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1838 Caldwell County , Missouri No Promised Land

 

The early Mormons (members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) were feared and hated by their neighbors.  When the Mormons settled in Missouri in the 1830’s, local residents found the Mormons beliefs and practices different than theirs.  The solution the sought was just as extreme as the banishment and death penalty laws against Massachusetts Quakers.  The Mormons the Missouri governor declared must be removed – if not by expulsion, then by extermination. 

 

Shortly after his arrival in Jackson County, Missouri in 1831, the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith jr. announced that he discovered the site of the Garden of Eden.  But the new home was a far cry from Paradise .

 

The “frontier” state of Missouri had strong ties to the South, where most of its citizens originally came from.  The Mormons, moving in from New England , Canada , and Europe brought a different way of life and point of view.  Many of Missouri ’s pioneers saw the newcomers as religious fanatics and having great political power.  The Mormon’s belief in a modern prophet and a belief in Bible and the Book of Mormon made their more traditional Protestant neighbors angry.  Further, the Mormons pooled their resources and tended to vote as an organized group.  To the old settlers, both of these practices seemed like a direct challenge to the southern mentality. 

 

Since the Mormons opposed slavery, their influence on elections threatened Missouri ’s status as a slave state.  Rumors circulated that the Mormons planned to convert local slaves and Indians and enlist them in overthrowing the state government.

 

The tensions and ill will of the Missourians continued to mount toward the Mormon settlers.  The Mormons established the first schools in northwest Missouri and Missourians perceived that the Mormons looked down on them as intellectually and morally inferior. 

 

The Missourians interpreted these teachings as an open threat.  In 1833, many took up arms and began harassing Mormon leaders.  They tarred and feathered Joseph Smith jr., Bishop Edward Partridge, and many other members of the Church.  They wrecked the Church’s printing press and vandalized a Mormon store. 

 

It wasn’t long before all of the Latter-day Saints were driven out of Jackson County .  Most of the refugees spent a brutal winter in makeshift camps and abandoned slave cabins along the Missouri River .  Hunting and scavenging didn’t provide enough food.  The weakened population fell prey to one illness after another. 

 

Three years later, vigilante activity there made country leaders fear further violence, so they force the Mormons to leave.

 

Several prominent Missourians felt that the Mormons had been treated unfairly.  They proposed the creation of a separate county where the Latter-day Saints could settle without interference.  In 1836, the legislature of Missouri created Caldwell County where they thought the Mormons could settle without interference (i.e., is this any different than the WWII camps, or sending the Indians to reservations?) and Daviess County for the non-Mormons.  For a while segregation preserved the peace until 1838 when old conflicts resumed.

 

Throughout the summer, tensions continued to rise.  The non-Mormons organized anti-Mormon campaigns.  These ranged from public speeches and referendums to armed attacks and rapes.  When a Daviess County politician proposed barring Mormons from voting in the August 6 election, a brawl erupted.

 

The Missourians gave in to a growing spirit of lawlessness.  They poached livestock, burned corncribs, and shot into the windows of the homes.  The pattern of rumor and raid quickly became so widespread and familiar that on October 23, a Methodist minister named Samuel Bogart decided not to wait for the governor’s decision.  As captain of the Ray County militia, he called out 35 men to patrol the Caldwell County line and head off suspected invasion.  Armed and impressively outfitted in white blanket coats and knife-belts, Bogart’s troops surprised Mormons in their houses and made them surrender their weapons.

 

The following day, the militia captured two Mormons inside Ray Country.  Word shot through the Mormon territory that Bogart was threatening to execute his captives.  From the statehouse to the humblest farmhouse, everyone waited for the tensions to explode.

 

A Mormon brigade set out to rescue the two Mormon captives at Crooked River on October 25th.  A battle erupted, leaving three Mormons and one Missourian dead.  Reports of the conflict convinced state military commanders to mobilize their troops to subdue a rumored Mormon uprising.  More significantly, the rumors prompted Governor Boggs to act.

 

The military order from the governor’s office was dated October 27th, 1838.  It stated, in part: “The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond description.”  This Extermination Order Number 44 remained on the books until 1976.  This order clearly contravened the rights to life, liberty, property and religious freedom as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States , and the Constitution of the State of Missouri .

