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FINALLY somebody made a movie about the mass murder of 120 men, women and children from an emigrant train at Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory, 9/11/1857

"September Dawn".

It won't play long in theaters, but I'll prob'ly buy it when it comes out. And a useful reminder of what folks are capable of when they believe they are spoken directly to by God. In this case shooting down "gentiles" in cold blood, in part because by doing so you spill their blood for their sins and give 'em a chance to make it to "one of the Heavens". Yepper, kill them out of love (and remember, this was Americans talking like this).

Mormon detractors will be happy to note the movie makes it clear that Young hisself was involved, although the LDS publically deny this.

I weren't there, but I think John D. Lee, the only man convicted of involvement, and that nearly twenty years after the fact, was in a position to know...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre



OK, the movie itself... beautifully shot, well done. That, and the period clothing (powder horns still in common use) make it so pleasant to watch you sorta forget some of these people are gonna murder the other people in cold blood.

And a lesson: Never, ever, give up your weapons, not even, or else especially when, offered safe passage for doing so. (Hmmm.... lying to the non-believers before murdering them is OK when you are doing God's work, where else do we hear that?).

"Blood atonement"? How about movie atonement? They should play this movie every night for the next 150 years in Salt Lake.

Speaking of weapons, they dropped the ball. Many of the rifles, supposedly months on the trail, looked brand-new. But where they REALLY dropped the ball is on the revolvers.

I never did see so many brass-framed '51 Navies in action, in fact at least one guy too was shooting a brass-framed '61 Army, and on at least one occasion the guns in an actor's hands switch from brass frame to steel frame during the firefight.

The hero also (there is one, a dissenting Mormon) finds a brass framed '58 Remington, like the '61 Colt a few years ahead of its time.

And the bird calls... the movie has it that Utah is just littered with singing Hermit Thrushes, everywhere, at every season.

Birdwatcher

Bad timing for Romney.

Quite a coincidence, actually.

Seems that Mormon bashing must be okay now that Catholic bashing is verbotten.....

There have been so many massacres in the name of God, and to begrudge someone their religeous freedom, that I doubt one more will make anyone hinky about Mitt. Anymore than the past actions of the KKK would dissuade anyone from voting for a baptist. Sheridan often invoked the name of christianity while executing his extermination policies towards the native americans. People are pretty much used to the fact that there are zealots and ideologs who will stop at nothing to secure their vision of truth, at least in their own minds.

Here's Mark Twain's account of it, from Roughing It:

Source

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 train 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 (so read 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.

With unheard-of temerity Judge Cradlebaugh opened his court and proceeded to make Mormondom answer for the massacre. And what a spectacle it must have been to see this grim veteran, solitary and alone in his pride and his pluck, glowering down on his Mormon jury and Mormon auditory, deriding them by turns, and by turns "breathing threatenings and slaughter!"

An editorial in the Territorial Enterprise of that day says of him and of the occasion:

"He spoke and acted with the fearlessness and resolution of a Jackson; but the jury failed to indict, or even report on the charges, while threats of violence were heard in every quarter, and an attack on the U.S. troops intimated, if he persisted in his course.

"Finding that nothing could be done with the juries, they were discharged with a scathing rebuke from the judge. And then, sitting as a committing magistrate, he commenced his task alone. He examined witnesses, made arrests in every quarter, and created a consternation in the camps of the saints greater than any they had ever witnessed before, since Mormondom was born. At last accounts terrified elders and bishops were decamping to save their necks; and developments of the most starling character were being made, implicating the highest Church dignitaries in the many murders and robberies committed upon the Gentiles during the past eight years."

Had Harney been Governor, Cradlebaugh would have been supported in his work, and the absolute proofs adduced by him of Mormon guilt in this massacre and in a number of previous murders, would have conferred gratuitous coffins upon certain citizens, together with occasion to use them. But Cumming was the Federal Governor, and he, under a curious pretense of impartiality, sought to screen the Mormons from the demands of justice. On one occasion he even went so far as to publish his protest against the use of the U.S. troops in aid of Cradlebaugh's proceedings.

Mrs. C. V. Waite closes her interesting detail of the great massacre with the following remark and accompanying summary of the testimony--and the summary is concise, accurate and reliable:

"For the benefit of those who may still be disposed to doubt the guilt of Young and his Mormons in this transaction, the testimony is here collated and circumstances given which go not merely to implicate but to fasten conviction upon them by 'confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ:'

"1. The evidence of Mormons themselves, engaged in the affair, as shown by the statements of Judge Cradlebaugh and Deputy U.S. Marshall Rodgers.
"2. The failure of Brigham Young to embody any account of it in his Report as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Also his failure to make any allusion to it whatever from the pulpit, until several years after the occurrence
"3. The flight to the mountains of men high in authority in the Mormon Church and State, when this affair was brought to the ordeal of a judicial investigation.
"4. The failure of the Deseret News, the Church organ, and the only paper then published in the Territory, to notice the massacre until several months afterward, and then only to deny that Mormons were engaged in it.
"5. The testimony of the children saved from the massacre.
"6. The children and the property of the emigrants found in possession of the Mormons, and that possession traced back to the very day after the massacre.
"7. The statements of Indians in the neighborhood of the scene of the massacre: these statements are shown, not only by Cradlebaugh and Rodgers, but by a number of military officers, and by J. Forney, who was, in 1859, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory. To all these were such statements freely and frequently made by the Indians.
"8. The testimony of R. P. Campbell, Capt. 2d Dragoons, who was sent in the Spring of 1859 to Santa Clara, to protect travelers on the road to California and to inquire into Indian depredations."

