Category: History

By Mark Twain [From Appendix B of Roughing It, 1872]

The persecutions which the Mormons suffered so long–and which they consider they still suffer in not being allowed to govern themselves–they have endeavored and are still endeavoring to repay. The now almost forgotten “Mountain Meadows massacre” was their work. It was very famous in its day. The whole United States rang with its horrors. A few items will refresh the reader’s memory. A great emigrant train from Missouri and Arkansas passed through Salt Lake City and a few disaffected Mormons joined it for the sake of the strong protection it afforded for their escape. In that matter lay sufficient cause for hot retaliation by the Mormon chiefs. Besides, these one hundred and forty-five or one hundred and fifty unsuspecting emigrants being in part from Arkansas, where a noted Mormon missionary had lately been killed, and in part from Missouri, a State remembered with execrations as a bitter persecutor of the saints when they were few and poor and friendless, here were substantial additional grounds for lack of love for these wayfarers. And finally, this trin was rich, very rich in cattle, horses, mules and other property–and how could the Mormons consistently keep up their coveted resemblance to the Israelitish tribes and not seize the “spoil” of an enemy when the Lord had so manifestly “delivered it into their hand?”

Wherefore, according to Mrs. C. V. Waite’s entertaining book, “The Mormon Prophet,” it transpired that–

A “revelation” from Brigham Young, as Great Grand Archee or God, was dispatched to President J. C. Haight, Bishop Higbee and J. D. Lee (adopted son of Brigham), commanding them to raise all the forces they could muster and trust, follow those cursed Gentiles (soread the revelation), attack them disguised as Indians, and with the arrows of the Almighty make a clean sweep of them, and leave none to tell the tale; and if they needed any assistance they were commanded to hire the Indians as their allies, promising them a share of the booty. They were to be neither slothful nor negligent in their duty, and to be punctual in sending the teams back to him before winter set in, for this was the mandate of Almighty God.

The command of the “revelation” was faithfully obeyed. A large party of Mormons, painted and tricked out as Indians, overtook the train of emigrant wagons some three hundred miles south of Salt Lake City, and made an attack. But the emigrants threw up earthworks, made fortresses of their wagons and defended themselves gallantly and successfully for five days! Your Missouri or Arkansas gentleman is not much afraid of the sort of scurvy apologies for “Indians” which the southern part of Utah affords. He would stand up and fight five hundred of them.

At the end of the five days the Mormons tried military strategy. They retired to the upper end of the “Meadows,” resumed civilized apparel, washed off their paint, and then, heavily armed, drove down in wagons to the beleaguered emigrants, bearing a flag of truce! When the emigrants saw white men coming they threw down their guns and welcomed them with cheer after cheer! And, all unconscious of the poetry of it, no doubt, they lifted a little child aloft, dressed in white, in answer to the flag of truce!

The leaders of the timely white “deliverers” were President Haight and Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mormon Church. Mr. Cradlebaugh, who served a term as a Federal Judge in Utah and afterward was sent to Congress from Nevada, tells in a speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next proceeded:

They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and represented them as being very mad. They also proposed to intercede and settle the matter with the Indians. After several hours parley they, having (apparently) visited the Indians, gave the ultimatum of the savages; which was, that the emigrants should march out of their camp, leaving everything behind them, even their guns. It was promised by the Mormon bishops that they would bring a force and guard the emigrants back to the settlements. The terms were agreed to, the emigrants being desirous of saving the lives of their families. The Mormons retired, and subsequently appeared with thirty or forty armed men. The emigrants were marched out, the women and children in front and the men behind, the Mormon guard being in the rear. When they had marched in this way about a mile, at a given signal the slaughter commenced. The men were almost all shot down at the first fire from the guard. Two only escaped, who fled to the desert, and were followed one hundred and fifty miles before they were overtaken and slaughtered. The women and children ran on, two or three hundred yards further, when they were overtaken and with the aid of the Indians they were slaughtered. Seventeen individuals only, of all the emigrant party, were spared, and they were little children, the eldest of them being only seven years old. Thus, on the 10th day of September, 1857, was consummated one of the most cruel, cowardly and bloody murders known in our history.

The number of persons butchered by the Mormons on this occasion was one hundred and twenty.

The standard deviation exceeds 1.0 for five of the presidents ranked below — Clinton, Wilson, Reagan, Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. This indicates there was more disagreement over rating these than the others. There was the least disagreement over Washington’s rating.

