Talk:Mountain Meadows massacre/Archive 6

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Material archived from the Mountain Meadows massacre Talk page. (Jan-Mar 2007 approximate)

Contents

Poll? Mediation? Arbitration?

Seriously wtf? the article gets unlocked and its game on. I guess its time to get back to war. Its my full intention to modify or revert any changes that I feel do not improve the article. Goodfaith attempts at consensus building have seemed non-existent. Sqrjn 23:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

What exactly are your objections? I mean, name one item of hard content please. I'm sincere. After that, we can get to the second. Gwen Gale 00:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

(first) What happened to the poll, mediation, and arbitation? I was interesred in seeing how it planned out. (second) At one time, Gale's rewrite was seperate from the Mountain meadows Massacre Article. What happened to that? Maybe there should be two versions of this article:(1) The Mormon and Utah view. (2)The Arkansas and US Army view.

"The Mountain Meadows Massacre was a mass killing of approximately 140 European-Americans at Mountain Meadows, a stopover along the Spanish Trail in southwestern Utah, on Friday, September 11, 1857.".

'European-Americans'? It is my understanding that the victims were from Arkansas, the 25'th state of the US (the melting pot, you know).

the majority of americans, and certainly back then, could indeed be called "european americans", they are full european stock, they just moved to another land, and later became heavily mixed "euro-mutts"...I like to call them aggressive european colonists and i even refer to modern america as "one of the colonies", (to this day its never really been anything else, yet an independent colony of course), yet if we are to call black americans "african americans" then "european americans" holds as well...(the african americans were colonists as well of course, and ursurped the "native americans" just like the european americans did, they were just in beta to omega status until a few generations later where many attained alpha status as well)(perhaps in a another hundred years the various american ethnics will have mixed sufficiently so that it will be hard to refer to them anymore as "european americans" or "african americans", "asian americans" etc etc...they will finally mainly be some mixed breed of just "americans", held together & grouped not anymore by ethnic makeup, yet wholly by american ideological, religious, cultural, and citizenship factors)(they are in the process, yet just not quite fully there yet, and for example the country is governed almost exclusively by european-americans, or "euro-mutts", totally out of proportion to the ethnic make-up of the country)...but, like we can call all living in Russia as "russians", despite that many arent actually russian in ethnic make-up, we can of course refer to all americans simply as "americans" too, we can split it up though further. However, ideologically at present most all americans now have several unique "american" ideological, cultural, behavioral make-ups 83.79.167.141 20:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

'September 11, 1857'? It is my understanding that the Mormon insurgents commenced the attack on the Sept.7 and completed massacre on Sept.11. What is the completion time of a massacre? minutes, hours, days, weeks. Tinosa 02:56, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The massacre happened on the 11th. The article already describes the chronology at MM, which began on the 7th. I humbly suggest you re-read that part, you may have missed it.
Are you asserting they weren't European-American? Are you aware that there are spurious claims the Fancher party was mostly Cherokee?
Do you interpret the current version as pro-Mormon, pro-Arkansas or pro-Army? Why? Please be specific. Gwen Gale 04:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

GAME ON? When did this become a game? I must have missed something in this wiki thing I have been doing for some time; where was the game part? If I were to look at the immediate history Centrx released the protection and you, Sqrjn immedately went to the POV edits that have been throughly discussed, disputed and agreed are not in keeping with history. Is that the game you are talking about? The game of insisting that only your version of history (read rewrite) is possible in an encyclopedia; again to point out that no ohter legitimate historian has ever called it kidnapping. That is called reconstructionist history or history made from whole cloth i.e. it is only your POV.

In any vote or poll you want to do let's do it because it is a small minority that supports your position. I still favor keeping the article locked indefinitately because refuse to cooperate with the community. It is only your perverse version that you insist upon and facts and history be damned. Gosh, are we having fun yet? This is the kind of crap that ruins a public encyclopedia; dealing with the private agendas supposed editors. --Storm Rider (talk) 03:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I would be delighted to include the word "kidnapping" in the text, in reference to the kids. Please please please provide a citation using that term from a published secondary source, preferably a peer-reviewed one but truth be told, almost anything treating the incident as an historical topic will do. Gwen Gale 04:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Editing by attrition I like that. That is indeed what its come down to, but there is no reason for it. Especially since we dont even seem to disagree. My MAJOR problem right now is that you are replacing a finished article with great footnotes, that a lot of people including myself have worked on, with one that has none. Until you have improvements to make I ask that you refrain.
Please provide specific objections as to content, thank you. If you'd like to add something to the article, please do it, along with the cites. Meanwhile, you're now in danger of violating the 3rr rule. Gwen Gale 04:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
As far as kidnapping goes, we've been having a partial debate. Somehow the argument has gone from the accurate use of language, to whether a secondary source has applied a particular term. Every word does not have to be directly culled from a secondary source. If people object to the word kidnapped I ask How is it inaccurate? How will it mislead a reader by being POV?Sqrjn 04:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
In a controversial article, every word does have to be supported by a cite if necessary. Meanwhile, no debate is necessary. Please provide a reliable secondary source which uses the term and I'll be happy to help make sure it stays in the article. Until then, use of the term kidnapping is original research, however much we may both agree the kids were kidnapped after their parents were murdered, neither you nor I are acceptable citations for the article. Gwen Gale 04:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Up-dating Information on the "Arkansas Emigrants Wagon Trains"

I am a Mountain Meadows Massacre Historian and a Fancher Family Historian. I tried to edit the info you present on the Fancher Party - didn't realize someone here apparently has to authorize corrections first. Sorry! (In your talk on the Fancher Party you are discussing several areas that are my personal Rootsweb.com pages :)

It's great to see that you all are attempting to present an unbiased account of the Massacre, which is an extremely difficult undertaking! There is no current internet source, or book written, that is not biased in some important way. And believe me, I've looked! I'd like to be able to point to one internet article on the MMM for those are unfamiliar with the history. I was kinda hoping this article could be it! Unfortunately, the majority of the sources you are using represent out-dated, or flawed, information. The Fancher Party information you are presenting in this article is old, and is almost totally inaccurate. I hope you are willing to rectify this, because it really is important to the history of the Massacre:

"Today you will see find records and tales relating a story about one wagon train, and the men, women, and children who were murdered at Mountain Meadows, often referred to collectively as the Baker-Fancher Train. This is not accurate. This designation developed in 1990, intended as a recognition that there was more than one wagon train involved in the massacre. In addition to the Fancher Train which is the most remembered, there were many other wagon trains that joined up along the way, broke off, or joined up again. Those other wagon trains included the Poteet-Tackett Train, the Crooked Creek Train, the Campbell Train, the Parker Train, the Baker Train, and others. (Some of these trains escaped the Massacre.) The Baker Train, named for Captain John Twitty Baker, was the last to arrive in Utah of those who had chosen to join up and travel south together through Utah. Each Spring, thousands of wagon trains left for California and somehow the story of the Arkansas Emigrants and the Mountain Meadows Massacre has incorrectly morphed into one large "Baker-Fancher Train" that left from Caravan Springs, Arkansas. Such a Train never existed.

The Fancher Train, under the leadership of Captain Alexander Fancher, left from Benton County, Arkansas. The Huff Train also left from Benton County. The Poteet-Tackett-Jones Trains (all relatives) originally left from Johnson County and traveled up through Washington County. The Baker Train left from Carroll County near present day Harrison. The Cameron and Miller Trains (previously from the Osage area) left from Johnson County, while the Mitchell, Dunlap and Prewitt Trains departed from Marion County. They all left at different times and were under the organization of each individual wagon train master. There were probably individuals and elements of other wagon trains that joined these trains along their journey, as was the custom at that time. Because of this, we will never know with certainty the names of all of those who were members of the trains on the fateful day they reached Mountain Meadows, in the Utah Territory.

As these trains made their journey south through Utah, records, and John D. Lee's writings, refer to the group as the "Fancher Company", "Capt. Fancher & Co." or the "Fancher Party. Having made two previous trips to California in 1850 and 1853, ALexander Fancher was an experienced leader and cattle-driver." (Fancher, Lynn-Marie & Wallner, Alison C., "1857: An Arkansas Family Primer To The Mountain Meadows Massacre", 2007. Posted with permission of the authors.)

Captain Alexander Fancher was never referred to as "Colonel" (Shirts.) His Uncle James Fancher was the Colonel.

And just to answer some questions in your other discussions -

Captain Alexander did make two previous trips from Arkansas to California. One in 1850 and one in 1853. The first is confirmed by the 1850 San Diego census, the second by private family correspondence, that is not available in any printed source.

There were no known Missourians, or even the so-called "Missouri Wild Cats", associated with the Arkansas Emigrant wagon trains. None of the known victims were from Missouri, they were all from Arkansas. There is no known record that supports any Missourians. This is a subject that may better left out of your article completely for no other reason than the complete lack of proof that these mysterious Missourians ever existed. (It was part of the Mormon effort to defame the Emigrants, along with other stories that they spread, to use as an after-the-fact excuse for murdering them. They initially blamed the Paiutes, then the Emigrants themselves. Today, the Paiute Nation will tell you that they had no part in the MMM, based on their oral traditions. But modern authorities agree that the attack was made by a band of Pauites and local Mormon Militia.)

The MMM Monument in Boone Co. Arkansas and why is it there when Boone Co. didn't exist in 1857 - A few of the wagon trains (not the majority, as many stories say) left in early April of 1857 from Beller's Stand, near the homestead farm of Captain John Twitty Baker, that was located near Harrison. In 1857 this area was part of Carroll County. Later boundary changes set this Harrison area within Boone County. This monument was erected in Harrison in 1955, and contains errors regarding the names of the victims and where they were from, but it does represent the best information available at that time. It was not until around the late 1990's that more accurate information began to emerge.