 

More than likely, news of the Extermination Order did not reach the Missouri militia troops positioned outside the Mormon village of Haun ’s Mill, in eastern Caldwell County .  The 12 or so village families, along with more than that number living out of covered wagons, had decided to ignore Joseph Smith’s call for all Mormons to gather at the town of Far West , on the other side of the county.  Instead, they braced themselves against the surrounding Missourians.  On October 30th, three companies of mounted militiamen advanced through the trees to the edge of the Mormon settlement.  It was a warm, Indian summer day, and children were playing on the creek-bank.  The grown-ups went about their chores. 

 

As troops approached, their red kerchiefs and black “war-paint” told the people of Haun’s Mill that the truce was over.  The state militia advanced under the orders to “Shoot at everything wearing breeches, and shoot to kill.” 

 

Two hundred troops from three counties took part in the attack.  Mormon men, women and children, startled from their activities, dashed for cover amid the thunder of guns and hooves.  Several residents, including the local leader, waved their hats in appeal for mercy, but there was none.  The onslaught drove many villagers south across the mill dam and into the woods.  One woman heard 20 musket balls hit the log she was hiding behind.

 

The blacksmith shop had always seemed like the sturdiest structure at Haun’s Mill and the easiest to defend.  Now 15 men and three boys barricaded themselves inside it, armed with squirrel rifles and shotguns.  The boys lay on the floor, under the big bellows that the blacksmith used to pump air into the forge.  The long horizontal gaps in the log walls might have been good places to position firearms if the Mormons had been prepared.  But bullets kept spraying in from the outside.  As the boys heard the men fall the couldn’t tell which of them were their fathers.  Finally, the Missourians closed in and jammed their gun barrels through the cracks.

 

With half his fighters either dead or wounded, Mormon leader David Evans ordered the others to attempt an escape.  For most, it amounted to suicide run.  An old man named Thomas McBride, who had fought under George Washington in the Revolutionary War, suffered a hit and handed over his rifle to the oncoming Missourians.  One of these, ferry operator Jacob Rogers from Daviess County , aimed McBride’s own weapon at him and shot him through the chest.  Then Rogers bent over the old man’s body and slashed it repeatedly with a corn-cutter.

 

Missouri troops entered the blacksmith shop, which was now nearly silent.  Their boots tracked through a pool of blood.  Under the bellows, the men found Sardius Smith, 10 years old and trembling.

 

William Reynolds said let him plead for mercy before shooting the top of the boy’s head off, point-blank.  “Nits will make lice,” Reynolds was latter quoted as saying, “and if he had lived he would have become a Mormon.  Warren Smith, Sardius father, was one of the few Mormon men in the room still barely alive.

 

In all, 18 residents of Haun’s Mill died fifteen more were wounded.  Three state troopers suffered injuries.  Before the Missourians left the village, they then ransacked empty houses and wagons and even corpses.  A number of wounded Mormons had their clothes torn off while pretending to be dead.

 

The next morning, Amanda Smith walked back out of the woods.  Her village, which just the day before had enjoyed the prospect of peace, was now littered with bodies.  She found her husband and son Sardius dead.  From under the pile emerged her other son, Alma.  All night he had listened and waited.

 

No one knew whether the state militia would return.  There wasn’t time for proper burials, so the survivors dropped the bodies of their friends and loved ones down an old well.  They added a layer of dirt and straw to keep away vultures.

 

News of the governor’s Extermination Order traveled with the news of the massacre at Haun’s Mill.  Joseph Smith and several Saints were confined to prison on charges of riot and treason.  By February 1839, at Smith’s urging, his followers begun their exodus from the state.  On April 16, 1839, Joseph Smith was released and joined the new settlement in Nauvoo , Illinois .  Five years later the Anti-Mormon sentiment came again and drove the Mormons out of the State of Illinois in the middle of winter.  The Mormons Exodus to territory of Utah by wagon, handcarts, and even sailing around to San Francisco resulted in a desert blossoming as a rose.