The list below ranks 39 presidents. President number 43, George W. Bush, was not included. Can you explain why the list is still three short?

The Federalist Society and the Wall Street Journal polled 78 scholars in 2000 to rate the presidents. The full study may be found here.

“The year was 1885 and the mood was mean. The cities and counties needed money and the territorial legislature controlled the purse strings. To make matters worse the members of the 13th Territorial Legislature were known to make decisions, often, for less than ethical reasons. They had earned the nickname, ‘The Thieving Thirteenth’.

There were two major prizes to be won from the legislature that year. Phoenix and Prescott came out on top. Phoenix was given the asylum for the insane and Prescott kept the state capital. Tucson received an unwelcome consolation prize of The University of Arizona, and with it, a measly $25,000 appropriation, just one quarter of the amount Phoenix received to build the insane asylum.

C.C. Stevens was the man sent to Prescott to win the state capital for Tucson. He came home with what he hoped would be welcomed as good news about the University. Instead of celebrating, Tucson responded angrily. Some reports say the people of Tucson greeted him with a shower of ripe eggs, rotten vegetables, and a dead cat.”

UA History

Larry McMurtry’s excellent essay “Inventing the West” from the August 2000 issue of The New York Review is online. McMurtry explains that most of the traditions associated with the American West were inventions of pulp writers, artists and advertising men—and show business. He illustrates how this romantic storytelling sometimes came to haunt the very characters it had already canonized:

In the fall of 1849, however, real life and the dime novel smacked into each other with a force that Kit Carson would never forget. A man named James M. White was traveling with his family on the Santa Fe Trail when they were attacked by a raiding party of Jicarilla Apaches, who killed James White and carried off Mrs. White, her child, and a servant. Pursuit was not immediate, but pursuit was eventually joined. Kit Carson lived nearby and was asked to help. In the brief autobiography which he dictated in 1856 he says that the trail was the most difficult he had ever been asked to follow; but, near the Canadian River, the rescuers finally caught up with the raiders. Carson charged immediately but was called back. The commanding officer, Captain Grier, had been told that the Apaches wanted to parley. They didn’t. After taking a shot or two at the soldiers, they killed Mrs. White and fled. Here is the scene in Carson’s words:

There was only one Indian in camp, he running into the river hard by was shot. In about two hundred yards the body of Mrs. White was found, perfectly warm, had not been killed more than five minutes, shot through the heart with an arrow….

In the camp was found a book, the first of the kind that I had ever seen, in which I was made a great hero, slaying Indians by the hundreds and I have often thought that Mrs. White would read the same and knowing that I lived near, she would pray for my appearance and that she might be saved. I did come but I had not the power to convince those that were in command over me to pursue my plan for her rescue….

Kit Carson was illiterate. He could sign and perhaps recognize his name, but all his life he took orders—often foolish and sometimes barbarous orders—from his superiors: men who could read. He was never insubordinate. The dime novel found by Mrs. White’s still-warm corpse had to be read to him, or summarized. He was long haunted by the hopes that had been raised by that dime novel, hopes he had just failed to fulfill. Except for recording the fact that he married Josefa Jaramillo, his “Little Jo,” Mrs. James M. White is the only woman mentioned by name in his autobiography.

McMurtry outlines the career of “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Annie Oakley and others. Cody, McMurtry writes, “spent more than forty years peddling illusions about the West….” In the end, when he wanted to tell the real story, he found that “Americans, now as then, were perfectly happy with the illusion….”

The United Farm Workers of America (UFW) was formed on this date in 1966, initially as the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee.

Excerpt from newly located Harry Truman diary, January 6, 1947:

Arose at 5:45 A.M.[,] read the papers and at 7:10 walked to the station to meet the family. Took 35 minutes. It was a good walk. Sure is fine to have them back. This great white jail is a hell of a place in which to be alone. While I work from early morning until late at night, it is a ghostly place. The floors pop and crack all night long. Anyone with imagination can see old Jim Buchanan walking up and down worrying about conditions not of his making. Then there’s Van Buren who inherited a terrible mess from his predecessor as did poor old James Madison. Of course Andrew Johnson was the worst mistreated of any of them. But they all walk up and down the halls of this place and moan about what they should have done and didn’t. So-you see. I’ve only named a few. The ones who had Boswells and New England historians are too busy trying to control heaven and hell to come back here. So the tortured souls who were and are misrepresented in history are the ones who come back. It’s a hell of a place.