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Zion Part 2, then something else
S2E19 · Under the Banner of Heaven Part 1
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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 19 · 1:03:51

Under the Banner of Heaven Part 1

The army President Buchanan sent to Utah in 1857 was about 2,500 troops, roughly a quarter to a third of the entire U.S. military at the time.

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The question ·

What happens when a friend or family member who has seen Under the Banner of Heaven asks about it, and how can members respond?

Richard

Interrupting the Zion series because of listener emails, Richard and Gerrit take on the new Under the Banner of Heaven series and how members can answer friends who have watched it. Gerrit explains Jon Krakauer's book, the Lafferty murders of the early 1980s, and the book's claim that faith itself is violent, reading from Krakauer's preface to show its shaky footing. Because the book ties the Laffertys to the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Gerrit spends the rest of the episode on context the book leaves out: the Mexican War, the Compromise of 1850, territorial appointees, Bleeding Kansas and Buchanan's decision to send an army to Utah. It ends with the Saints, who had already been driven from Missouri and Nauvoo, bracing for that army.

Who comes upJon KrakauerDan LaffertyRon LaffertyBrigham YoungMillard FillmoreJames BuchananFawn BrodieMark HofmannZerubbabel SnowJoseph Smith
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Zion Part 2, then something else

Richard explains why they're breaking from the Zion series for listener emails about a TV show.