 

This was not the beginning or the end of the persecution.  The persecution began in 1820 by the Religious leaders of the various Christian churches in upper state New York .  Joseph Smith and early members of the church suffered great persecution.  Joseph Smith oversaw the building of three cities and directed the construction of two temples — all the while facing intense persecution from local mobs, which eventually drove Church members from all three cities Joseph, settled.  Because the Saints' religious and civil rights as American citizens had been denied them despite numerous and repeated appeals to the federal government, Church leaders announced Joseph Smith's candidacy for President of the United States in January 1844.  By May, a Nauvoo, Illinois , and convention had officially nominated Joseph.  His political platform called for government intervention on behalf of religious and civil rights in the face of persecution.  Ironically, Joseph and his brother were killed by a mob in June of that same year, cutting short Joseph's run for political office.  Joseph and his older brother Hyrum were shot to death on 27 June 1844 by a mob of 150 to 200 men.  They had been imprisoned in an Illinois jail on false charges of riot and treason after surrendering themselves to the law.  Joseph was 38; Hyrum was 44.  On 28 June, the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum were prepared and laid out for the estimated 10,000 mourners to view, and on the following day were buried secretly to avoid further attacks or desecration by mobs.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today is considered to be one of the fastest-growing religious movements in the world.  Over 11 million Latter-day Saints revere Joseph Smith as a prophet, just as they revere biblical prophets such as Moses and Isaiah.

 

The Latter-day Saints (as Church members are called) were driven by mobs from their homes in Nauvoo , Illinois , in 1846. They crossed Iowa and spent the winter at Winter Quarters, Nebraska , near present day Omaha . Under the direction of Brigham Young, the first pioneer company left Winter Quarters in the spring of 1847, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley on 24 July 1847. The trip was about 1,000 miles (2,100 kilometers).

 

From 1847 to 1869:

The Persecution Continues, While working on the translation of the Bible in the early 1830s, the Prophet Joseph Smith became troubled by the fact that Abraham, Jacob, David, and other Old Testament leaders had more than one wife.  The Prophet prayed for understanding and learned that at certain times, for specific purposes, following divinely given laws, plural marriage was approved and directed by God.  Joseph Smith also learned that with divine approval, some Latter-day Saints would soon be chosen by priesthood authority to marry more than one wife.  A number of Latter-day Saints practiced plural marriage in Nauvoo, but a public announcement of this doctrine and practice was not made until the August 1852 general conference in Salt Lake City .  At that conference, Elder Orson Pratt, as directed by President Brigham Young, announced that the practice of a man having more than one wife was part of the Lord’s restitution of all things (see Acts 3:19-21).

 

Many of America ’s religious and political leaders became very angry when they learned that Latter-day Saints living in Utah (in the Mexican Territory , not a part of the United States ) were encouraging a marriage system that they considered immoral and unchristian.  A great political crusade was launched against the Church and its members.  The United States Congress passed legislation that curbed the freedom of the Latter-day Saints and hurt the Church economically.  This legislation ultimately caused officers to arrest and imprison men who had more than one wife and to deny them the right to vote, the right to privacy in their homes, and the enjoyment of other civil liberties.  Hundreds of faithful Latter-day Saint men and a few women served time in prisons located in Utah , Idaho , Arizona , Nebraska , Michigan , and South Dakota .

 

Persecution also became intense for many who accepted callings to preach the gospel, especially in the southern United States .  For example, in July 1878 Elder Joseph Standing was brutally murdered while laboring near Rome , Georgia .  His companion, the future Apostle Rudger Clawson, only narrowly escaped death.  The Saints in Salt Lake City were very affected by the news of Elder Standing’s murder, and thousands of people attended his funeral in the Salt Lake Tabernacle.

 

Elders John Gibbs, William Berry, William Jones, and Henry Thompson traveled throughout much of Tennessee attempting to change the public’s perception of the Church.  They rested one Sabbath morning in August 1884 at the James Condor home near Cane Creek in Tennessee .  As Elder Gibbs studied the scriptures looking for a text for his sermon, a mob burst through the forest and began shooting.  Elders Gibbs and Berry were killed.  Elder Gibbs, a schoolteacher, left a wife and three children mourning his death.  Sister Gibbs remained a widow for 43 years and became a midwife to support her children.  Brigham Henry Roberts, the acting mission president at the time of the murders, risked his life by going in disguise to exhume the bodies of Gibbs and Berry . 

