought to justice. He was executed on the spot of the massacre.

The video makes Lee out to be a sacrificial goat-in Old Testament terms. Brigham Young comes off as a conniving, underhanded, backroom dealmaker. It conveniently forgets that Young was removed from the governorship of Utah shortly after the massacre and had no legal responsibility to undertake anything after his removal. Conspicuous by their absence are any Mormon leaders or historians. The only commentator tries his best to make the Mormons look bad. But he is easy to see through. I'm not sure what the History Channel has against the Mormons, but its credibility is certainly diminished when it produces such unbalanced videos.

The redeeming feature of this video comes at the end when descendents of the immigrants and Mormons come together and bury the hatchet at the newly erected memorial to the victims of massacre. It's actually quite touching. It really shows how slowly old wounds heal, but they can heal, if people are willing to forgive.