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church and grow it by way of visions, manifestations and miracles.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. This is actually going to be a little bit of a different podcast in that-
Gerrit It's going to be good?
Richard No, I guess it'll be the same.
Gerrit Okay, very much the same.
Richard Well, so actually, if you're following along, we just finished Zion part two of our 19 part-
Gerrit And what would come after Zion part two, do you think?
Richard Well, Zion part three would, normally. But here, after Zion part two, and we leave you with a cliffhanger, comes this topic. And we're bringing it up because of the timely nature-
Gerrit I put Richard in charge of when the episodes come out because he's the business PhD. So he's the one who's supposed to have all the numbers together. That's why he's always trying to talk about rice tariffs. So I figured he would be the one arranging when things come out. So you go Zion 1, Zion 2, something completely different.
Richard That's right. So we've actually received several emails and Facebook messages about the new series on Hulu and FX called Under the Banner of Heaven. And so we've received so many, and this TV show actually has just launched relatively recently. I think it's in, as we're recording this, it's in episode 3 or episode 4, something like that. It's a limited series on FX. And so we wanted...
Gerrit Do you want to give them the time that it airs at this point?
Richard Yes, 7 p.m. Mountain, 8 p.m. Central. So the story, so I'll read from the description from the show. Under the Banner of Heaven starring Andrew Garfield, the worst of the Spider-Mans. FX is...
Gerrit Is that...
Richard That's what it says. That's what it says right there.
Gerrit That's a very interesting way to sell this series.
Richard It is interesting. I mean, he was fine, but he was the worst of the three for sure.
Gerrit He wasn't very good.
Richard FX's Under the Banner of Heaven, the limited series inspired by the bestseller by John Krakauer, follows the murder of Brenda Wright Lafferty and her baby daughter in the suburb of the Salt Lake Valley. As Detective Jeb Pyer investigates events that transpired, he uncovers buried truths about the origins of the LDS religion and the violent consequences of unyielding faith.
Gerrit Do you think that they said it kind of breathlessly like that when they wrote it out?
Richard They did. Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah.
Gerrit So in their writers' meeting, they were like, say it, don't say it. Well, yeah, it uncovered truths. No, it uncovered truths.
Richard Unyielding truths.
Gerrit Unyielding.
Richard So the question then, and it was interesting as we were discussing, so what do we talk about a TVMA series that we haven't watched? What do we say about that?
Gerrit We may go, let's do a review of something that we haven't seen.
Richard And it was interesting as we were talking about, and so hopefully, Gerrit, where you can provide some valuable context here is the majority of Latter-day Saints probably aren't going to watch this show. Some certainly will, but what happens, and at least what happens in a lot of the emails that we've received is that people receive a question from a friend or family member that has seen it about aspects of it. And so, what is it about, and how can they have some sort of idea of how they might be able to respond to family and friends that have seen it?
Gerrit Well, I think first and foremost, if your friends or family members' primary engagement with you on the doctrine of the church is from something they watched on Hulu, you're already kind of fighting a losing battle, right? I mean, and so, you don't want to be contentious about things, you know, and you need to realize that if you have a non-Latter-day Saint friend who really thinks that they know how your church worships because they watched something on TV, well, then that person doesn't have a whole lot of respect for you.
Richard Well, so, but this happened to me with The Book of Mormon, the Broadway play. I had multiple people reach out to me that were, I don't know that they were, you know, they weren't in my wedding line, but they were friends or acquaintances, and say, hey, so do you guys believe this? Do you guys believe this? I saw this on The Book of Mormon, right? And so, I mean, these things happen.
Gerrit Just think if they'd watched Saturday's Warrior.
Richard Yeah, just think, just imagine.
Gerrit So I think there's a lot of different ways you can come at this. This is a series that's based on, as it says on a book. John Krakauer is someone who was a bestselling author before he wrote Under the Banner of Heaven. And even the subtitle, Under the Banner of Heaven, the story of a violent faith. So you can already get just from the title of the book, I mean, it's almost like he's giving you a 19th century title like we read with Mormonism Unveiled. You can already tell the premise of the book before you even open the book. Faith is violent. And that's actually going to be a recurring theme throughout what he's trying to argue. And he's, he's trying to argue that, that these murders that were committed, these, the Lafferty murders were the direct result of the centuries long embrace of Latter-day Saint faith that, that carries with it this implicit violence or this, this choice to be violent in the name of God.
Gerrit Now you might wonder what are Krakauer's credentials, right? So he got his history bachelor and his history masters and his history PhD. No he didn't. And he's an investigative journalist. And so part of the reason why the book was such a hot seller is it's, you know, a type of a true crime, you know, before they had podcasts, almost like that, a true crime podcast in the sense that here's this seemingly incredibly bizarre. And look, I am not an expert on, you know, late 20th century Latter-day Saint or Utah history. My expertise comes earlier. But essentially revolves around this, these murders that were committed by the Lafferty brothers who were these former members of the Latter-day Saint Church, who got into all kinds of false beliefs thinking that they were receiving revelation from God.
Gerrit And part of that was to enter into their own polygamous marriages, which were obviously not sanctioned by the church. They get excommunicated and they actually form their own church called the School of the Prophets. And when some of their family members don't, when some of their family members don't toe the line in their new faith, it eventually is going to spiral into the murder of this woman, Brenda Lafferty, and her baby. I mean her toddler, I think 15 months old. I mean, it is horrific. And when you track it down, you find that it was because they were being in opposition to this newly proclaimed faith. So the murders of the Lafferty's is horrific.
Richard So when does this all happen? What's the timeline?
Gerrit So we're talking the early 1980s. And in 1982, Dan Lafferty is excommunicated from the church. And I think it regards his attempt to practice plural marriage.
Richard Okay. So the church frowns on that.
Gerrit Yes. The quick way to get excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today is to say, I am practicing plural marriage. In fact, if anyone would like to try that out, you could talk to your bishop or stake president and say, just so you know, I'm practicing plural marriage and let's see what the reaction is. It will be swift. I don't actually recommend it for anyone. I don't speak by experience, but that is something that is frowned upon now. So his brother is excommunicated from the church a year later, 1983, and then it's in 1984 that they're going to found their church. That, you know, his belief that he has, that Ron is receiving these revelations of what God wants them to do is going to lead to these murders.
Gerrit The point of, obviously, look, there's violence and crime that takes place all over the place. So why do we care so much about this? Certainly, you know, there are lots of people being murdered. Why does Hulu care about this one? Or why does John Krakauer? And it's because of the argument that's being made. You know, your first Latter-day Saint response to this is going to be, you know, someone who may not be a member will say, oh, yeah, the Mormons, you know, that's like that show on Hulu where those people killed those people, right? And the response from a Latter-day Saint is going to be, well, they weren't actually members of our church, right? They'd been excommunicated from our church.
Richard Because they are crazy.