 

Missionaries in other areas were beaten until blood ran down their backs, and many carried the scars of these whippings to their graves.  It was not an easy time to be a member of the Church.

 

Many men in the Church went into hiding to avoid arrest by federal officers searching for men with more than one wife.  Families feared late-night intrusions by these officers.  President George Q. Cannon, Lorenzo Snow, Rudger Clawson, Brigham Henry Roberts, George Reynolds, and many others were sent to prison, where they passed the time by writing books, teaching school, and composing letters to their families. 

 

AT ISSUE

Whose Right?


The Silencing of Mary Dyer

1660: A Quaker woman in colonial Massachusetts risks her life for religious liberty. Mary Barrett Dyer (? - June 1, 1660)

Quaker martyr.

Mary Dyer sided with Anne Hutchinson in the Antinomian heresy in 1630s Massachusetts , for which Dyer and her husband, Richard Dyer, were banished with Hutchinson . The Dyers then settled in Providence , Rhode Island . In the 1650s the Dyers accompanied Roger William’s and John Clarke to England , where Mary Dyer became a Quaker, influenced by George Fox. Returning to Boston , she was arrested and expelled under a new law outlawing Quakers. (Her husband, who had not become a Quaker, was not arrested.)

 

Mary Dyer was arrested a year later for preaching Quakerism in New Haven . She returned to Massachusetts to visit two English Quakers held in the jail, and was arrested there. Banished, she returned with other Quakers to defy the law, and was arrested. Two of her comrades were hanged, but she received a last-minute reprievial.

 

She returned to Rhode Island , and then traveled to Long Island, but finally in 1660 returned to Massachusetts to again defy the anti-Quaker law. This time, her sentence was carried out the day after her conviction, and on June 1, 1660, Mary Dyer was hanged for being a Quaker in Massachusetts .

 

Resources

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/bldyer.htm?rf=dp&COB=home&TMog=9440747113521&Mint=14158629133227

 

Cited Works

Austin, John Osborn. Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island ; Comprising Three Generations of Settlers Who Came Before 1690. Baltimore : Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Reprint, 1995.

Boorstin, Daniel J. The Americans: The Colonial Experience. New York : Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, 1964.

Hollowell, Richard. The Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts . Maryland : Heritage Books, Reprint 1987.

Norton, Mary Beth. Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

Moriarty, G. Andrews, A.M., LLB., F.A.S.G., F.S.A. "The True Story of Mary Dyer," The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 104, (January, 1950): 40-42.

Plimpton, Ruth. Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker. Boston : Branden Publishing Company, Inc., 1994.

William’s, Selma R. Demeter's Daughters: The Women Who Founded America , 1587-1787. New York : Atheneum, 1976.

William’s, Selma R. Divine Rebel: The Life of Anne Marbury Hutchinson. New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981.

Winsser, Johan "Mary (Dyre) Ward: Mary (Barrett) Dyre's Missing Daughter Traced," The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 145, (January, 1991): 22-28.

 

Further Reading : (Available at Amazon.com)

Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker

The Antinomian Controversy, 1636 - 1638: A Documentary History

Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preacher and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700-1775

First Among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism

 


Cherokee Trail of Tears

"The Trail of Tears" by Robert Lindneux

 

In Georgia , during the summer of 1838, the United States Army rounded up about 3,000 Cherokee people and planned to load them onto boats to be moved further west; in the winter of 1838-1839, 14,000 more Cherokees were forced to march from their homes into territories further west.

 

Gold had been discovered on Cherokee land in northern Georgia and President Andrew Jackson moved quickly to enforce the Indian Removal Act of 1930.

 

It is estimated that 4,000 of the these people, driven from their homes at gunpoint, died of hunger, exposure and disease on their journey along the "trail where they cried", now referred to as the Trail of Tears.

 

Cherokee Timeline
A list of important dates in Cherokee history.

The Trail of Tears
An account of Cherokee history in Georgia and their removal under the Treaty of Echota; explains the legend of the Cherokee Rose as a symbol of the grief experienced by Cherokee mothers.