The Utah War, or the Mormon Rebellion, should actually be included in your article because it is absolutely integral to the story of the MMM, and explains why the Mormons were so riled up during that period. If there was no Utah War, there wouldn't have been a Massacre. A great source for this is Will Bagley's book "Blood Of the Prophets", but there are also some internet sources on the basic facts of the Utah War that are pretty reliable.

There was always a rumor of an 18th child. To-date, it has never been proven one way or the other.

While they were in Mormon homes, the surviving children were re-named by the Mormon families. This, and their young ages, led to some of the children's confusion about their real names. Christopher "Kit" Carson Fancher, for example, was called Charley by the Mormons, which led to later confusion about the given name of his father, Captain Alexander Fancher. The 1932 marker called Captain Fancher Charley, as does Juanita Brooks in her first 1950 publication of her book. Her later editions were corrected.

The various wagon trains arrived at different times in Salt Lake, it was not one great big train that arrived on a specific date in August. We do have records that place the Fancher Train in Salt Lake and say that this one group waited there more than a week for others to arrive to join up with, before taking the southern route through Utah. (The trains did not take the northern route and then turn back and take the southern route. At Salt Lake, as the individual trains gathered there, decisions were made by each whether to take the northern or southern route. For example, we know that from Melinda Cameron)Scott Thurston's deposition that she, her husband, and the rest of her Cameron family arrived in Salt Lake around the first of August. She and her husband took the northern route. The rest of her family took the southern route, and died at Mtn. Meadows. http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/malindathurston.htm)Another record tells us that, of these trains that were gathering in Salt Lake, the Baker train was the last to arrive. These trains were arriving in Salt Lake probably between the end of July and the first week of August of 1857, but there is no way to pinpoint those dates.

Brigham Young tearing down the cross and cairn at the Meadows - According to Mormon Apostle Wilford Woodruff's diary dated May 25 (1861)he was there with Brigham Young when he, and a group of Mormons, visited the site of the Mountain Massacre. According to Woodruff, Young did not say in so many words that he wanted it destroyed, but with a wave of his hand, he indicated to the group what he wanted them to do. It was also Woodruff who recorded that in response to the words on the cross "Vengeance is mine and I will repay saith the Lord" Young said it should be "Vengeance is mine and I have taken a little." The rocks from the cairn were scattered, but sometime after that, and over the following decades, unknown passerbys apparently made efforts to keep piling the rocks back up into a small cairn. The 1999 Monument at the Meadows contains rocks from the original cairn.

ParkerMMM 03:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Welcome aboard. I assume this is your website. Lots of good info. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wallner/mmmfanch1.htm#Open
Do you have acess to the Boone County Hertiage muesuem? http://www.bchrs.org/collections/mmm/index.html
Tinosa 14:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Hey, likewise. For starters, where could one find a solid citation to support the statement that there were no "Missouri Wildcats" associated with the wagon train as it traveled through Utah? Gwen Gale 16:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I also welcome you, ParkerMMM. We look forward to your contributions to this and other articles. I agree with your comments that the Utah War probably needs more discussion as part of the context, and that the presence of "Missouri Wildcats" is disputed. Regarding the destruction of the cairn, my understanding is that Woodruff recorded Young's statement but didn't actually mention the destruction of the cairn. The source for the destruction of the cairn was Juanita Brooks reporting a family story from her grandfather, Dudley Leavitt.
I hope you will familiarize yourself with the Wikipedia policies, especially Neutral point of view, Verifiability, and No original research. As an encyclopedia article, the article should represent the consensus of historians rather than the viewpoint of any single historian. Therefore, sources need to be cited; differences of interpretation should be acknowledged and cited. It is considered acceptable to cite other secondary sources, but not your own original research (especially when based on unpublished sources). When in doubt, it is best to bring an issue to the talk page first.
I look forward to working with you. BRMo 16:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Gwen Gale -- Bagley's book (p. 280), describes the Missouri Wildcats story as "Utah mythology." He says, "The 'Missouri Wild-cats' may well have been the Dukes party that followed the Fancher train. Its leader, William Dukes, and at least eight other men were Missourians; virtually everyone in the Fancher train came from Arkansas." Since we don't know the identities of everyone in the Fancher train, it seems overly strong to conclude that they all came from Arkansas. But the article certainly shouldn't treat the presence of the Missouri Wild-cats as an undisputed fact. BRMo 16:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I've put a reference to the historical dispute in the article, with the cite you provided. As an aside, yeah, we don't know, but with all the evidence of post-massacre spin and ante-bellum communications in Utah being what they were, it's reasonable to think that the historical presence of some people from Missouri along the trail late that summer could have been twisted all out of proportion in an effort to create the notion that LDS folks were "provoked" into the massacre. Ĩ would hastily add that, for only one example, in absence of any evidence, it is wholly unreasonable to assume the Dunlap girls had anything to do with it. Gwen Gale 17:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

About BY and the cairn, I think the provenance of this tale makes it very dodgy. Moreover, though I have no doubt he visited the site (which is so close to SG), my personal take is that whatever his involvement in pre-massacre planning or post massacre spin (and we don't know what that involvement was, if any), he was too smart to order the demolition of the cairn in front of witnesses in broad daylight, never mind he must have been aware that he couldn't erase its existence so easily. Gwen Gale 17:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Howdy ParkerMMM, and welcome to this dicussion. We were asking for more information about Cap. Fancher's experience and were having difficulty finding a source we could use and cite. Hopefully your contributions can be used to expand this seciton. With all the revert wars this article has suffered I think I can state for everyone that anybody willing to colleberate rather than just brute force their will onto this article is more than welcome to contribute.
Overall I like and respect your contributions but I do have a couple of disagreements I'ld like to bring up. I hope you will take these in the spirit intended.
I would caution against putting phrases like "Such a Train never existed." I have no doubt that is true, but could be phrased less acutely. Or better yet, just correct the inaccurate information without stating the previous author was wrong. With so many sources on MMM that contradict each other IMO we should be cautious about phrases that attack credibility of respected sources. Its hard enough to get every body to stick to non-biased sources (or at least biased but with an open mind), that we shouldn't refute for somebody for trying to use good sources. I think if we go down this road the article could degenerate into a peeing match of "My source is better than yours". NOTE: I have so far reverted edits using FARMS sources (Farms is a Mormon Apologetics group) and sites that have an obvious anti-mormon ax to grind as they are easy to discount as non-biased (though unfortunatly some of those sites have some excellent information on them).
The second Gayle already touched on. I was looking into the claim that BY ordered the destruction of the monument, as a result of the above discusison started by Duke53. Wilford Woodruff's diary does NOT state this, at least from the sources I found. He claimed BY visited the cairn and made the wise crack "No, Vengence is mine and I have taken a little" But from what I've found someone else added the claim that he then had the monument distroyed after the fact. However I did find one interesting claim that stated the cross was vandalized with the phrases like "Remember Haun's Mill" but this source did not claim to know who did the vandalizing.
Just my $.02, please take in the spirit intended.
Also for the record I am not an expert on MMM nor do I claim to be. It's a long story how I came to get involved in this article. Let's just say its helping me brush up on my writing skils =-)

Davemeistermoab 07:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

“Vengeance is Mine Saith the Lord, & I have taken a little of it.” Editors might check the following. "Suddenly Strangers". http://www.suddenlystrangers.com/Chap18Appen.htm

John D. Lee faithfully kept a journal. Five days after the above mentioned visit to the Mountain Meadows monument, Lee’s diary entry, [30] May 1861, reports Brigham at the monument as saying: “Vengeance is Mine Saith the Lord, & I have taken a little of it.” He also records Brigham as saying that any who betray their brethren’s involvement in the massacre will be damned.[v]

footnote v. “Pres. Young Said that the company that was used up at the Mountain Meadows were the Fathers, Mothe[rs], Bros., Sisters & connections of those that Murdered the Prophets; they Merit[e]d their fate, & the only thing that ever troubled him was the lives of the Women & children, but that under the circumstances [this] could not be avoided. Although there had been [some] that want[e]d to bet[ray] the Brethr[e]n into the hands of their Enemies, for that thing [they] will be Damned & go down to Hell. I would be Glad to see one of those traitors.” —D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, pp. 252–253,536, footnote180. Tinosa 15:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

In modern terms, JDL died a convicted mass murderer. His diary entries relating to the crime for which he was convicted may provide leads to reliable sources, but in themselves they are not reliable because JDL is not a credible witness to anything. The pith being, is this diary entry supported by any other contemporary primary source? In my truly humble opinion, I think it's almost worthless to an encyclopedia article without substantial secondary source interpretation and commentary as to provenance, historical context and credibility. Gwen Gale 16:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

In the news

US presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a great great grandson of Parley P. Pratt (Associated Press, Romney Family Tree Has Polygamy Branch) who is mentioned in this article, and whose article links back to this one. Depending on how Romney's campaign goes, this article could become a canny firestorm in a few months. Gwen Gale 02:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

its an interesting tale, yet just how could it become a "canny firestorm?"...this incident happened 150 years ago, Romneys grandmother wasnt even born yet, just how do you propose it would affect his campaign and what does it have to do with him or his ability to hold office?...83.79.167.141 20:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
There is a major hollywood release about the massacre coming out called "September Dawn." This, combined with Romney's campaign will throw the whole thing in the spotlight again. That is why it could become a canny firestorm. ---SAM --67.166.96.116 07:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Nothing. Aside from Utah politics, it's no big deal. I was only hinting that when WP articles about controversial topics attract wide attention in popular culture, extreme PoV spinners (along with well-meaning but mistaken ones) show up to have a go. Gwen Gale 22:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

yes u are correct, it is possible someone could use the Romney campaign and his genetic links to bring this incident of 150 years ago to light in a wider public arena, either to try and discredit him or Mormons in general, yet things like contemporary polygamy & child brides cast perhaps more negative light on them. Anyways, I doubt many people in the position to bring it to wider public scrutiny know of its existence tho...and just how does this historical tale affect Utah politics to this day, it happened 150 years ago? 83.79.142.61 13:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Because it's a lot easier to blow an event that happened 150 years ago into something it was not then it is to try to prove mormons practice polygomy and child marriage today. --67.166.96.116 07:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Ever been to Utah? :) Anyway I was only making a comment related to the dynamics of this wiki and how those could affect this article. Not much more to see here. Gwen Gale 13:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the sesquicentennial of this tragedy approaches