Gerrit Well, exactly. Well, I mean, that's certainly what they'd say. At the same time, you know, people from outside of a faith community often don't give a lot of respect to those boundaries that are being set by the faith community. If someone who was a Catholic was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for their false doctrines, and then killed several people saying he was doing it in the name of the Catholic Church, a non-Catholic still might, you know, especially if they have negative views towards the Catholic Church, if you happen to be John Calvin, the non-Catholic view still might be critical to the Catholic Church as creating the platform whereby this person became a.
Gerrit Murderer. Frankly, it's just a human condition, where we try to compartmentalize and place things in categories, and so we try to have explanations for things, which are often quite superficial. As anyone could point out, and no doubt any Latter-day Saint who's confronted with this book or this film will point out, well, there are people in every faith group or not even faith group. There are people in every group that are extremists, who will resort to things that are completely outside of the boundaries of that group. Is the group then to be blamed when that happens? So if the group is saying, don't do this, and someone says, well, I'm going to do it anyway, is it actually the group's fault? What other actions can the group take beyond excommunication or referring someone to authorities if they've committed a crime? And so the premise behind the book and then the movie is something that's beyond that.
Gerrit In fact, I will take you to Crack Hours, his own preface, so that you can hear it from him and you can see where this ends up being a relatively shaky foundation to start a book, which is going to not just talk about these murders, but the reason why Latter-day Saints care about it is the attempt to try to argue that there is something inherent in the Latter-day Saint faith and in faith in general that leads people to be violent criminals. And so let's read what he has to say first. He's going to start off at first making a larger argument that extremism can take place in any form. So for instance, in any human endeavor, some fraction of its practitioners will be motivated to pursue that activity with such concentrated focus and unalloyed passion that it will consume them utterly.
Gerrit One has to look no further than the individual who feels compelled to devote their lives to becoming a concert penis, say, or climbing Mount Everest. For some, the province of extreme holds an allure that's irresistible, and a certain percentage of such fanatics will inevitably fixate on matters of the spirit. So he starts off by saying, look, there's extremism in everything. However, that's going to change as he concludes his introduction to the book. Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on susceptible individuals of all bents, extremism seems to be especially prevalent among those inclined by temperament or upbringing towards religious pursuits. So here he is saying, and notice he says seems. You would think if you were writing a book making the argument that people who belong to religious faith are more susceptible to violent reaction, that you would cite some kind of a study that demonstrates that that's the case.
Gerrit But of course, there is no demonstration of that. There's no citation of it. Instead, this what we call in the in the craft, you know, the weasel words of seems. Extremism seems seems to who? Seems to you because you don't have faith? Seems to scientists? Seems to historians? Seems to who? You can see how completely lacking in actual credentials this book is going to have just from the introduction. If the point I want to make is that religious people are more susceptible to violent zealousness than people who aren't religious, then I probably need to have evidence that's more than just I think so, which isn't very good evidence. But don't worry, he continues, quote, faith is the very antithesis of reason.
Gerrit In judiciousness, a crucial component of spiritual devotion. I see. So someone who has faith doesn't have any reason, and someone who has faith has no judiciousness. So the type of judiciousness that would let you know that if you're not an expert on a topic, you probably shouldn't write a book on that topic, that kind of judiciousness, or maybe the type of judiciousness that knows that when you're not an expert on the topic, that you're going to write all kinds of things that you are totally wrong about, and yet still be unwilling to concede the point. He goes on to say that when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off.
Gerrit So it's only religion that is not rational, right? Other things, if we could just eliminate religion from the terms of question, then people would be rational. I mean, all these incredibly religious men like Stalin, clearly, if only he had eliminated religion from his life, he wouldn't have murdered the 20 million people that he might have. I mean, the reality of this argument is one of... You hear people say, well, a lot more people have been killed in the name of Jesus than had ever been saved by it. Well, that's certainly not true for a Latter-day Saint since we believe everyone's going to be saved. But on top of that also, the argument is one that suggests because the Crusades existed, because you have intifadas, because you have all of these various wars that do have a religious bent, that in fact, religion causes more harm than it does good.
Gerrit The funny part about that argument is not only is it only made by people who don't themselves have faith, it's also made without evidence. Because what do studies demonstrate? People who have firm religious convictions are happier, tend to have better mental health, they live longer. That's what actual studies demonstrate. So while we have actual studies demonstrating that religion is a positive influence in people's lives, you have people on the outside looking into that box of faith that is so utterly irrational, saying, I just don't think so. But saying, I just don't think so isn't the same thing as having evidence. And that's the reason why I say you always want to be careful where you're getting your source material from. Because if the person presenting the material has a demonstrated lack of willingness to even acknowledge what they don't know about the source, why in the world would you listen to what they have to say?
Gerrit Now, the book was, I remember when the book came out, it came out in 2003. And you're thinking, why would anyone care so much about this? Obviously, there's all kinds of other murders that happen. I mean, we talked very early on in this podcast in one of our episodes about the Mark Hoffman murders that took place. Why isn't that as big a deal? Well, because this book really, it made this argument going all the way back into Latter-day Saint history that Latter-day Saints are inherently violent and that you can demonstrate this through something that Joseph Smith said or through that Brigham Young said, or one of the real focuses on the book is an attempt to tie the Mountain Meadows Massacre into the ideology that would cause the Lafferties to think that it was okay to murder these two women, well, this woman and her child.
Gerrit That's the argument that's being made. Is there this direct connection? Is Lafferty saying, you know what? I'm going to do the same thing that they did at Mountain Meadows. No, but even if he did say that, would that be an indictment on the religion? You have all kinds of people who think that they are plying out what it is that some forebear in the American past would have them do. If Washington was here, he would say this. But the reality is no matter what someone says with that, they have no idea what Washington would say. He would probably say, You guys have dental implants? I'm going for that, right? I mean, it's always this kind of a supposition that goes right along the line with what we talked about before with conspiracy theories. And that is, oh, it stands to reason. Usually when someone says it stands to reason, what they really mean is, I don't actually have evidence, but wouldn't it be cool if? And that's not history.
Gerrit So maybe we need to talk a little bit about the historical premises that he's attempting to make here. And maybe for some of our listeners, you might not have ever heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, or if you have, you've only heard a little bit about it. I remember the first time I heard about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and it was from this guy who was super antagonistic towards our faith. And I was a teenager and I met him, and we were talking about different things. And we weren't in a religious mode, we were just talking about different things. And he said to me, he was a younger guy, but, oh, you're one of those Mormons. Well, you're okay with the fact that they just murdered all those people out in Mountain Meadows? And I was like, what are you talking about? Part of the problem was the guy made it sound like that it had just happened last week.