Cherokee Removal
The story of the Cherokee nation from pre-removal through their trek to Oklahoma ; includes a map and bibliography.

Samuel's Memory
The memories of Samuel Cloud who was nine years old at the time of the Cherokee removal; told by his great-great grandson.

John G. Burnett's Story of the Removal of the Cherokees
On his eightieth birthday, John Burnett recorded the story of his experiences as a United States soldier who participated in the Cherokee removal.

Accounts of the Cherokee Trail of Tears
A newspaper interview of James Butler Bushyhead and his brother, grandsons of a famous Cherokee Chief.

 

Cited Works

Banks, Sarah. Remember My Name. Niwoti , CO : Roberts Rhinehart, 1993. (Fiction)

Bealer, Alex. Only the Names Remain. Boston : Brown, 1972.

Brill, Marlene Targ, The Trail of Tears: The Cherokee Journey. Brookfield , CT : Millbrook Press, 1995.

Fremon, David. The Trail of Tears. New York : New Discovery Books, 1994.

Hoobler, Dorothy. The Trail On Which They Wept. Morristown , NJ : Silver Burdett, 1992. (Fiction)

Lowe, Felix. John Ross. Milwaukee , WI : Raintree, 1990.

Stein, R. Conrad. The Trail of Tears. Chicago , IL : Children's Press, 1993.

Stewart, Elizabeth . On the Long Trail Home. New York : Clarion Books, 1994. (Fiction)


A Rumbling in the Mines

1885: Chinese laborers face deadly racial hatred in Wyoming .

The massacre of Chinese miners at Rock Springs , Wyoming Territory, 1885.
Drawing by T. de Thelstrup from photographs by Lt. C.A. Booth, 7th U.S. Infantry

The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 saw the subsequent migration of thousands of newly unemployed Chinese to cities such as San Francisco . The railroad caused a large growth in the California economy due to the sudden accessibility of a nationwide market; so many Chinese were able to find jobs in manufacturing and agriculture. The railroad as well as the growing prosperity of California also led to the migration of many white workers from the East Coast and Midwest in search of jobs, placing them in direct competition with Chinese workers.

The labor competition as well as the willingness of Chinese to work for lower wages prompted the accusations of a Chinese labor monopoly, leading to an increase in anti-Chinese sentiment and propaganda. This provided the backdrop for anti-Chinese violence in Rock Springs , Wyoming in 1885.

 From Asian Americans: An Interpretive History, by Sucheng Chan:

 According to studies by Paul Crane, Alfred Larson, and Shih-shan H. Tsai, in Rock Springs , more than 600 Chinese employed by a coal mining company worked peaceably side by side with Euro-American laborers for some time. When the Chinese declined to join the latter in their proposed strike for higher wages, however, they became objects of white animosity. On 2 September a mob gathered, marched toward the Chinese workers, guarded all escape routes, and fired at the unarmed and defenseless Chinese. As the latter fled pell-mell, some Euro-Americans shot them down, others searched their persons for valuables before wounding them, while still others put their shacks to the torch. By nightfall the houses owned by the coal company and all 79 huts belonging to the Chinese had been destroyed by fire. Meanwhile, the mob threw the bodies of some dead Chinese as well as those of live but wounded ones into the flames. In all 28 Chinese were killed, and 15 wounded. Some of the latter eventually died from their wounds.

More than 550 Chinese succeeded in fleeing to safety only because a nearby railroad company telegraphed its conductors to pick up the stragglers making there way to the town of Green River . The survivors had gathered by 5 September in Evanston , where federal troops arrived to protect them. Four days later, the soldiers escorted the Chinese back to Rock Springs , where the coal company lent them clothing and provisions, gave them a number of wagons for shelter, and put them back on the payroll.

Chinese suffered losses totaling more than $147,000. Certain that no local justice could be obtained, Chinese diplomats investigated and strenuously protested this outrage, but the U.S. secretary of state denied that the federal government could be held responsible for action that had occurred in a territory. Nevertheless, "solely from a sentiment of generosity and pity," President Grover Cleveland did ask congress to allocate $150,000 to indemnify the Chinese. Congress complied, but declared that its action should not be construed as a precedent for future compensation.