- with history being so often written by its victors! I occasionally return to this page only to see how the published article ever retains the perpetrators' after-the-fact spin concerning these emigrants' supposed culpabilities for their very own victimization. -- 67.82.249.240 09:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

If you have any specific objections to the article's content, along with any helpful citations from reliable secondary sources, that would be a help. Thanks. Gwen Gale 10:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
A reliable secondary source? "Some of the men boasted of possessing a gun which had "shot the guts out of Old Joe Smith" and claimed they would return from California with an army to wipe "every damn Mormon off the earth." http://www.mormonismi.net/bio/john_d_lee.shtml
Give me a break! Tinosa 21:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes and the article characterizes that as "...may have been...by some accounts claiming..." and the only part of that quote used in the article is "shot the guts out of Old Joe Smith" which is clearly presented as a possibly dubious account. Gwen Gale 22:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I got it now. To acheive a proper NPOV, Wildcats may have joinded the group followed by reference to Bagley's skepticism is the compromise/ neutral ground between the otherwise irreconciliable factions' complaints of "You don't see intrinsic value in Mormonism" on one hand and "You deny or excuse an historical atrocity" on the other. Thanks! --Justmeherenow 14:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I would say true or not the claim of "missouri wildcats" belongs in the article in some form. If they existed, the mention provides context; if they did not exist, the mention shows the extent and method of coverup. At a minimum more than ample evidence exists to show that the stories were circulating about the existance of the wildcats. I Agree that the wording at present is not perfect, and a better writeup that shows both possibilities is do-able. Perhaps you could paste your proposed re-write here (in the talk page) and recommended placement of this text here for discussion? I think you'll find the regular contributors of this article are fairer than you are giving us credit for. The problem this article seems to face is that only a few stick around to calmly discuss. Most contributors have done a "dump and run" of the event per their eyes, or worse a rebuttle to every paragraph that provides contrary contant to their view of the event. Compromise is possible, I think the regular contibutors of this article have proven that.Davemeistermoab 03:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


So there are these rough-and-tumble miners/ flinty plainsmen who were militia-members of some colorfully named unit who are said to have met the Fancher party in Salt Lake and some believe perhaps eleven of them joined the Fancher party - only (1) start bragging about having murdered Joseph Smith, and (2) (as the article subtly alludes to, and as was complained of in official reports by the territory's Indian agents Lee and Hamblin) to poison a spring, resulting in deaths of Native Americans; however, these reports - along with the belief that Missouri assassins were among the group -- Bagley and others say was part of a compaign of disinformation. If we are to refer to these rumors, they must be counterbalanced by rumors about Danites, where, instead of rough-and-tumble, Missourian plainsmen, we have hardscrabble frontiersmen Lee and Hamblin, militiamen of the Navoo Legion, who (1) seek to ally Native American with the militia against the approaching U.S. forces (2) enforce an official policy not to resupply trespassing emigrants, and (3) hope to dangle the rewards of plunder of all these non-sanctioned emigrants' properties in front of these tribesmen to foment terror. And whereas the evidence of Missouri Wildcats in Utah has died along with whatever fate imagined them, very amply memorialized notebook entries and participants' testimonies attest to the conspiracies of Utah's "avenging angels" during the then-still-raging "Mormon Reformation."

Yet the only culprit punished was Lee, his particular implementation of territory policies at Mountain Meadows framed as the deciding factor in the senseless slaughter there. And it's true that militia-directives Hamblin implemented immediately after the tragedy at Mountain Meadows were radically less severe: Mormon militia and tribesmen accosted the train following the Fancher party a day or two later and few miles north (a train ironically containing Missourians), which resulted in only an emigrant or two killed yet with this train's stock successfully negotiated to be driven from them (by threat of force, with the ruse it was to be turned over to the spontaneously warring Indians and appease them; yet after these emigrants arrived in California, they sent men back after the conflict had cooled and retrieved a portion of their brands of stock not from the Indians but from the Mormons.) Should the article address the covert guerilla warfare applied to all wagon trains at the onset of the War or just address the one wagon train slaughtered? To widen our scope will help us gain greater perspective.

Before deeper background, nuance, and color are added, we assemble the most pertinent, verifiable facts. Then there's impetus to mitigate the stark guilt by contextual explanation of how such treachery could occur at the hands of otherwise humane folk, with "color" added showing the animosity that festered between Missourians and Mormons and how the Mormons adopted the mindset at this juncture never to surrender ground again (with this dynamic's coming to authorize some Mormons to engage in the most vicious of wartime "exigencies"). But if the underlying motives of perpetrators is given weight, this material surely must be balanced. Since an article about an atrocity calls for a fore-determined set of bad guys and good guys, it still retains impartiality even when those who sympathize with its historical perpetrators feel uncomfortable - and that's how it should be. Thus a matter-of-fact portrayal with only addition of simplistic and vaguely sourced material backing a belief that the victims' actions contributed to their fate (uttering slurs and bragging at having perpetrated prior violence) opens the door also to reciprocal testimony being added of the zealous, intemperate rhetoric from the territory's Pulpit at the time; and vague reference to "Wildcats" need to be balanced with tales about the treachery of Mormon "Avenging Angels."

If we have here a narative of tragic heroes/victims being caught in the web of religious fanatics, we also are presented with the fact of the sincerity of the Mormon faith. Nonetheless, this faith's Millennialist nature in 1857 - its divine calling to build a Final Utopia According To God's Plan and according to His personal direction - motivated some Mormons to an overly ruthless (percieved) defense against a coming conflagration. And the ruthlessness displayed at Mountain Meadows still is and was inexcusable. --Justmeherenow 12:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick comment. As you state, the way to a neutral presentation is a detatched description of the events. Thus, whether the Wildcats were actually with the Francher party or not, there were reports of rumors (the fact being presented is that "there were reports of rumors of Wildcats...", not that "there were Wildcats...". Thus, one sticks to the neutral presentation. In my mind this may help one understand the context of the event, but in no way excuses the perpetrators. Try an experiment, ask someone who is not Mormon and doesn't even know what the MMM is to read the article and report to you their conclusions about the events without informing them of your view. I'd be curious about the results. --Trödel 23:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

There's a lot of common knowledge which isn't in the article in its present form. I'm going to review its history and see where there are places where sourced info has been deleted and seek a consensus to weave it back into the article.

For example, ParkerMMM disputes that Alexander Fancher was ever called "Coronel" (referencing Shirts) and that the train should thought of as a single unit prior to many of their consituent parts assembling in northern Utah (referencing Fancher/Wellner). --Justmeherenow 20:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Please bring any proposed changes here to the talk page first, with supporting citations from reliable sources. Your remarks contain a number of inaccuracies about the article content along with what I take as a severe PoV slant. Thanks. Gwen Gale 21:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Gwen Gale:

I'll mention everything here first.

Is there a citation of Alexander Fancher's contemporarily being addressed as "coronel"? Is the analysis that he led the majority of the train from a single location in Arkansas through to their fate in Mountain Meadows the only reasonable one? If not, let's be bold and fashion the narrative to account for this interpretation (referencing Shirts and Fancher/Wellner, respectively), since, of course, nobody owns a Wikipedia article :^) and when covering controversial subjects it's certainly possible to include the most compelling of whatever historical interpretations as are competing while at the same time maintaining neutrality.

By way of analogy, many Turks believe sharp condemnations of the atrocities they visited on Armenians, during the mutual nationalistic struggles of the two peoples, is awful screed and displays a slanted point of view and that such viewpoints should be suppressed since such condemnations shouldn't be lain solely at Turkey's feet (which, incidentally, culminated in Turkey's becoming 99% Muslim and Greece's becoming 98% Christian and so on) - and I'm sure with a moments' thought we could cite numerous additional controversies of this type as well. But to get beyond such tensions and examine some specific atrocity against the Armenians, we'd search out as much truly relevant information as possible before we'd allow things to become clouded with who started what first. Once that's accomplished, those sympathizing with Turkey's historical nationalistic aims would be allowed to reference Armenians' provocations, albeit in a reciprocal manner such that not just one side ends up with its grievances aired. And so, with concern to the Mountian Meadows massacre, rumors about culpable Missourians must be balanced with the quotes from the pulpit admonishing the people not to resupply the emigrant trains and against militia's overt instructions not to protect the emigrants from warring Native Americans.

To be here a century-and-a-half later merely hemming and hawing about the covert, para-military policy underlying that policy, without which policy and its perhaps faulty implementation (as both are documented in the historical record) the massacre would not have occured, would not speak well for us as neutral Wikipedians; and instead we will surely do the right thing and just bite the bullet and allow whatever the unvarnished facts are to speak for themselves. --Justmeherenow 02:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm just curious - what implications does this have on the massacre? I.e. that the final composition of the francher party was not settled until they were in Northern Utah? The reason I ask is that there should be a notable impact on the article in order to be included. Thx in adv --Trödel 02:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

If, according to consensus, any particular improvement is too unimportant to be made, I'll refrain from making it. However, where folks have strong beliefs about material they feel would help improve the article, we can resort to something such as, "Although such and such is in dispute, the belief of some historian such as Bagley is thus and so, whereas Fancher family historians have recently argued (1997) this and that.