Gerrit And for all I know, maybe he thought that it had just happened last week. And so I try to keep up on the news, and so I didn't think that it had happened. And of course, as I go to research it, and then even more so when I get into my history programs, I realize what all of this is. So let's describe it. Now, I should say we've had several requests. Like always, we get lots of requests to do things that we ignore or don't do, which is all of them. But we've also had requests about this early Utah history period. So at some point, we will go into greater detail, or at least we will just say at some point that we are going to go into greater detail. Whether or not we will go into greater detail will remain to be seen. That might be somewhere in season 11 of the podcast. But we will spend more time on these. So I'm just going to give you a brief overview of this time period, starting with the creation of Utah territory.
Gerrit Now I know that it sounds like I said I need to give you a brief overview. We'll start with the creation. So God said, let there be light. When the Latter Day Saints move to the Great Basin, when they move to the Salt Lake Valley, important to remember that they leave the United States, and they are moving into Mexico. And even though it's nominally part of Mexico, it's a part of Mexico for which there are no permanent Mexican settlements at all. There are certainly Native Americans living in those places. But even those Native Americans would have looked a little sideways at someone saying, oh, so you're part of the Mexican nation? They would say, no, we are the Ute Empire. Because even though on a map it was part of Mexico, there were no permanent settlements there. There were some fur trappers that had come through, but there wasn't permanent settlement. There weren't towns. There weren't colonies of Mexicans or Americans living in what is today Utah.
Gerrit So the Latter-day Saints leave the United States. They are outside of the United States. If you listen to some of our podcasts surrounding the martyrdom and the Council of 50, you'll understand that that was the goal, was to get outside of the United States. During the exodus from Nauvoo, and as they are trying to set up in winter quarters, basically, to head further west, the Mexican War breaks out. Latter-day Saints are requested to furnish a company of troops, which they do. Someday, we'll do one on the Mormon Battalion. I'm waiting on that one, though, because I want to springboard me talking about the Mormon Battalion to me someday being allowed to serve at the Mormon Battalion Visitors Monument. That's what I want to do.
Richard Mormon Battalion has a special place in your heart. This is what you wrote.
Gerrit I wrote on with my dissertation. But the reality is the Mormon Battalion Monument, or the Visitor Center, is in San Diego. So what I want for my life, people are like, oh, do you want to serve at the church historic sites on a mission when you retire? I don't know if you've ever been to winter quarters in the winter, but I don't want to serve there. Neither did anyone else who was living in winter quarters in the winter. And frankly, I don't much want to serve in Palmyra in the winter for anyone who's been to upstate New York and thinks those winters are just balmy. As someone from Idaho, I don't like those type of winters. And that's saying a lot. Yeah. Maybe someone from Canada listening like, oh, you don't know what that's all about. But at any rate, the San Diego Mormon Battalion, it's beautiful, right? There's this beautiful visitor center. And in San Diego, one of the most beautiful places in the country.
Gerrit That's it. So I'm going to save that for later on in our podcasting so that I'm hoping to catch the eye of somebody who can 20 years from now assign me there.
Richard So we'll get to the Mormon Battalion in 20 years when you're set to retire.
Gerrit Yeah. I'm assuming that episode, season 25 or 26.
Richard That's good.
Gerrit And then we'll do polygamy in 27. Perfect. Yeah. Those of that's not we won't practice it. We'll just we'll talk about it. So the Mormon Battalion is called out in the midst of the Mexican War. The Latter Day Saints are still on these kind of difficult terms with the United States. Crossing the plains doesn't really help that. They have some bad experiences in Iowa electorally with politicians trying to persecute them. So even if they're leaving Iowa, things are still negative. When they get to Salt Lake, the war is still going on. And it's not until 1848, so a year after they arrive in Salt Lake, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican War. And it's very important because part of the way the war ended was something that's called the Mexican Session, meaning seeding of land, the giving up of territory.
Gerrit The United States does pay Mexico this piddly little amount for the millions upon millions of square miles that are taken. But I mean, the United States always likes to, I know we're taking this and you don't have a say, but here's some money just to help you feel better. I guess Latter-day Saints didn't even get that in Missouri. We should have at least gotten that. At any rate, all of that area, which is now California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, because they hadn't recognized Texas yet, half of Colorado, part of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, all of that area was part of this Mexican session that's now ceded to the United States. So they left the United States, they became, they settled in Mexico, and then that part of Mexico became part of the United States as a result of that treaty. We could do a 15-part podcast on what happens next in American history, because the Mexican session and the Mexican War, that acquiring of land, is what directly leads to the American Civil War.
Gerrit So the Latter Day Saints have not just found themselves back into the United States, they have found themselves back into what will become the most controversial part of the United States. And you might be thinking, well, why? I mean, everybody's willing to fight over, you know, Ely, Nevada. Well, it's because prior to the Mexican War, slavery could not expand anymore. There was nowhere else for slavery to expand. The Missouri Compromise had drawn a line that had said definitively, the southern border of Missouri, that line drawn into the Mexican territory, was the only places that were still open for new slave states. So that meaning, Arkansas and part of what is today Oklahoma, were the only places that were even open to becoming new slave states.
Gerrit It seemed the slavery question had been settled because everyone in the 19th century believed if slavery could not expand, slavery would die. It would die at least a political death as more and more states joined that were free states. But it would also die an economic death because slavery needed to expand in order to maintain its vitality. Seems like I'm going a little bit too much in detail on that.
Richard No, no.
Gerrit Yeah. That's good. You fell asleep for part of it. That's the reason why I brought that up. Welcome back. Thank you. Yeah, but the reason why I bring it up is it does affect what happens next. And again, we'll go into this more in detail maybe on a separate history podcast or not ever. Those are the two options. We'll do one of them. After these territories come to the United States, that whole question of the expansion of slavery becomes front and center all over again. Before there was no possible way for slavery to expand. Now you have roughly a third of the present day United States that has been added as new territory. Are these going to be free territories? Are these going to be slave territories? And the Latter-day Saints find themselves smack dab in the middle of those territories and not just smack dab in the middle.
Gerrit They are one of the only populated areas. Again, when I say that, I mean populated by Mexicans or by Euro Americans. Obviously, there's Native Americans in all of those places, but neither the Mexicans or the Americans are counting the Native Americans when they're doing that. But New Mexico has a very large population of primarily Mexican, intermarried with Native Americans population. And so there's a population center there and in Salt Lake, as more and more Latter-day Saints move there. We think of California as having this giant population, but in 1848, when the treaty is signed, when that becomes part of the United States, it doesn't have a giant population. In fact, it has almost no population. It has fewer than 5,000 Mexicans or Americans living in all of California.
