Mormon leader 'ordered massacre of settlers'
By Oliver Poole in Los Angeles
A CONFESSION etched on a newly discovered lead sheet has shaken the Mormon
Church by linking its revered leader, Brigham Young, with one of the worst
massacres in American history. The note claims that the founder of Salt Lake
City ordered the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, when a wagon train of 120
settlers, mostly women and children, were killed after they had thrown down
their weapons on a promise of safe passage.
The Church of the Latter-Day Saints, as Mormons are properly known, first
tried to blame Indians for the slaughter but after huge pressure from the
federal government, John D Lee, a militiaman who was Young's adopted son,
was tried and executed 20 years later for organising the attack.
The Church has always maintained that the militia acted alone, despite
persistent claims that documents incriminating its leaders were burned at
the end of the 19th century. Schoolbooks in Utah do not mention the incident
and it has been airbrushed out of the religion's official history.
The lead sheet is the first evidence to directly link the killings to Young,
who is considered a modern-day prophet by Mormons after he led them on their
trek across America to found the city at Salt Lake. It was found during
restoration work on the debris of Lee's Fort, the citadel at which Lee's
militia forces were based on the Colorado River, under several inches of
dirt and rat droppings in the main chamber.
It is signed by Lee, who had 19 wives and 64 children, and claims to be
written "by my own hand", 15 years after the events it describes. Filled
with misspellings, grammatical errors and halted sentences, it says: "I do
not fear athorty for the time is closing and am willing to take the blame
for Fancher." The wagon convoy was known as the Fancher party, after
Alexander Fancher, who led it. It continues: "Col Dane, Maj Higby and me -
on orders from Pres Young thro Geo Smith took part - I trust in God - I have
no fear - Death hold no terror."
The massacre occurred amid a climate of war hysteria as Utah's Mormons
prepared for an invasion by federal troops, who had been dispatched to
suppress the theocracy established in the region a decade earlier. As the
settlers' convoy entered the state en route from Arkansas to California,
rumours spread that it contained men who had killed a Mormon leader and
church leaders vowed vengeance.
After a five-day siege the Mormon militia sent in a party under a flag of
truce and promised safe passage. When the "gentiles" left their encampment
all but the youngest children were killed. Historians were yesterday
clamouring to examine the sheet, and tests were being conducted to determine
where the lead was mined in an attempt to date it. The possibilities of a
forgery or a false claim by Lee have not been ruled out, but experts said
that at the time that it was not unusual for people who wanted to preserve a
record to etch it on lead.
Scott Fancher, a lawyer in Harrison, Arkansas, who is president of the
Mountain Meadows Monument Foundation and a descendant of Alexander Fancher,
welcomed the discovery as a significant step in forcing the Church to face
up to the reality of its past behaviour. He said he had long believed that
Young sanctioned the massacre as a demonstration to federal authorities that
only he could control the Paiute Indians who supposedly took part in the
attack.
"The only thing that surprises me is that it's taken this long to find the
letter, not the admission of guilt or that Lee pointed the blame at Young,"
he said. In Salt Lake City, Mormon leaders insisted that further checks had
to be conducted on the authenticity of the note before it could be accepted
as a historical document. Dale Bills, a Mormon spokesman, insisted that
Young did not order the killings although "some members of the faith acted
independently at Mountain Meadows ". In 1999 work to restore a memorial at
the settlers' burial site turned up bones and forensic tests showed many in
the group had been shot and not bludgeoned to death by the Indians, who had
no guns.
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