  1. Viz. - Assume good faith; consider the other is trying to positively contribute.
  2. Don't revert good faith edits. E.g. - Reverting other than obvious vandalism (like "LALALALAL*&*@#@THIS_SUX0RZsammygoo", or someone changing "4+5=9" to "4+5=30").
  3. Be gracious: Liberal in forebearance and Conservative in behavior. --Justmeherenow 05:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
The request for an explanation of why that particular edit should be included does assume good faith. I am assuming that there is something I don't know about that explains why it is important to include that the party was not fully assembled until northern Utah; therefore I am asking what it is. BTW, I would suggest that quoting basic policies to experienced Wikipedians who 1) clearly understand them 2) have been successfully contributing and working together on a controversial topic is counterproductive. --Trödel 14:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Moreover, the article already puts Fancher's affected military rank of "colonel" into quotes (adapting an unoffical military title was much more socially acceptable 150 years ago, by the bye so the whole thing is utterly unremarkable), along with making it wholly clear the wagon train's structure was fairly loose and that the "Fancher party" included wagons which had started out from Arkansas with sundry other trains. Gwen Gale 14:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

No need to go on about all this stuff IMHO.

  • Please provide a verifiable citation for anything you think might be helpfully added to the article content.
  • Likewise, if there is anything in the article which you think is not supported by a verifiable reference, pls bring it up.
  • This is a controversial topic. As an editor, I will tend to rm anything in this article which is not supported by a reliable citation.

Lastly, could we leave the Armenians out of this? Such talk can easily stray into WP:OR. Thanks. Gwen Gale 11:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there a consensus to allow the inclusion in the article of some type of sourced material to address the imbalance caused by the current article's prevalent citation of rumors among Mormons of Missouri "Wildcats"? That is, not necessarily a precisely reciprocal citation of rumors among Missourians of "Mormon Danites" but rather to revert some of the sourced accusations against Utah territorial officials?

Then when I glanced up the talk page I saw that there's been a proposed edit to reference recent research by Fancher family historians which reflect their belief that the Baker party - who, remember started off from "Bellers Stand" - didn't really meet up with Captain Fancher's group - which actually didn't start off from Beller's Stand - before the two companies had arrived in Utah. (That is, as opposed to forty families supposed to have met up at Beller's Stand in Arkansas as our article currently says.) Although I'm new to Wikipedia in face of many of you more experienced hands, I nonetheless believe this proposed edit would have improved the article. I didn't mean to insult anyone by refering to the Don't-revert-good-faith-edits policy, the nuances of which I admit I don't understand fully; however, from what I understand the spirit of this enterprise to be it's my impression that if others wish for the article's original interpretation to be maintained we could then agree to quote sources for both interpretations?

Maybe I'm mistaken?...but from what I understand - as in love of art for the sake of art, improvements to precision in a Wikipedia article's wording is an admirable end in itself and we're supposed to strive toward a synthesis of good faith edits toward improvement rather than merely protect the status quo out of fear of faulty interpretations. So that, for example, in the case of whether the Baker party grouped with the others at a single place in Arkansas or not, to support any total revert of this material, the onus is actually on those championing the existing interpretation to impeach this interpretation from the newer-dated published research by historians of the victims' families...not the other way around?) :^) --Justmeherenow 19:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Ya know, I'll try this another way to show I'm listening and waiting. Could you please simply and briefly list one single item of content you wish to change in this article along with a supporting citation from a reliable source? Once we've handled that one, we can carry on to the next. How's that? Cheers. Gwen Gale 19:59, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

How about the proposed text

"The Fancher and the Huff parties both left from Benton County, Arkansas, the Poteet-Tackett-Jones party (These three men were relatives) from Johnson County, the Baker party from Carroll County near present day Harrison, the Cameron the the Miller parties (previously from the Osage area) left from Johnson County and the Mitchell, the Dunlap, and the Prewitt parties left from Marion County. They all left at different times with sometimes individuals joining and others leaving the individual parties along the way. The Baker party was the last of the parties to arrive with the rest who would unite under Captain Alexander Fancher's leadership as their wagon master at Salt Lake City, (Fancher, Wellner, 2007) where the emigrants faced the decision of either taking the northern route towards their hoped-for destination, which would entail their traveling westward across the dessert and Sierra Mountains and then southward through California, or the southern route which would carry them through the settlements in Utah. One couple among these assembled parties did hurry westward..." (reference deposition document archived on-line)

spliced to due the the lateness of the season ...and on --referencing Fancher, Lynn-Marie & Wallner, Alison C., "1857: An Arkansas Family Primer To The Mountain Meadows Massacre", 2007. Posted with permission of the authors)? --Justmeherenow 21:32, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Why is all the granularity as to family names important here? Were they among the massacred victims? Aside from this, are you aware that the article currently makes all the above clear, and sometimes in more detail? Gwen Gale 21:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
My $.02, Why not start a seperate article titled the "Fancher Wagon Train" or something similar. Then have this (MMM) article briefly mention the makeup of the train and link to the new article for more information. To include so much information here about the Fancher wagon train could dilute the purpose of the article, with is after all, about the Massacre, not the Wagon train. Similar to how we purged information about John D. Lee earlier and moved it to a seperate article about Lee. If a seperate article is started about the Fancher Party, I would support removing the "missouri Wildcats" from this article and moving it to the the "Fancher Wagon Train" article with more detail.
On the other point in question above. I have no problem if the article BRIEFLY mention Danites and link to the Danites article. There is PLENTY of sidebar topics that can and will get dragged into this article if we don't adhere to this standard (keep this article about the massacre and only brief mentions of related topics). I can see 2 hours after somebody throws in a 3 paragraph subtopic about the Danites somebody else will throw in a 3 paragraph article about the Haun's Mill Massacre, Extermination Order or other pro-mormon side to this, then the next day somebody else will throw in a 3 paragraph subtopic about the covenents of the temple endowment or some other anti-lds side argument and so it goes. Sound Familiar (retorichal question to the long time participants in this article =-) )?
Davemeistermoab 22:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Lol > Davemeistermoab. OK I'll try to make a stub (stubs) - thanks. :^) --Justmeherenow 23:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

If there is a lot of supportable info to be had about the Fancher party (in all its forms) between the time it first appeared in Arkansas and was slaughtered at MM yes, I think a separate article called Fancher party would be helpful. Gwen Gale 12:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

B. Young + lynchpin = MMM

September 1, 1857. I'm surprised that the diary of Dimick Huntington has not been introduced. According to Huntington, B. Young, met with the four southern Utah chiefs (September 1, 1857) telling them that if they help kill the Americans the Indians could have all the cattle on the California Trail South.(SEE Bagley. Chapter 6. PP 113-114).

Indian agent Garland Hurts's annual report excerpt. "Dirnie B.. Huntington, (interpreter for Brigham Young.) and Bishop West, of Ogden, came to the Snake village, and told the Indians that Brigham wanted them to run off the emigrants' cattle, and if they would do so they might have them as their own". See: Message of the President pages 96-98.Tinosa 16:49, 27 February 2007 (UTC) AGAIN! Tinosa 01:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Tinosa. What do other sources say about it? Could it be backdated "hearsay"? Could be spot on but I'm worried about WP:OR is all. Gwen Gale 09:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
See Brooks, Chapter 3, pp140-142. See Bagley. Chapter 6. pp 113-114. See Denton. Chapter 11. p158. According to Brooks, the Journal of Church History describes an hour long meeting with the Chiefs on Sept. 1 but not the conversation. The Hamblin journal page for that day is torn out. Brooks speculates on the conversation. Bagley & Denton claim the journal of Huntington was found in 1999 which details the conversation. Tinosa 15:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Put it in then. I wasn't aware it has support. Gwen Gale 16:16, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

New article Fancher party Arkansas emigrant wagon train (Mountain Meadows massacre)

I notice that the new article, Fancher party Arkansas emigrant wagon train (Mountain Meadows massacre), includes some problematic material. There is a quotation attributed to "Fancher family historian" (name?) that incorrectly attributes to Wilford Woodruff the story that Brigham Young ordered the memorial cairn to be torn down. (Woodruff's diary recorded Young's visit to the memorial and his statement regarding vengeance, but did not say the the cairn was destroyed. The source for the destruction story is a family "legend" reported by Brooks (p. 183), which had been passed down from her grandfather, Dudley Leavitt.)

The new article also has a long quotation from Mark Twain that had been dropped from the MMM article. The quotation includes some factual inaccuracies (e.g., the massacre was on the 11th, not the 10th). Twain wrote many years after the massacre and was not an expert; he was relying on other secondary sources. I think the biggest problem, however, was that the old article had become a battleground in which quotations were being used for POV pushing. If the new article becomes a dumping ground for quotes and POV pushing that have been rejected for the main article, it will quickly become a candidate for articles for deletion.

The purpose of the new article is to provide some details on the Fancher party that are not needed for the main article. The same standards should apply to the new article as for the main article. All material must be encyclopedic, verified by high quality sources, and reflect a neutral point of view and avoid original research. BRMo 17:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Erm there are many worries here. The article title is too long. Nothing is cited. I suggested Fancher party. Speedy and try again? Gwen Gale 17:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

For starters, I've moved the content to Fancher party and will put a speedy tag on the other. Gwen Gale 17:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, almost everything there was a raw text or data dump, the rest was uncited PoV. Fancher party redirects here for now. Gwen Gale 18:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I won't be editing at all on the above article(s) but can't support a link from this article to a raw data and text dump. Gwen Gale 19:21, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Because Mark Twain says the ambushed travelers held up a baby dressed in white instead of Lee's merely waving the palm of his hand to signal he'd be willing to negotiate the embattled emigrants' passage to safety? Who cares. Mark Twain's rhetoric wasn't sensationalistic. It was ironic in spots - ironic that religious people, who you'd expect to look out for others, get caught up in atrocity. But what a low threshhold for pithy commentary hereabouts! I'm learning that Wikipedia's all about compromise. But my sythesis of how wagon trains left from various places in Arkansas is a "raw text...a dump...blah blah"? I'm offended. --Justmeherenow 03:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Article intro

Here is the article's current introductory section, minus the reference citation:

The Mountain Meadows massacre was a mass killing of emigrants, mostly from Arkansas, at Mountain Meadows, a stopover along the Old Spanish Trail in southwestern Utah, on Friday, September 11, 1857. Estimates of the number of men, women and children killed range from less than 100 to 140 individuals. The causes and circumstances remain highly controversial.