Gerrit So what happens next is the Gold Rush, 1849, and the rapid population of California, which pushes this question of are these places going to become free or slave right to the forefront? Southerners are pretty irate at the idea that while they shouldered most of the burden of the fighting in the Mexican War, that none of these territories could be open to slavery. Well, yeah, I wouldn't fought for it. I would now want to move to the territory that I captured when I was fighting, but I can't bring my legal property with me. That's how they talked about it and how they thought about it. I'm not saying that's justified. Slavery is wrong in case anyone listening is wondering. The Latter Day Saints find themselves in this position where California, the western portion of California, is now petitioning for statehood as a free state.
Gerrit Southerners don't want California to enter in as a free state. And there is a great compromise that has worked out that has a huge effect on the Latter Day Saints. It's called the Compromise of 1850. So if you're wondering when it happened...
Richard 1849.
Gerrit 1850. But in the Compromise, there's a couple of things that happens. California is admitted as a free state. The slave trade, which had been going on in Washington, DC is abolished so that there's no longer slave markets right outside of the Congress, where they're arguing about freedom and liberty while they're enslaving people a few blocks over. It was actually bad enough. You could actually hear the slave auctions from inside of the house at times. Anyway. And then what do you do with all this other territory? Well, the New Mexico area, the New Mexico territory, which involves, you know, most of what is today Arizona, New Mexico and part of Nevada. And the Utah territory, both of these two territories would be created. They would be territories, not states, which means they'd have federally appointed governors. And in those areas, slavery would not be outlawed.
Gerrit In those areas, slavery would follow something that a political idea that they were banding about at the time called popular sovereignty. The idea behind it is, instead of saying this is going to be a slave state or this is going to be a free state, let's let the inhabitants of that territory vote whether they're going to be a free state or slave state at the time of their admission as a state. Well, that meant that technically, New Mexico territory and Utah territory were now open to... Slavery was not illegal in those territories.
Richard As part of that, would it be possible for the state to later change their mind or once it's codified?
Gerrit States always have the ability to change their mind. But one of the things they had learned from the admission of new states in the South is there was very little incentive for new slave states to ever abolish slavery. Most of the northern states abolished slavery at a time when slavery is at its economic least value. It's not very valuable, and so because it's not very valuable, there's not very many people who have a lot of skin in that game of trying to keep it around. Even with that, though, places like Delaware, where slavery's profitability had been declining for a century, still desperately tried to maintain slavery, even during the Civil War. Even when Lincoln proposes a way to free those slaves, they still utterly reject it. So there's a lot more cultural belief underpinning slavery than I think many Americans are willing to admit. The idea of this racial superiority is a driving force for many Southerners who own slaves.
Gerrit It's not just about, hey, this guy doesn't get paid who works for me. It's about control, it's about dominance, and it is certainly about a type of white supremacy and elitism where I might be the lowest, poorest country bumpkin, I don't even have the three teeth between me and my sister to even say that we have a set of teeth in our mouth. Arkansas, the hillbilly, whatever. But I am a court of deference above and beyond the most wealthy and educated black person living in the south. So I could be a black plantation owner with millions of dollars. And there are some very few black property owners in the south that are former slaves, freed slaves, or descended from freed slaves. And the laws were such that the poorest white was of elevated stature to the richest black person or the least educated white to the most educated black person.
Gerrit So there's certainly a cultural component to that. Now, that's a whole nother nine podcasts. What it does for, this compromise does, is it establishes Utah territory. Well, the only population living in Utah territory outside of the Native Americans essentially is the Latter-day Saints. There are very few people that are not Latter-day Saints living in that whole area. So pragmatically, Governor Millard Fillmore will assign Brigham Young to be the federal governor of the territory. And this is going to cause all kinds of heartache and consternation over the course of the next seven years, especially from non-Latter-day Saints and from people who get excommunicated from the Latter-day Saints Church. Because they will say, look at this, Brigham Young is the prophet of the church and he's the governor of the territory. Anything that Brigham Young says goes.
Richard So what's the time frame here for President Fillmore making...
Gerrit So it's the Compromise of 1850. So in 1850s when it's enacted, that's when Utah becomes a territory and Brigham Young is also in 1850, made the governor of that newly created territory. The other appointees, there is one other Latter-day Saint who's appointed. Well, two other Latter-day Saints. One is Zerubbabel.
Richard That's fantastic. He rebuilt the temple.
Gerrit He rebuilt the temple.
Richard Babylonian captivity.
Gerrit It's a great story. He became one of the associate justices of the Utah Territorial Supreme Court. But the other federal appointees were, like most territorial appointees, political appointments. The reality is, back in the day, the press of office seekers when someone was elected is just something that all of these early presidents write about, that from the time they're inaugurated, all day, every day, you have people coming to see you, wanting to be the postmaster of Topsfield, Massachusetts.
Richard That's a highly sought after position.
Gerrit If you've been there, you want to be there. That was top of mind, because I'm going out there as part of the Ensign Peak Foundation, which used to be called the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation. That is where the Smith family on Father Smith's side and his father all resided. This is where Father Smith is born, Topsfield, Massachusetts, and the Ensign Peak Foundation has secured this large monument they're putting up there, and it's being dedicated in May by President Ballard. And so we're going out there as a part of that. So it's top of mind, but I guarantee that the Topsfield, Massachusetts Postal Service was something that people wanted. Because these federal appointments, they carry with them not only this guaranteed income, but they also can be seen as a stepping stone. Well, I don't want to be the territorial governor of New Mexico, but if I am the territorial governor of New Mexico, then I can come back to Alabama, and I now have on my resume that I was a territorial governor of New Mexico, by the way, make me a senator.
Gerrit You know, something like that. The other dirty underside of territorial appointments in the West is people were in these incredibly powerful positions, and this is going to, again, sound as a shock to people living today. But in the 19th century, there were politicians who would try to make money off of their appointment. And in doing so, they became wealthy men. And there's this great study that's written about federal appointees to the Western territories about how many of them either left their positions and didn't finish, or used their positions to try to graft. I mean, if you think about it, if I'm appointed the governor of New Mexico territory, I am thousands of miles away from Washington DC.
Gerrit There's no real federal oversight over me at all, and yet I control everything. I control what contracts the government's going to decide to accept there. I control who gets appointed to what positions in the territory. And if you don't think someone's willing to throw a few greenbacks into the back of my hand to get that appointment, obviously people are. And so this great study demonstrates that essentially a lot of the people that get appointed to be governors of the western territories have no connection to the territory at all, but they are disappointed office seekers. They are people who wanted to get the appointment to be, I wanted to be the surveyor of canals in Pennsylvania, but instead you're sending me to Washington territory as an assessor. I mean, it's a way of kind of getting rid of people that are constantly asking for position, but who have some kind of political connection.