First thing that crossed my mind, as well, when I first saw the trailer.

I lived in Utah for a few years, so am anxious to see this movie. Also, Voight is a pretty decent actor.

The Mormons to this day will say that Brigham Young didn't know about it until after it was over. However, if you read John Lee's confession, it states that he was under Young's direct orders. The Mormons managed to delay Lee's trial for a full 20 years, until Young was dead, to prevent him from being tried, too. The confession is part of the official court record of the trial. I'll believe that Young didn't order it when the Mormons provide evidence otherwise and the court record is changed.

This massacre isn't unlike the Muslim bombers of today. They kill innocent people simply because they don't like their religion. Young died swimming in the blood of innocent people and will pay the price in the fires of hell.

I'm sure we'll see posts here referring to various atrocities by Christians, but they'll be wrong. They're referring to atrocities by people CALLING themselves Christians. There's a huge difference. A Bible-believing Christian does not do such things. It's clearly prohibited by God.

Dick

Yep, here we go.

It's gonna be all Mormons are responsible because of the actions of a few; whereas when it's a "Christian" azzhole responsible, well he was not a real Christian, and thus no Christians are really responsible.

Same CATC bullschit, different location, and different denomination/faith being bashed this time.

Where in my post did I say that all Mormons are responsible? I named only 1 - the leader Brigham Young.

Dick

RC;

Didn't say it was just you, or just your post.

The movie does bash Brigham Young and the hierarchy of the Mormon church in the 1850's in (heavy on "oaths of secrecy" apparently). Then too it shows the absolute obedience demanded of church members back then, down to the decisions of who will marry who or else lose his wife or wives (this alive and well today in the likes of Warren Jeff's followers).

Episodes of the "Mormon Avengers" (Angels??) in action are shown too. And a polygamous household wil always look totally bizarre, whether today or back then.

Mostly it leaves you with a sense of the surreal bizarreness of it all, truth stranger than any fiction. OTOH, the well founded reasons for the Mormons' own paranoia are depicted, from the killings of themselves back East, to the approach of Federal troops. Leading them to react to this wagon train a whole lot differently from earlier parties.

If this is "church bashing" so be it. But since Mormons are mostly White, live and work among us, are integrated throughout our society, and more than anything ain't trying to kill us all, I don't see some big anti-Mormon backlash happening.

Saying this thing happened ain't Mormon-bashing. Pointing out the rampant corruption in the Catholic Church of centuries past ain't Catholic bashing either, neither is pointing out the utterly disgraceful levels of sexual abuse riddling the clergy like dry rot either (I was raised a Catholic).

As far as this being timed to coincide with Romney, I dunno if a movie project started years ago can be planned that intelligently. The memory of the Left is short, this movie will be forgotten by the masses long before it really might have mattered, and it'd be a long stretch to tie Romney to it anyhow.

Irony too, if the LDS had just come out years ago and said, "yep that happened and we're embarrassed and apalled that this should have been done in our name", this whole story would be old news.

To do that though might mean admitting more than they care to about Brigham Young and the fallibilty of humans, even "God on Earth". Not that that would deter the present faithful, any more than the many Catholic scandals have led their faithful to quit their church.

There's a good article in the current issue of "Wild West" magazine on this topic, claiming the LDS are still beating around the bush, have been quietly sabotaging and sqelching projects like this for yeas, and are allowing the Mountain Meadows area to disappear under developement.



On a different note, it is nice to see White Frontier characters who are pleasant and normal, even kind and loving other to each (the wagon train). Somehow it seems like its been a while since we've seen that. Refreshing too to see Indians who are less than "Noble Savages".

John Voight does an excellent job of playing the Mormon "Bishop" on the scene, and the love-at-first-sight story between one of his sons and a girl in the train believably portrayed.


On a different note again another movie to watch for is "3:15 to Yuma". With Russel Crowe as a thoroughly criminal Western outlaw in chains being escorted by an outnumbered posse. It looked awesome on the trailer. 'Bout time we had some Westerns.

Birdwatcher

bwaaaaaaaaaaaa

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister.

3:10 to Yuma?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeroJ1BK6GQ

Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Most Klansman if religeous would have certainly been Baptist though, just based on sheer numbers of Baptists in the South.

Mike

All poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles....

and they all leave puddles.

Yep, movies are the perfect source for all things factual and true.
We know that Fahrenheit 911 was all truth.

Thanks for the review, BW. I've been waiting for this movie to come out, and hoping it would be well done.

BTW - I can forgive the firearm goofs if the story line is predominantly correct.

Barak - good on you to reference "Roughing It". It's one of my favorite reads. Anyone at the campfire who has not read it should do so. Forget about Tom & Huck, this is higher stuff.

Re: "Mormon (or any other) bashing". If it is history and it is factual (as humanly possible, anyway), we should not jump to call it bashing. How do you avoid mistakes of the past by denying them?

yeppers. Many anticipated a surge, if I can use that term here, in Mormon bashing, in an effort to discredit Romney.

If every atrocity committed by every religious sect or church was thrown up for examination, then every religion on the face of the earth would stand in ill repute.

Catholics murdered folks in their hundreds of thousands. Communists killed millions, our Pilgrim fathers burned folks at the stake as well. Good Baptists in the deep soutn hung folks of color. Muslims have made murder an institution. Face it, killing folks is what religion is mostly good at.

No, but when the movie draws on the available documentation from varied sources and adheres generally to that information, it shouldn't be discounted just because it's a movie. F-911 is easy to debunk with readily available information. Mountain meadows, OTOH....?