Why does it not identify the perpetrators of the killings? We get the victims and info on the number killed, but nothing about who was on the other side. According to the Manual of Style:

the lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article (e.g. when a related article gives a brief overview of the topic in question). It is even more important here than for the rest of the article that the text be accessible, and consideration should be given to creating interest in reading the whole article (see news style and summary style). The first sentence in the lead section should be a concise definition of the topic unless that definition is implied by the title (such as 'History of …' and similar titles).

The lead section needs mention who was on both sides of the incident. Has this come up before in prior discussions? Jacob1207 06:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, no, it has not come up. Point is well stated. So how do we word this? "The killers were radical Mormons with some accounts having Paiute indian involvement"? How's that?
Davemeistermoab 14:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't say radical, they were drawn from the mainstream of local LDS communities. Gwen Gale 15:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Gwen is correct; these were just your average Mormons who carried things to an extreme. I would reject an attempt to describe them as a people who were evil or exceptional. They lived their lives normally prior to the massacre and for whatever reason convinced themselves that killing a group of strangers was an acceptable choice. --Storm Rider (talk) 17:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. What do you suggest? Davemeistermoab 20:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Since Lee was convicted we can safely say "by a Utah military unit believed influenced by a radical provocateur"? Then for readers wanting background, provide links to articles about the regular LDS militia, the Nauvoo Legion turned Utah Territorial Militia, and the radical paramilitary group that Lee was associated with, the Danites turned Utah territorial secret service? --Justmeherenow 20:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
WP:OR and WP:NPOV#Undue weight. Gwen Gale 20:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Slaughtering many dozens of people under the banner of a truce is both evil and exceptional and can never be considered acceptable, no matter the circumstances. Duke53 | Talk 08:35, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Duke, you missed my point. The people were not evil or exceptional. They were very ordinary individuals who did something that was atrociously evil. To understand this you must understand that average people are capable of doing incredible things given the right circumstances. Think of Pol Pot and the killing fields of Cambodia, Stalin and the gulags and the massive slaughter of many tens of thousands of Russians. We like to kid ourselves that evil actions demand evil people; it makes us feel better about ourselves. However, given the right set of circumstances each one of us might even have chosen to crucify our God; they were no different than you and me. If you think differently, remember the next time you seek to offend another. It always begins with just a word. --Storm Rider (talk) 09:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I like Storm Rider's answer enough to leave it there, myself. Gwen Gale 12:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Storm, you missed my point: the day they committed those murders they officially became evil and exceptional ... by choosing to take part in this horrific crime they sentenced themselves to an eternity in Hell. Duke53 | Talk 14:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Erm, that's PoV. From any theological standpoint it's utter codswallop for you to make that "judgement" yourself (about anyone but yourself). From a standpoint of WP policy, your take is unsupported: Most of the killers were family people from the local communities, in an isolated religious culture, doing what they were ordered to do as militia members. What they did was murder, criminal, ugly, so too "evil" if that word does it for you, but luzzing these qualitative adjectives into the article is PoV. Meanwhile, find a verifiable cite from a reliable publisher that calls these folks "evil" and we can put it in anyway for context but it must be referenced. Gwen Gale 14:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
POV? Here on the talk page? ... nice spin. If others can discuss Pol Pot, Stalin, etc. here, then I can make the point that the Mormons who committed this atrocity are evil also. Their slaughter of those innocent people under the cirumstances that took place was evil. 14:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, you misunderstood me (and sorry if I misled you), your WP:CIVIL PoV is welcome here for context, please go for it :) It's ok with me, anyway. If I talk back about it, that's only cuz if I don't it might imply I'd be ok with this kind of stuff leaking into the article is all. Now, meanwhile, I do agree with you that the deeds themselves were utter "evil" (a word I dislike but nonethless tacitly accept in terms of moral responsibility) but I can't even begin with any notion the people themselves were "evil." Hey, my Calvinist ancestors might even say they were doomed to evil deeds, but calling them evil is not the same thing at all. Semantics? Naw. We're all cousins, but for the grace of [whatever] go I? Gwen Gale 15:05, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Gees it is good to have Duke back. I have missed that refreshing sense of God's own voice among us to set us straight. I really don't know how I survived these last many weeks of relative calm, neutral editing and discussion. It so enlivens the conversation when an all-knowing (even knows when someone is condemned to Hell is pretty all-knowing) is interjected into the mix. Welcome back; you have been deeply missed. --Storm Rider (talk) 16:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, please don't ever study any type of philosophy or history in any depth; it would completely throw off that wonderful sense of all-knowhing you possess. --Storm Rider (talk) 16:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Someone, trying to be AGF helpful, reverted part of this discussion as over the top. I restored only because I think it's indeed helpful as cultural context to this highly controversial topic and the article we're trying to write. Cheers! Gwen Gale 17:05, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I was the one who was trying to be helpful, and "fair enough" is my general response to Gwen's revert. But I think that Duke53 is entitled to his opinion of those who carried out the massacre and is free to conjecture about their eternal reward. I see no reason to take such remarks personally, and Storm Rider's reaction is IMO not at all justified by the prior context of the conversation. I removed it because it did nothing to advance the conversation and merely invited a response in kind from Duke53, who hopefully will instead take the high road in any reply he chooses to make. If it's more useful to have the comment restored here for context, so be it, but I urge everyone here, and Storm Rider especially, to refrain from posting in the heat of emotion.
As far as the original question is concerned, I think the current phrasing is nice, concise, and neutral as ice. (It's that time; I gotta rhyme!) The perpetrators were "Mormon militia and Paiute Indians". Does anything more really need to be said here? alanyst /talk/ 17:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks again for being helpful and also for lettin' us take care of our own, so to speak :) (Meanwhile I fully support WP policy, which always has last sway here) Gwen Gale 17:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
" ... but I urge everyone here..." Okay then .... what I am getting from this remark is that I should just accept the sarcasm and personal attack by Storm, simply because he is the one that made it; in other words, I should be the 'bigger man' and allow him to break WP policy. I know that some admins watch this page; shouldn't they take care of this? It appears to me that certain editors are free to make personal attacks without fear of reprisal. Duke53 | Talk 20:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I took this edit by you as at least a go at stirring things up here because it clearly hints that someone who doesn't agree with you finds the slaughter of innocent women and children "acceptable." Meanwhile this article does have theological hooks and you've said stuff that, truth be told, is unsupported by any theological scholarship I've ever heard of. My take on StormRider's reply was that he was trying to pithily point this out to you. If you took it as a personal attack I humbly suggest you consider toning down your sweeping statements about morality, talking as if editors here condone murder. Gwen Gale 20:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
The problem, Duke, is that you enter a discussion mid-stream with "Slaughtering many dozens of people ...can never be considered acceptable..." in response to "...and for whatever reason convinced themselves that killing a group of strangers was an acceptable choice." Discussion of the events is useful on the Talk page, and I personally think discussion evidencing a POV is more than welcome; however, this comment does not help reach concensus on what language should or should not be included.
Storm Rider sought to clarify his remark with, "They were very ordinary individuals who did something that was atrociously evil." Thus explaining his desire that the article should reflect that this is the case, which IMHO is an even more terrifying explanation - that normal people could do such an evil thing. The next comment does not address whether that is an appropriate tone to take in the article, but instead is "they officially became evil and exceptional ... by choosing to take part in this horrific crime they sentenced themselves to an eternity in Hell." What is the purpose of that comment? Do you want the article to claim that they sentenced themselves to Hell? Or to make the claim that the purpetrators became evil? Or are you just wanting to make sure we know your viewpoint on the events?
"I should just accept the sarcasm and personal attack by Storm, simply because he is the one that made it; in other words, I should be the 'bigger man' ..." seems to be an attempt to justify your own bad behaviour by pointing to the bad behavior of another. You assume no one is complaining to Storm; however, a note to Storm Rider is all that is needed to remind him that his comments was unproductive, and he will readily admit that he pushed things too far (and notice he has not responded).
But so that you can see that we are "being fair", let me publicly say: Storm Rider - don't provoke Duke through sarcasm. Duke, your behavior is inappropriate and seeks conflict, stop it. Both of you need to focus on promoting the shared interest in identifying neutral language. --Trödel 22:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
" ... it would completely throw off that wonderful sense of all-knowhing you possess."; "Gees it is good to have Duke back. I have missed that refreshing sense of God's own voice among us to set us straight. Yeah, none of that could possibly be taken as a personal attack.
The commandment "thou shall not kill" (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17), is better understood to mean "you shall not murder," most modern translations of the Bible rendered it this way. The primary reason God hates murder is that out of all creation, only human are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27; 9:4-6). Even before the codification of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai the murder of other human beings was wrong (Genesis 4:8-12; 4:23-24; 9:4-6; Exodus 1:16-17).
What those Mormons did was to commit cold-blooded murder (under any circumstances). Murderers condemn themselves to hell. I am as firm in that belief as the LDS folks here are in any of their beliefs.
p.s. Where did the sources citing the fact that the 'Paiutes' may simply have been other Mormons dressed as Paiutes? Remember the 'when they washed their faces, I was surprised to see that their faces were white' type citations? This article has been sanitized to a LDS POV, IMO; other sources were cited for info ... then the sources were challenged. Huh? Duke53 | Talk 22:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I am going to echo Alanyst. I think that saying the perpetrators were "Mormon militia and Paiute Indians" is sufficient, NPOV, and has the precision we're looking for in the intro section. The first sentence seemed a bit clunky to me, so I reworked it and the second sentence. The lead section currently reads as follows:

The Mountain Meadows massacre was a mass killing of emigrants, mostly from Arkansas, by Mormon militia and Paiute Indians on Friday, September 11, 1857. The event took place at Mountain Meadows, a stopover along the Old Spanish Trail in southwestern Utah, and estimates of the number of men, women and children killed range from less than 100 to 140 individuals. [citation omitted] The causes and circumstances remain highly controversial.