Gerrit This is exactly what happens in Utah territory. There are multiple people that are appointed to either the Supreme Court of the territory in Utah, or as the secretary of the territory, which was a big deal back then. That his appointment is on the basis of who his dad is. And his dad's well off and is an important influential person, and he wants his son to have a position, and he gets one, and so it works out great. Again, that kind of stuff doesn't happen today. There's never any family members that are a part of people's political committees. You'll never hear stories of politicians hiring their son to be the head of their campaign. But back then, things like that happened a lot. And so what it means is you ended up in these territories with people who had no connection to the territory, and worse, there was no oversight of them, and worse still, most of them saw their position as just a stepping stone to either get rich themselves or to hurry and get a better position.
Gerrit Well, if any of those are your goals and you get appointed to Utah territory, things aren't going to work out very well. Maybe you were excited that you got appointed to a territorial position because you thought, oh my goodness, we're going to be living the high life. We're going to be the most popular people in that whole territory. I am now the governor's wife, that kind of thing. Well, when you come to Utah, you find out very quickly if you happen to be a relatively hedonistic politician, there's not any brothels and they don't even have a ton of alcohol. And by the way, they don't care what you have to say. They care what this guy who says he's a prophet has to say. So it graded a great deal on the sensibilities of federal officials. Now, while it sounds to a non-Latter-day saint, the idea that Brigham Young would be both the president of the church and also the governor of Utah Territory sounds incredibly like, well, how one man can't have all that power.
Gerrit Think about what the alternative is. That you have a territory in which 95% of the people living in it belong to a hated faith group, but the person in charge of that entire territory isn't a member of that faith group. It's actually far less democratic the other way around. When someone's like, yeah, I mean, I think Brigham Young was just doing whatever helped Mormon interests, which would have been literally what his constituency expected him to do. Yeah, I don't know why these 95% of the people here want him to make it easier to build church houses. It's crazy. I'm sure it's just him doing what he wants. The reality is that he does have a lot of power and it clashes with these federal officials. In 1851, you have an entire group of officials that are going to leave their post, claiming all kinds of negative things against Brigham Young. But when Millard Fillmore investigates, he makes the determination that the fault was on the federal officials part and they get replaced by new officials.
Gerrit But as time goes on and as Brigham Young is the governor of the territory, things start to get more and more heated. Not just with Utah territory, but also with slavery and the federal government in general. This is the same time period that in Kansas, you might have heard of Bleeding Kansas. Well, what happens in Kansas? The idea of popular sovereignty was, whenever the state gets ready to petition to become a state, they will develop either a free or a slave constitution. Well, what happens in Kansas? The election for the Constitutional Convention, essentially for Kansas in order to be petitioned to be admitted as a state, is fraudulently made by thousands, at least hundreds, but probably thousands. You could go read a book on this, or start your own podcast.
Richard If you were so smart about bleeding Kansas, you'd start your own podcast.
Gerrit I feel like every time I talk about anything... By the way, this is a brief overview.
Richard Yeah, I was going to say, I'm glad you're just giving the brief overview on the Mountain Meadows massacre.
Gerrit Is anyone still listening? I wish there was a way in real time to determine at what point people stopped listening to the podcast.
Richard I think anytime that Townships is mentioned, I'm going to go ahead and say Millard Fillmore is going to be a major...
Gerrit Millard Fillmore is a new buzzword. What about Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo? Did that...
Richard I think you brought pins and needles on that.
Gerrit I'd like to see just a mass departure whenever I mention that.
Richard Well, but this actually does... I mean, making any opportunity to make fun of you is always great.
Gerrit It's the basis of our friendship.
Richard It is. But if... But there is some reason to what it is you're doing, going back to the book. Can you provide... What's the purpose?
Gerrit Yeah, the reason why I'm going to so much depth is the problem with the book is the book doesn't attempt to place things in context, or if it does provide context, it only provides negative context. So, for instance, the primary source that Crack Hour is going to use for his Mormon history is going to be a 70-year-old book from Fawn Brody, because she's incredibly critical of the church's origins and its development, even though many of the things in her book have been, first of all, completely, they're completely outdated because we have so many more sources by the time he's writing this book. But also, she did a lot of things that are not considered credible in the historical field, like psychoanalyzing people from the past on the basis of what you think happened with them. There's all kinds of problems with the book. He claims that only Mormon historians have a problem with the book, but that's not true.
Gerrit Otherwise, people like Daniel Walker Howe, who wrote the Oxford history of this period in American history and covers Mormonism, would have been quoting from Fawn Brody's book. And he didn't, because it's terrible. And he's a Presbyterian, so I'm pretty sure he's not just doing it for the Mormons. The reality is, it's not considered a credible book, and even people who think that things in it are really good don't use it anymore because it was written in the 40s. So you don't cite books from 60, 70 years ago, because he wrote his book in 2003, so I'll give him that. You don't cite those books as proof of what you're arguing. You cite more recent things. But the problem is more recent things don't make the same kind of arguments he wants to make. So that becomes his source. And that's really apparent to someone who knows the field and not very apparent to someone who's just seeing this book talking about Mormonism or their faith, if they happen to be a Latter-day Saint, and they think, oh my goodness, a historian said this?
Gerrit So there's very little context provided. And the context that is provided is often speculative. It is nearly always in some ways incomplete and also often factually inaccurate. So in order to discuss this claimed connection, I wanted you to have an understanding of what is the Mountain Meadows Massacre and how did it happen? And like all historians, I don't have the ability to actually say this is what happened. All I can do is say, let's talk Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and go from there. If I can't, you could ask me about the Challenger Disaster and I would say Compromise of 1850 is where we have to start. So that's where we're at. The reality of this is that there's all kinds of tensions throughout this period in 1850s and bleeding Kansas. What happens is they go to vote to become a state.
Gerrit These Missourians who are all pro-slavery cross the border into Kansas, into what is today Kansas, and they vote to push a pro-slavery constitution. Now it is widely seen as completely fraudulent. You have people that aren't even trying to conceal the fact that their residency is Missouri voting in this Kansas election. And that constitution is called the LeCompton Constitution. It's LeCompton, Kansas is where the capital of this is. So they put that forward to the country as, Kansas is ready to be a slave state. Well, the free-soilers in Kansas are livid. They know that there's more free-soilers in Kansas than there are slave owners. And it's just this fraudulent election that causes it to be a slave state or at least petition to be a slave state. And what happens is this mini civil war devolves where the free-soilers create their own constitution in Lawrence, Kansas, and the slave owners have theirs in LeCompton, and they actually make war on each other.
