The Mountain Meadows Massacre

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The Mountain Meadows Massacre (1950) by Juanita Brooks is the first definitive study of the Mountain Meadows massacre.^[1]

Brooks, a Mormon scholar, was discouraged from studying the incident,^[2] and she suffered some ostracism from fellow Mormons after its publication.^[3] Her work was acclaimed by historians, however, leading to her recognition as an exemplary historian of the West and Mormonism. Her account of the massacre was eventually accepted by the Mormon leadership.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre, published in 1950, is an extraordinary work of history, the seminal portrait of Mormondon under Brigham Young. Will Bagley's updated treatment of the same subject, Blood of the Prophets, published in 2002, must now be considered the definitive work, but as Bagley acknowledges, he owes an immeasurable debt to Juanita Brooks, whom he praises as 'One of the West's best and bravest historians.' In a very discernible sense, every book about the Mormon experience in nineteenth-century Utah published after 1950 is a response to Brooks's work--just as every post-1946 treatment of the Mormons under Joseph Smith was written in the immense shadow cast by Fawn Brodie's masterpiece, No Man Knows My History.^[1]

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was the first work to fully document Mormon involvement in the massacre. In the book, Brooks demonstrated convincingly that the Mormon militia was responsible for the massacre, and that John D. Lee, the only militiaman executed, was effectively a scapegoat.

[edit] References

[edit] Further research

• Juanita Brooks papers, University of Utah Marriott Library Special Collections Dept.