I don't think it is necessary to say it was done by "evil, radical Mormons" or anything like that. No one reading the article is going to think that all Mormons were involved or approved of the action any more than they'd think that all British troops were involved with the Boston massacre after reading that it was "an attack on colonist civilians by British troops on 5 March 1770..." I agree with StormRider's comments that the perpetrators "were not evil or exceptional. They were very ordinary individuals who did something that was atrociously evil. To understand this you must understand that average people are capable of doing incredible things given the right circumstances." Jacob1207 20:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Just now noticed the BY-Paiutes(?sp)-powwow edit, Gwen. Marvelous. I withdraw my alternate Fancher party MMM page. Kudos (as Homer and TIME Newsweekly say)! --Justmeherenow 21:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I am baffled by the 'redaction' of my statements in this section. Is only a pro-mormon POV being allowed to stand ? Sure seems that way, especially when this is allowed to stay: "Gees it is good to have Duke back. I have missed that refreshing sense of God's own voice among us to set us straight." That is not what WP is about. Deletion without comment is considered vandalism on most pages here ... "redacting duk" is not a legitimate comment. 'Seeking conflict' works both ways; isn't the Bible a legitimate source anymore? Duke53 | Talk 03:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

What was redacted? Sounds like a mistake. Let's put it back. Gwen Gale 03:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
It was no 'mistake', since trodel put 'redacting duk' in the comment line ... sounded like he knew exactly what he was doing. Duke53 | Talk 03:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I found it. It's kinda preachy I must say but let me ask then (with all due respect, truly) are you saying there are editors here who don't think MMM was murder? Or are you referring to LDS spin which has blamed the emigrants (in effect, along with the women and kids) for winding up as murder victims? Gwen Gale 14:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
(Burying this at the bottom, since I've suggested it before anyway): First off - even if Lee's considered mainstream, contrary to his after-the-fact protestations he'd been only following orders under his vehement protest, history shows Lee not to have been terribly immune to a thirst for "sanctioned bloodlust" in the cause of patriotism. Switch frames of reference to, instead of Mormon guerillas(?sp) in wartime, imagining instead the Ohio Guardsmen maintaining civil order at Kent State or Guard troops guarding prisoner at Abu Graib: in all cases, the unnecessary violence perpetrated is aberrent, whether due the callousness of participants or the callousness enshrined in the guidelines and practices put in place by superiors.

Anyways - the film September Dawn will showcase Young's intemperate pronouncements as I think a disembodied voice in its soundtrack and I think we should do the same in the article (balanced with Young's expressed shock that the entire wagon train had been slaughtered "by Indians" and his regret his messenger hadn't reached Cedar City in time to avert it). --Justmeherenow 21:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

How is mentioning the day of the week in the lead helpful?

It looks pretty clunky, imo. Most historical article don't do this correct. Can we standardize this and leave it out? Thanks --Tom 19:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll go with consensus. The day of the week has been accepted by many editors for a long time and I think it should stay unless a consensus shows up here to rm it. Gwen Gale 20:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Gwen, is there a specific reason for it? Thats what I was sort of getting at. Is that day of the week relevant to the event? Has this been discussed before? Sorry for not going back through all the talk pages. Anyways, this is a small blip on the wiki radar :) Cheers! --Tom 20:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Lots of sources name the day of the week straight off (and no those aren't all WP mirrors :). I could speculate as to why but I'm happy to let others give their input before going on about it. Gwen Gale 20:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Gwen, the first is a mirror of Wikipedia. The second site is Wikipedia. The third site uses "Friday" as the night of the movie, the forth uses "Friday" as the night of the dinner and actually reads "Please join us, as we remember all of those who died in the Mountain Meadows Massacre on September 11th, 1857." Providing examples/sources by using mutliple words in a google search is not very helpful and imo worse. --Tom 23:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Hey I agree with you there, I was only being a bit lazy cuz I don't care about it enough to spend time supporting it, is all. Anyway of course there are trash references to the word in that Google search. I was hoping you'd see the others but no worries and thanks for looking at the link anyway :) Gwen Gale 23:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Anyways, can some else please explain the significance of the day of the week this event took place, If so, lets source that and get that material into the article, others wise, lets move on, thanks --Tom 22:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
As I said, I'm ok with any consensus on this. Gwen Gale 23:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
shadowbot! What is it? Worm? Virus? Where did it come from? How do I get rid of it? Apparently it doesn't like the word Friday? Anyone have more some information about the entity or the other?Tinosa 01:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
User:Shadowbot is an anti-vandalism bot. It has its flaws. One of those flaws is that it sometimes behaves like a vandal. Welcome to Wikipedia. Gwen Gale 01:52, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

My two cents: first, it's a pretty trivial thing so I hope this discussion doesn't drag on too far. Second, specifying that it occurred on a Friday suggests that there's some importance about it having been a Friday, instead of any other day of the week. Are there any sources that place significance on the particular day of the week on which the massacre took place? If not, I say remove it; the date is enough for anyone who's really interested to figure out that it was Friday. If there's some citable claim that Friday is significant (such as, because the perpetrators wanted everything to be over by the Sabbath or something like that) then leave it in, but mention the significance in the article so readers don't have to wonder why the day of the week was important enough to place in the introduction. alanyst /talk/ 02:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Lord! I was trying to say the exact same thing but instead I end up in a flame war with my new friend Gwen :) Seriously, I wasn't trying to be a prick, but when I saw the day of the week mentioned it looked weird and out of place and made me wonder if there was more to the story. I am still wondering and totally agree that if there is NO significance to that day of the week it should get nuked. Anyways, thank you alanyst for verbalizing what I obviously couldn't. Cheers and good night! --Tom 03:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC) ps that bot revert was awesome :)
To clarify, it may have some significance. It appears in the introduction of many accounts but it may only be a textual artifact of how this tale has been told over the past 150 years. Dunno. Don't have time to run it down now. Gwen Gale 03:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
You have yet to provide one other example where its used. --Tom 12:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Please reread my posts on this then. Gwen Gale 12:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Why? You said above that "Friday" appears in the intro of many accounts. Can you point to where you provided them? Your google search turned up one, Wikipedia. Thanks,--Tom 13:55, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Why are you asking me about this? I already said I'd go with the consensus on it and don't have time to support it further. Gwen Gale 13:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Because you told me to reread your posts. This is my last post. Please reply so you can have the last word and we can be finished. Cheers,--Tom 14:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Ambiguous objection

Though the Mormon militia was called the Nauvoo Legion until 1870 (See WP article Nauvoo Legion) I'm told to source that the local militia at MM was a part of the general, Utah territorial militia called the Nauvoo Legion? And if I do so in good faith, I've satisfied the requirement? (Maybe refering to a scholarly article on-line which says, referring to the massacre "...the local officers of the Nauvoo Legion?) Someone please help. --Justmeherenow 03:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

There's no ambiguity at all. You've asserted that the militia at MM was the Nauvoo Legion. There may have been a few former members of the NL there but that's not the same thing. As I've asked several times now, please provide a verifiable citation supporting your assertion that the militia at MM was the Nauvoo Legion. Mind, you can't use another Wikipedia article as a source. Gwen Gale 03:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The current issue of Dialogue has an aricle in it by the long-time Utah War researcher William P. MacKinnon. (See link here.) In it MacKinnon (who cites colleagial(?sp) friendship with Bagley) says his own research uses the Hafens' (viz., LeRoy R. and Ann W. Hafen - [Incidentally, LeRoy is the uncle of Juanita Brooks -Justmeherenow]) seminal The Utah Expedition, 1857-1858: A Documentary Account of the United States Military Movement under Col. Albert Sidney Johnston, and the Resistance by Brigham Young and the Mormon Nauvoo Legion (1958; rpt., Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1982) as its starting off point. But FWIW in this scholar's memoirs "A Half-Century with the Utah War," MacKinnon cites the MMM crime as being the nations' worst up till Oklahoma City, characterizing it as "the execution of 120 children, women, and disarmed men at Mountain Meadows on Sept. 11, 1857, by Nauvoo Legion troops and Indian auxiliaries" on (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (Vol. 40 No. 1) page 60.
Anyways, what I feel to be more important than such common knowledge as the name of the Utah territorial militia is to locate American cultural historians' cites for our MMM article to provide contextual understanding of the causes of the Utah War (and by extention, the massacre) e/g on pages 59-60 where MacKinnon points us in the direction of historian David L. Bigler's perceptions concerning "the irreconcilable Mormon millennial belief that drove Brigham Young ...to establish a theocracy...eventually (to be) independent of the American federal republic". And as for what I think is a reasonably balanced treatment of the Mormon militia, the Nauvoo Legion's, actions during the Utah War I nominate for our consideration some paraphrase of what MacKinnon says on Page 49, "If pressed for details, some Utahns might be able to recite an account of unwarranted federal intervention or colonialism....", combined with this on page 53, "With respect to the Mormon perspective, although many Latter-day Saints view the Nauvoo Legion's exploits during 1857-58 with pride this positive view is often muted by acute awareness that the Mormon military organization that successfully harassed the Utah Expedition during the fall of 1857 had also committed atrocities such as Mountain Meadows. Mormon military action during the Utah War, then has cut both ways." --Justmeherenow 18:55, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I've checked the reference and added the citation with the link to Nauvoo Legion. It appears that the name was used a bit loosely for any Mormon militia during that period, nonetheless the citation supports it and I'm ok with it. Thanks. Gwen Gale 19:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Brigham Young's meeting with chiefs

The following statement was recently added to the article:

On September 1, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory of Utah, Brigham Young, administered a meeting with the Indian Chiefs of the Southern Territory which included the area around Mountain Meadows. During the one hour meeting in Salt lake City, Young complained to the Chiefs that the Americans had come to kill both the Mormons and the Indians. He told the Chiefs that if they would fight the Americans, he would give them all the cattle on the Southern California Trail.