Gerrit The federal army is sent, but it just shows you how high tensions are. It's not certain exactly what causes James Buchanan when he's elected in 1856. So he's elected in 1856, but again, very key to remember during this time period, presidents don't actually take office until the spring of the following year. For us, it's almost the same thing. It's early January, then boom, your new president's present. But for them, it's not until March. So there are many months of lame duck presidencies that take place. When Buchanan finally takes office, he is going to relatively quickly, things start out amicable. I mean, he meets with the Latter-day Saint representative. We have a territorial delegate who's a non-voting delegate in the Congress, just like Puerto Rico has a non-voting Congress representative.
Gerrit They don't vote, but they represent Puerto Rico. They're elected by Puerto Ricans. They come and they express what Puerto Rico thinks about certain things. We are representing the territory of Puerto Rico, but they don't actually have a vote. They can certainly say what they think, but their vote doesn't count. That's what Utah Territory has. In 1856, they have a territorial delegate who's been elected by the people. It's not like he's just some appointee. He's elected, but he also doesn't have any actual political power. He's just kind of like an advisor, basically, saying, oh, this is what the people of Utah Territory think. He meets with Buchanan right after Buchanan's elected, and it's an amicable meeting. Well, in the months that follow that amity, it goes away very quickly. And Buchanan will become convinced, and this is where I say we don't really know. In fact, there are multiple different theories of what happens. The one theory is the kind of straight-up theory. There's multiple antagonistic reports that reach DC from former Utah officials, non-Latter-day Saint officials, claiming that Brigham Young is not actually enforcing the laws, that the Mormons are all completely opposed to the United States, that they are flaunting the government and the laws of the government, and that Brigham Young is the head of that problem.
Gerrit Well, so that's a pretty standard one. He receives these evil reports and he acts on it. There's another theory that was put forward maybe a decade ago now, that in fact Buchanan was attempting to leverage Congress for his plan. He had a plan to try to purchase an annex Cuba from Spain, which was a long sought after American foreign policy. But you have to listen to our foreign policy podcast, which we haven't started yet or ever to get that one. We'll just do a general history umbrella. And then there's the other more cynical view that Buchanan is deliberately trying to find something that is going to unify this completely broken nation. By 1857, people are starting to actually intimate that there might be violence over the issue of slavery. That's how heated the debate is. And so there's this possibility at least, or at least it's conjectured, that maybe Buchanan, certainly no friend of Mormons, is going to send an army to Utah in part to try to find some other monster to destroy, to quote Benjamin Franklin, that by saying, oh, the Mormons are the real enemies, well, Republicans and Democrats can come together on that because everyone hates Mormons.
Gerrit So I can't send the army to definitively intervene in Kansas because then I'll risk war between either the slaveholders and the non-slaveholders, whichever side we're on. But I can send an army to Utah because everyone hates Mormons. And that will have a unifying factor. We don't actually really know. Buchanan has his public statements when she says that Mormons are in direct rebellion to the United States. But we don't have any of his personal stuff. And the reason why we don't is Buchanan's niece will destroy all of his papers after he dies. And so we don't... I don't know. I mean, I'm sure at some point she might give a reason, but his papers are some of the sparsest... They are certainly the sparsest presidential papers from that time period in American history, because none of his papers, at least very, very few...
Gerrit Whenever we have a paper directly from Buchanan, it's because someone else had it, and then it eventually made its way back into archival system. So what you don't have is a Buchanan journal. So when you deal with the other presidents like James Polk, it's great, because James Polk keeps this daily journal. And so all the time, James Polk will go before Congress and say, We've got to do this! Except he's from Tennessee, so with a Tennessee accent. And then he'll write in his journal, I don't think we should do that at all, but I know that's what people want to hear. So he's a very consummate politician. You know that he doesn't mean what he says or does mean what he says, in part because he's the one telling you, either through his journal or through private correspondence with trusted friends. With Buchanan, we don't get that, because we don't have his journal. And we have very little of his correspondence from his side. So knowing exactly why he sends the Army to Utah is very, very difficult.
Gerrit From the Latter-day Saint perspective in Utah territory, it doesn't matter so much the reason why he's sending the Army to Utah. It matters far more that an Army is coming to Utah and that this Army is sent out in a way that is not normal. So the president has the ability to fire a governor whenever he wants. He appoints them, they're federal appointees, and then they have to be approved by Congress, but that's it. They're approved by Congress and they go on. But just like today, the president could decide right now to fire his secretary of commerce. He could say, you know what? And you're out. And then appoint a new one. Now that new one might not be approved by the senator or whatever, but all of these are federally appointed positions that the president could at any point end. And that's what he does. He replaces Brigham Young as the governor with another governor.
Gerrit The problem is he doesn't actually convey to Brigham Young that that's what's going on. Latter-day Saints will read in Eastern newspapers that they received through the mails that the Mormons in Utah are in rebellion, that James Buchanan has ordered a third of the United States Army to march there and suppress this rebellion.
Richard So just a third of the US military.
Gerrit Yeah, at the time, maybe only a quarter, depending on how you decide to count it.
Richard But regardless, I mean, this is...
Gerrit There's roughly around 8,000 to 10,000 members of the US military at the time. We had a very small professional military, and 2,500 troops are ordered to Utah.
Richard But to that point, though, this is not some small force.
Gerrit It is a huge contingent of the existing US military. In fact, it's so big, it's going to put strain on the other aspects of the US military, because again, we don't have this massive military. Back then, the idea was if someone invades us, we'll raise a bunch of volunteers, which is what we did in the Mexican War. When we went to war with Mexico, nearly that entire army was a volunteer army. So Latter-day Saints on the ground are going to find out that an army is heading to Utah, that they are being called traitors, and they don't know what the end of that army is. Certainly, the newspapers that they're receiving are talking about things that sound eerily similar to the extermination of the Mormons that took place in Missouri. Now, someone might say, well, you're kind of jumping to the worst possible scenario, but if you were a Latter-day Saint living in Utah in 1857, you very possibly in the past decade would have experienced two such ethnic cleansings that had taken place, one in Missouri and another in Nauvoo, where the very fact that you belong to the religion is the reason why you are being driven out.
Gerrit It's easy for someone looking back to say, oh, I'm sure they should have just waited to see what was going on with the army, but they waited to see what was going on with the army at Hons Mill and at Far West. If you're someone who actually experienced that, the idea that, oh, of course, you would just be temperate and you'd wait to find out is a lot harder thing to understand. So next week, what we're going to talk about, we'll try to get back into the actual topic, but we're going to talk about, you know, on the heels of this army coming, this horrific event that takes place at the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

