Life of Joseph Smith from 1838 to 1839
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The life of Joseph Smith from 1838 to 1839, when he was 33–34 years old, covers a period beginning when Smith left Ohio in January 1838 until he left Missouri and moved to Nauvoo, Illinois in 1839.
Background
Smith's early revelations identified western
The Latter Day Saints had been migrating to Missouri ever since Smith had claimed the area to be Zion. They simultaneously occupied the Kirtland area, as well as the Independence area for around seven years. Following the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society, Smith fled for Missouri in January 1838, and the rest of the remaining Latter Day Saints followed.
Ecclesiastical matters
During this time, a church council expelled many of the oldest and most prominent leaders of the church—including Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, David Whitmer, and W. W. Phelps—on allegations of misusing church property and finance amid tense relations between them and Smith.[2] Smith explicitly approved of the excommunication of these men, who were known collectively as the "dissenters".[3]
In Missouri, the church also took the name "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", and construction began on a new temple.[4]
Conflict with Missourians
Prelude to violence
Political and religious differences between old Missourians and newly arriving Latter Day Saint settlers provoked tensions between the two groups, much as they had in Jackson County. Local leaders saw their Latter Day Saints as a religious and political threat, alleging that Smith and his followers would vote in blocs. Additionally, Mormons purchased vast amounts of land in which to establish settlements, and held abolitionist viewpoints, including Smith himself. Thus they clashed with the pro-slavery persuasions of the majority of Missourians. Tensions were fueled by the announcement by Smith that Jackson County, Missouri would be the New Jerusalem and that the surrounding lands were promised to the Church by God and that the Saints would inhabit that area.
By this time, Smith's experiences with mob violence led him to believe that his faith's survival required greater militancy against
In a speech given at Far West’s Fourth of July celebration, Rigdon declared that Mormons would no longer tolerate persecution by the Missourians and spoke of a "war of extermination" if Mormons were attacked.[9] Smith implicitly endorsed this speech,[10] and many non-Mormons understood it to be a thinly veiled threat. They unleashed a flood of anti-Mormon rhetoric in newspapers and in stump speeches given during the 1838 election campaign.[11]
Violence
On August 6, 1838, non-Mormons in Gallatin, Missouri, tried to prevent Mormons from voting,[12] and the election day scuffles initiated the 1838 Mormon War. Non-Mormon vigilantes raided and burned Mormon farms, while Danites and other Mormons pillaged non-Mormon towns.[13] In the Battle of Crooked River, a group of Mormons attacked the Missouri state militia, mistakenly believing them to be anti-Mormon vigilantes.
This battle led to reports of a "Mormon insurrection" and the death of apostle
Soon after the "Extermination Order" was issued, vigilantes attacked an outlying Mormon settlement and killed seventeen people. This event is identified as the
Aftermath
The legality of Boggs' "Extermination Order" was debated in the
An estimated 800 Mormons were forcibly dispossessed of their homes and businesses. A long trail of appeals went as far as Washington, D.C., with Joseph receiving a personal audience with President Martin Van Buren, who said he could not help. Congress sent the matter back to the state of Missouri.
Liberty Jail
Imprisonment
After losing the
Escape
Once the Latter Day Saints no longer posed a political threat, Missouri leaders realized that Mormon behavior could hardly be classified as treason whereas, as Fawn Brodie has written, the governor's "exterminating order stank to heaven."[23] On the way to trial, the sheriff and guards agreed to get drunk on whiskey purchased by Joseph's brother Hyrum and looked the other way while their prisoners escaped.[24]
Notes
- ^ Covenant 57:3
- ^ Marquardt (2005, p. 463) ; Remini (2002, p. 128); Quinn (1994, p. 93); Bushman (2005, pp. 324, 346–348)
- ^ Bushman (2005, pp. 347–48)
- ^ Brodie (1971, pp. 210, 222–23); Quinn (1994, p. 628); Remini (2002, p. 131)
- ^ Quinn (1994, p. 92); Brodie (1971, p. 213); Bushman (2005, p. 355)
- ^ Quinn (1994, p. 93); Remini (2002, p. 129)
- ^ Bushman (2005, pp. 346–52); Quinn (1994, p. 93); Hill (1977, p. 225)
- ^ Quinn (1994, pp. 94–95)
- ^ Remini (2002, pp. 131–33)
- ^ Quinn (1994, p. 96); Bushman (2005, p. 355)
- ^ Remini (2002, p. 133)
- ^ Bushman (2005, p. 357)
- ^ Remini (2002, p. 134); Quinn (1994, pp. 96–99, 101); Bushman (2005, p. 363)
- ^ Bushman (2005, pp. 364–65); Quinn (1994, p. 100)
- ISBN 9780190933869.
- ^ Bushman (2005, pp. 366–67); Brodie (1971, p. 239)
- ^ Bushman (2005, pp. 242, 344, 367); Brodie (1971, p. 241)
- ^ Brodie (1971, pp. 245–51); Bushman (2005, pp. 375–77))
- ^ (Brodie 1945, p. 245);(Bushman 2005, pp. 375–77). However, Rigdon was both sick and a whiner, and Smith became disillusioned with him during their period of enforced association in Liberty jail.(Brodie 1945, p. 251).
- ^ (Brodie 1945, pp. 245–46). Smith claimed to have been ignorant of many of Avard's devices; and "oddly, he chose to deny the ubiquitous rumor of polygamy—though it had not been mentioned in the Richmond trial."
- ^ Statement of Brigham Young (1865) quoted in (Brodie 1945, p. 246).
- ^ (Bushman 2005, p. 375);(Brodie 1945, pp. 250–51).
- ^ (Brodie 1945, p. 247). "The prisoners had long suspected they were an embarrassment to the state because the vigilante action and Bogg's extermination order would cause a scandal if widely publicized." Bushman (2005), 382. Brodie also noted that it was common knowledge that "one member of the legislature had participated in the Haun's Mill massacre." Brodie, 247.
- ^ (Bushman 2005, p. 382);(Brodie 1945, p. 255). The Mormons may also have bribed their guards. Joseph Smith III remembered his father paying $800 to the sheriff.
References
- ISBN 0-394-46967-4.
- ISBN 0-394-46967-4.
- ISBN 1-4000-4270-4.
- Hill, Donna (1977). Joseph Smith: The First Mormon. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co. ISBN 0-385-00804-X.
- Marquardt, H. Michael (2005). The Rise of Mormonism: 1816–1844. Grand Rapids, MI: Xulon Press. ISBN 1-59781-470-9.
- ISBN 1-56085-056-6.
- ISBN 0-670-03083-X.