While I agree that a discussion of Young's meeting with the chiefs should be included in the article, in the interest of neutral point of view it is important to note that historians do not agree on the implications of this meeting. Bagley's view (which is the one largely reflected in the current paragraph) is that this meeting is the "smoking gun" proving that Young ordered the attack. Denton (though she also thinks Young is guilty), however, downplays the relevance of the meeting, correctly noting the chiefs would not have been able to travel 300 miles in 6 days to order an attack. Denton argues that the Paiutes did not participate in the massacre. Briggs and Crockett, in separate reviews of Bagley's book, also argue against Bagley's interpretation of the meeting. I suggest that we need to review and edit this paragraph to appropriately reflect the lack of agreement among historians on the significance of the meeting. BRMo 03:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed this doesn't prove Brigham specifically ordered MMM (though the LDS was clearly promising emigrant cattle to indians as a general bounty for attacking emirgants). It belongs in the article but I think the context BRMo notes above would be helpful. Gwen Gale 03:36, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
The account doesn't make sense. Why would Young need to bribe the Indians to fight if he had just told them the U.S. Army was coming to kill them? Seems like protecting their families and land would have been enough for them to fight without having to be bribed, doesn't it? It's illogical that this was the outcome of the meeting. --67.166.96.116 07:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Destruction of memorial

The following sentence was recently added: "In 1861 a party led by Brigham Young discovered Carleton's memorial, tore down the cross, and scattered the cairn."

There has been much discussion of this incident on the archives of these talk pages. If the story is to be included, in the interests of NPOV it should also be noted that the story is based on oral tradition and that there are contradictory reports from contemporary diaries that report seeing the cairn several years after its alleged destruction. BRMo 03:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see it had crept back in. I've rm'd it pending further discussion here. The tales's both contradicted and wholly unsupported by any other source independent of it. Gwen Gale 03:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I had just finished reading Krakauer's book and added the incident without knowing it had been discussed here already. I don't know his source, so I won't quibble over the (re)deletion. -Kris Schnee 20:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised that a subject the historians Brooks, Bagley, & Denton dedicated so much material to, is not included IE "Vengeance is Mine.." & the monument destruction. Brooks list 2 references for the destruction: Stenhouse p453 & Waite p71. Stenhouse references Waite p71. Waite p71 (found on Waite p81)"This monument is said to have been destroyed the first time Brigham visited that part of the Territory."

According to Brooks, the story is verified by a legend in her family. She says one of her uncles preserved her grandfathers words (Dudley Leavitt) and uses quotes around the story. The uncle was the son of Dudley & he "preserved" the words. The story was verified by two other sons of Dudley. It seems the uncles were very close to the source.

Near the end of Brooks' discussion of the monument destruction, she tells of Lorenzo Brown seeing the monument on 1 July 1864 intact. Written below the bible verse was. "Remember Hauns Mill and Carthage Jail".

According to Bagley, Chapter 13. VENGEANCE IS MINE. p. 247. note 106. "George F. Price's company of California Volunteers restored the monument in May 1864".

I vote for inclusion of B.Y.'s "Vengence.." & 'monument destruction' in the article.Tinosa 16:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

B.Y. "Vengance is mine and I have taken a little" from the diary of Wilford Woodruff. May 25,(1861). Brooks. Chapter 9. Tinosa 16:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

External link

Threeafterthree has deleted a link to a web page that contains several documents. The comments were cryptic statements: "removed per wp:el" and "angelfire is not an approriate link." I've looked at WP:EL, and the material seems to meet the relevant criterion, "sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article," and does not appear to involve any of the characteristics of links to be avoided. During the article re-write, the external links were all reviewed for relevance and compliance with Wikipedia policy. Next to the link there is a comment (added during our review) saying that one of the articles may come from copyrighted material. (The others are so old that they clearly do not.) However, the quotation would appear to meet fair use criteria, since it is a relatively short excerpt (about a page) of a several hundred page book. Although the material isn't critical to the article, I think it's just as relevant as many of the other links to old accounts of the massacre.

If Threeafterthree wants to delete links that have been vetted by the consensus of editors here, I think he owes us a better explanation of his reasoning. BRMo 03:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi BRMo, My understanding is that angelfire.com is a "personal publishing communities" (according to their site) which is not appropriate as a reference or EL on Wikipedia. Similar to a geocites or myspace, anybody can put up anything and verification of material is impossible, please try to find the original source for the material you want added or linked to this article. Its all about improving the quality of the project and striding for the highest possible level of verifiability. How about citing the actual book, author and page, that way, anybody can go to the library and check it out for themselves? Anyways, I appreciate the chance to explain, cheers! --Tom 04:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC) ps. per wp:el, "Try to avoid linking to multiple pages from the same website; instead, try to find an appropriate linking page within the site.". Can we just use one of the www.mtn-meadows-massacre-descendants.com pages? Thanks
What is your source for saying that "personal publishing communities" are not appropriate? WP:EL says that personal web pages shouldn't be linked, but a page reprinting old documents doesn't fit the definition of a personal web site. For that matter, how can we be sure that the documents on the other sites were transcribed correctly? Citing only paper seems like a pretty harsh remedy. I think you may be applying a stricter rule than is found in Wikipedia policies. BRMo 04:36, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Gwen Gale 10:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I never said ONLY cite paper. I said, rather than link to geocites or angelfire or whoever, cite the book,author and page. There are plently of "reliable" web sources that are held to a higher standard and can be properly fact checked it seems. ANYBODY can "create" content on these other sites which is nearly impossible to authenticate as factual. Just try to find another source on the Web or use the book reference as suggested. Is this really that problematic? It seems that we/you/I should shoot for the highest standard possible when it come to references. Have we learned anything from the Essay mess? Thanks! --Tom 13:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand why the article should withold information and source content from readers in the meantime. I think the link's helpful. Gwen Gale 16:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Because angelfire.com is not appropriate. Do you know who put that material up? Please do not add it back. I will also try to get an admin invloved. If they say its ok, I'll even add it back. Is that fair? Thanks. Actually, I won't delete the links because I refuse to edit war any more. I have no horse in this race. Do you? --Tom 17:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Only since you asked, I don't think your edit warring over this is helpful, nor do I like your threat to find an admin who agrees with you. Mind, I support Wikipedia policy. Gwen Gale 17:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
For the love of god! Do you have to twist everything?!? I wasn't threating you, geesh, I thought I would get another set of eyes. And to insinuate its somebody who will agree with me? Dealing with you Gwen is like bashing my head against a wall. It has to be me, it must be, really. --Tom 17:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC) ps, it seems that the "mindless" bot has more sense than you, go figure :)
Haha! No worries, it is :) Truth be told, I wish you'd get to know what's going on here a bit more before asserting something beyond 1 or 2 reverts. Thanks for being patient with me! Gwen Gale 18:04, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I have applied to Wiki law school but I am still awaiting exceptance. You seriously need an advance degree around here :) --Tom 18:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Cool. Now I can tell you that wontedly, I think Angelfire links aren't ok but this one is a big docking exception IMHO because it gives access to a primary source that, so far as I know, can't be had online anywhere else for now. MMM is way, way controversial and rigorous citation and open access to the sources make the only path to what Wikipedia calls NPoV. Gwen Gale 19:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Merger tag

The merger tag is back. I'd rather merge and integrate the Fancher party background into this article. Gwen Gale 17:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Gayle, Is that your opinion given the Fancher Party article as it is now, or even what it could be? I for one would like to see a seperate article on the Fancher Party. I'm not qualified to write or assist on it, but surely there are wikipedians that could (at one point a person claiming to be a Fancher family historian chimed in on this article). Granted the article at present isn't much. Most Wikipedia articles sucked when they were first posted but with continual refinement they got better. I would say give this article some time and see what happens with it. It has already improved significantly from its first incarnation. Most of the POV stuff about the massacre is now gone.
Davemeistermoab 04:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I have two reasons. First, I wouldn't want to see Fancher party sway off into a fork (one article about this highly controversial, PoV ridden topic is enough to keep more or less NPoV). Much more though, I think MMM could grow into an FA. Long haul, whatever, but it could happen and keeping the victims' backgrounds in the main article text would be so too helpful in telling the fully cited and supported tale. That's my take anyway. Gwen Gale 04:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

So someone (the editor who had originally created the split-off article Fancher party) went ahead and did the merge back to this article and I cleaned it up. In the end, with the duplicate information skived off, this adds about 4 or 5 sentences to the article, mostly more Arkansas family names and locations which is helpful nonetheless because it clarifies that the Fancher party was a complex and fluid group by the time they reached MMM. Gwen Gale 00:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Just for the record, the information included in the current MMM article that links the attack to Young's Declaration of Martial Law, is throwing off the accuracy of the story. Young declared martial Law 8 days after the first attack on the Arkansas Emigrants began on September 7th, not before it. He declared maratial law on Sept. 15, 4 days after the Massacre had already taken place. ParkerMMM 03:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

According to LDS Historians, B.Y. declared Martial Law Aug. 5, 1857.http://relarchive.byu.edu/19th/descriptions/proclamationgovernor.html Unforunately for Americans, it was not made public. B.Y reissued Martial Law on Sept.15, 1857, a day after Captain Stewart Van Vliet (U.S.Army) left SLC.