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I put Richard in charge of when the episodes come out because he's the business PhD.

GerritBanter

It is interesting. I mean, he was fine, but he was the worst of the three for sure.

RichardBanter

Well, I think first and foremost, if your friends or family members' primary engagement with you on the doctrine of the church is from something they watched on Hulu, you're already kind of fighting a losing battle, right?

GerritInsight

Just think if they'd watched Saturday's Warrior.

GerritBanter

People who have firm religious convictions are happier, tend to have better mental health, they live longer.

GerritInsight

Usually when someone says it stands to reason, what they really mean is, I don't actually have evidence, but wouldn't it be cool if? And that's not history.

GerritInsight

It's the basis of our friendship.

GerritBanter

If I can't, you could ask me about the Challenger Disaster and I would say Compromise of 1850 is where we have to start.

GerritBanter

It's easy for someone looking back to say, oh, I'm sure they should have just waited to see what was going on with the army, but they waited to see what was going on with the army at Hons Mill and at Far West.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Under the Banner of Heaven shows that faith, especially Latter-day Saint faith, makes people violent.
Brigham Young being both prophet and governor was undemocratic.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

If a friend asks about something they saw on TV, don't be contentious; a show is a poor stand-in for knowing you and your faith.

Krakauer is a journalist, and his history leans on outdated sources; check who is telling the story and what evidence they use.

The Saints left the United States for Mexico, only to land back in the most contested territory of the slavery debate.

Saints who had already been driven from Missouri and Nauvoo had good reason to fear when an army marched toward Utah in 1857.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Rice tariffs and release datesRichard, the business PhD, schedules episodes: Zion 1, Zion 2, something completely different (1:13).
The worst of the Spider-MansRichard's editorial addition to the FX press release (2:03).
Saturday's WarriorIf friends think The Book of Mormon musical is bad, imagine if they'd watched Saturday's Warrior (5:07).
Episodes promised, never madeEarly Utah history in season 11, the Mormon Battalion in season 25 or 26, and polygamy in 27 (22:32, callback 26:47).
IdahoGerrit, from Idaho, still doesn't want to serve a mission in a Palmyra or Winter Quarters winter (25:32).
Start your own podcastIf you were so smart about Bleeding Kansas, you'd start your own podcast (48:00).
Is anyone still awake?Gerrit wishes he could see when people stop listening; Richard bets on Millard Fillmore or the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (48:13).
TownshipsAny mention of townships triggers a mass departure (48:21).
Gerrit never answers the question (quickly)Ask him about the Challenger disaster and he starts with the Compromise of 1850 (51:03).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
The Compromise of 1850 and how popular sovereignty shaped Utah Territory (33:43).
Territorial appointees in the West and why so many clashed with Brigham Young (41:28).
Bleeding Kansas and the Lecompton Constitution (51:03).
The competing theories for why Buchanan sent the army to Utah in 1857 (55:46).
SOT Litner · S2E19.