Re "Lord's" taking of vengeance

At one time or another ParkerMMM and Tinosa have suggested mention of B/Y's (possible) cryptic remark about the memorial's enscription, et cetera; could they or someone propose how its mention could be appropriately (e/g "This-might-have-happened...") worded? --Justmeherenow 18:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

This can be done. My only worry is there is but a single hearsay report to support this tale. Gwen Gale 18:40, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree - a source which is the historian's unsupported family legend should not be included. --Trödel 13:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

LDS response and position

Do you think it would be appropriate to include a section on the response and stance of the LDS church? Just reading the article it seems like a lot has been done to make it accurate but that it leans a little in the negative. For example, the part about the girls being raped. Some lady remembered 50 years after the fact that she may have overheard some other ladies say the girls were raped? How old was she at the time? It doesn't seem like a claim such as this should be included in an encyclopedia article. It's circumstantial at best.

Anyway, the mormon response, as was published in an article in the NY Times recently:

"During the 1999 dedication of the Mountain Meadows memorial," Mr. Purdy wrote, "Gordon B. Hinckley, current president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said: 'I sit in the chair that Brigham Young occupied as president of the church at the time of the tragedy. I have read very much of the history of what occurred here. There is no question in my mind that he was opposed to what happened. Had there been a faster means of communication, it never would have happened and history would have been different.' "

Asked to elaborate, Mr. Purdy said, "Regarding the reference to a 'faster means of communication,' Brigham Young sent a messenger by horseback to tell those at Mountain Meadows to not interfere with the wagon train. The messenger did not arrive in time to prevent the tragedy."

The article is linked to here: http://www.septemberdawn.net/ and is available as a PDF. --67.166.96.116 07:50, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Hinckley's opinion may or may not be true, either way it's unsupported. Gwen Gale 08:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't need to be stated as truth in the article - just given as a response from the LDS church. If it's going to be stated that Brigham Young was involved somehow, then the LDS church should be given the opportunity to defend itself. You can't just publish one side and ignore the defense. His opinion is just as founded as the girls being raped - more so considering he is the leader of the organization in question and has studied the subject in depth. At what point does someone saying something become a reliable source? Only when the source is against the LDS church? --209.90.91.19 19:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.90.91.19 (talk) 19:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC).
By the way, when I say that the article implicates Brigham Young somehow, I am referring to this sentence: "Although there is no evidence that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the massacre, the involvement of various church officials in both the murders and concealing evidence in their aftermath is still questioned." The first part of the sentence talks about Brigham Young, and the second part of the sentence talks about other various church officials. It makes it sound like Brigham Young was involved, it just can't be proven. Also, why should it say various church officials were involved in covering it up if it is unproven? Your comment above makes me think only things that are proven should be in the article. It is "unsupported."
It should say something like:
"There is no evidence to support that Brigham Young ordered or condoned the massacre." --209.90.91.19 20:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Here is a reference from PBS to back up what Hinckley said about the messenger: ::::http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/program/episodes/four/mountain.htm
"Two days after the massacre, Brigham Young's messenger finally arrived at Mountain Meadows with the orders to let the wagon train pass. John D. Lee was chosen to ride to Salt Lake City and tell Brigham Young what had happened. Precisely how much the Mormon leader was told of his people's role in the slaughter is unclear. Publicly, Young blamed it all on the Paiutes." --Gthing 20:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
And another: http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/pioneers_and_cowboys/mountainmeadowsmassacre.html
"Cooler heads prevailed temporarily and an express rider was sent to Salt Lake City to solicit Brigham Young's advice. The round trip--more than 500 miles--took six days. In the meantime, things got completely out of hand. Orders and counterorders were misinterpreted, deliberately or otherwise."
"...The messenger so urgently sent to Salt Lake City for Young's advice returned on Sunday, two days after the massacre, with Young's advice to let the wagon train pass and not molest them." --Gthing 20:39, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
In the current issue of Dialogue, MacKinnon (footnote 50) has B/Y saying that if there had been a north-south telegraph line in Utah the massacre could have been averted. Of course, MacKinnon also (page 57) faults Young for "inflammatory, violent language" (referencing in a footnote, for example, B/Y's April 8, 1853 advocacy of summary execution for thieves) and his "allowing killings to to take place uninvestigated, let alone punished" - and (pages 61-62) faults both Young and U.S. president Buchanan for their having placed "large numbers of armed men in motion with powerful motivation but ambiguous, murky, and sometimes conflicting instructions. And so the atrocities came." --Justmeherenow 20:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
It is worth noting that excommunication is a form of punishment, and for the people back then was probably worse than being thrown in jail. I'm not saying the punishment was adequate, but it is a more severe punishment than we would probably think of it today. At any rate, I think the three references including Young himself should be enough to get this fact stated in the article, no? --Gthing 20:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Dunlap Girls

"A few who escaped the initial slaughter were quickly chased down and killed. Two teenaged girls, Rachel and Ruth Dunlap, managed to clamber down the side of a steep gully and hide among a clump of oak trees for several minutes. They were spotted by a Paiute chief from Parowan, who took them to Lee. 18 year old Ruth Dunlap reportedly fell to her knees and pleaded, "Spare me, and I will love you all my life!"[36] (Lee denied this). 50 years later, a Mormon woman who was a child at the time of the massacre recalled hearing LDS women in St. George[37] say both girls were raped before they were killed.[38]"

A portion of the Article I have trouble with. I've examined the references. Maybe someone can enlighten me.Tinosa 19:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

What are you having trouble with? Gwen Gale 19:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
As stated above, the source is highly unreliable. Whether or not it happened this way cannot be shown. But the story no doubt passed through many people first and then was remembered an entire 50 years later by someone very far removed from those involved. --Gthing 20:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
With all due respect I think you mis-read or misunderstood that passage. Gwen Gale 21:59, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
"50 years later, a Mormon woman who was a child at the time of the massacre recalled hearing LDS women in St. George[37] say both girls were raped before they were killed.[38]" It sounds to me like 50 years after the fact someone recalled overhearing someone say the girls were raped. If I misunderstood it, it needs to be changed because I think that's how anyone would take it. The sentence seems very clear, actually. --67.166.96.116 02:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Mr IP editor, what is your specific problem with the passage? Gwen Gale 04:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I keep forgetting to sign in. I'm new to this whole thing. Anyway, I think my problem with the passage is very clear. The passage says some lady recalls someone saying the girls could be raped. It sounds very likely that this could be truth when there is absolutely no evidence that it took place. I could just as easily say I remember my great grandpa saying he heard someone who said the wagon train committed mass ritual suicide and it would be just as founded. The passage should not be included in a scholarly article - it has no basis in fact, no evidence that it happened, and the lady who remembered it is highly unreliable considering she recalled it from 50 years later and there is no record of the actual source. It was a rumor 50 years before the lady even remembered it. It does not belong in the article. Is that clear enough or should I spell it out further? --Gthing 15:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
These are your words from another subject: "This can be done. My only worry is there is but a single hearsay report to support this tale. Gwen Gale 18:40, 21 March 2007 (UTC)" That is exactly the same as this passage. There is a single hearsay report, and it's not even a reliable one given the time it took to remember it.--Gthing 15:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
First, I said it could be done, d'in I, second the accusations of rape are widely noted (and please do ignore the mirror refs to Wikipedia thanks) and erm, third, I know some folks somehow strain to think that none out of a hundred men killing dozens of innocent women and kids (never mind plundering their shite) wouldn't think of raping a few teens but I guess that's another tale. Gwen Gale 17:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
"Widely Noted?" Is it noted by any reliable source or just a bunch of anti-mormon websites and this one lady? If there is reasonable evidence, I'm all for having it in the article, but the reasonable evidence should be noted instead of the 3rd-hand "witness." I don't know what "d'in I" means or where you said it could be done. I appreciate your help on this, I'm not trying to come across as belligerent, but I would hope that subjects reflecting poorly on mormons should be met with the same skepticism as that which reflects positively. --Gthing 21:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Reprecussions on Lee and others

The article should mention that Lee and others were excommunicated by the church for their involvement in the massacre, well before Lee was convicted by the U.S. government. I will need help finding a good source for this, but here's a start: http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/pioneers_and_cowboys/mountainmeadowsmassacre.html "He was convicted, some say unjustly, and executed at the siege site on 23 March 1877 for his role in the affair. The Mormon Church earlier excommunicated Lee and a few others believed to have been responsible." --Gthing 20:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Let us not forget that John D. Lee was reinstated (posthumously, of course) by the LDS church; there were even plans to erect a statue of him at one time [1] but they were changed because of complaints by some folks. Duke53 | Talk 04:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I would add that with his last breaths Lee in so many words said he had been handed up by the LDS. Gwen Gale 04:43, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

John D. Lee

Is the following acceptable per Wiki Standards? MORMONISM UNVEILED; OR THE LIFE AND CONFESSIONS OF THE LATE MORMON BISHOP, JOHN D. LEE;

PREFACE http://www.xmission.com/~country/reason/lee_pref.htm

Chapter XVIII Pages 213-248 http://www.xmission.com/~country/reason/lee_mm.htm

Chapter XIX Pages 249-292 http://www.xmission.com/~country/reason/lee_mm2.htm

The problem: Lee dictated his confession to his Attorney, William W. Bishop, who preserved the words of John D Lee. In like manner, Dudley Leavitt, verbalized his account of the Carin destruction to his three sons and "one preserved it these words, quoting his father": "I was with the group of elders...........We understood." Brooks. Chapter 9.Tinosa 04:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)