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The point is it was information acquired and attitude learned during Gray's time spent in the Tonto Rim and Grand Canyon country. He didn't invent - he did reflect.

"when they believe they are spoken directly to by God."

Yes. Our European ancestors marched all over the known world doing just that for centuries. "Crusades" you know.

That's a fact. Gray gets a lot less credit than he deserves on that score. I've read a lot of his work. He did tend to research before writing - and that included actually living in the locals set in his books. I've read "The U.P. Trail" and can attest to a good lot of historical accuracy in that book, even though it's a work of fiction.

Anyway - movies and novels are a red-herring to the question of the history being discussed. There's plenty of non-fiction information about this to be had. If it agrees largely with a current movie, that doesn't make it less accurate.

Originally Posted by Ethan Edwards

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

Anybody with a modicum of sense can go to the library and get a book on firearms and see exactly which ones were in use during a given period, for the most part, by eliminating those which hadn't been invented yet.

OTOH what happened at Mountain Meadows required a great deal of research to uncover and then is based very much on the eyewitness testimony of one participant and disregarding the same testimony of others-both sides being false. Both sides are very far from the incident timewise.

Point being: When they can't even get the obvious correct, how can they be expected to get that correct that takes a lot of research as well as some conclusions from the research?

Ethan, that all sounds well and good, but that is not the way scripts are written nor filmed.

Ordinarily, a screenplay is 120 pages long, give or take a couple or three pages. If the screenplay involves a lot of action such as "gunplay," I assure you that the writer does NOT describe the gun(s) everytime he writes a scene. If he did, his/her screenplay would be mainly just exposition about each and every firearm for the time period.

The object of a writer is to make sure the director, star, producer, etc., etc., turns the pages of the screenplay. If the script is full of long, intricate descriptions of "period" firearms, I guarandamntee you none of those people will read the script.

Most writers, producers, directors, and actors know very, very little about firearms. So, other than a few exceptions, the descriptions of the firearms is very general and often, vague. If -- and that's a big "IF" -- the screenplay "goes to film," usually the director gives a copy of the script to a movie firearms rental company and says "I need a bunch of guns for this film. Bring me what I need."

The firearms props manager handles it from there.

Sometimes a director will want some kind of "weird" gun(s), and the company supplies what is wanted. That is the exception, unless the director is shooting for something "really cool, man, graphic!"

Depending on the size of the company (the many years biggest was Stembridge, but they're out of business), the guns supplied, including the fake guns which are seen and carried, but NOT fired, are not abundant enough to be totally period correct. This also applies to the firearms that are actually fired on the set. Sometimes enough authentic reproductions are available, sometimes not. If they're not, the company just substitutes fake or real firearms that "kinda" look right. Very few people in the audience know the difference.

Movies are, afterall, just entertainment. Often, if it is some historical story, or "Based on a True Story," there is some effort by the writer, director, and producer, to create some semblance of authenticity... but that will always take a back seat to entertainment values, expediency, and costs.

That's just the way it is in "show business."

FWIW.

L.W.

I seem to remember a movie also staring Jon Voyt (or how ever you spell it) about Noah's ark that was so far off of the bible story it was pathetic, so why should I take any stock in what this story says. Just because there are court records does not make them true. Is it not possible that this eye whitness said that he was orderd by Brigham Young to save his own a$$?
The movie bout Noah's ark was also supposed to be researched and factual, but it wasn't even close.

I'm well aware of how movies are made and the good ones are historically accurate if they deal with historical events, as far as I'm concerned. I expect a lot more nowadays from a western than one made in 1950. There has been a lot more research done and the available info is much more easily obtained via the internet and the proliferation of books than it was fifty years ago. Once again, when a movie is purporting to rewrite history, they should get as many facts correct as they can lest they open themselves up to criticism.

Nothing against Birdy or his review. Sounds like a decent movie. I just wouldn't call it hard fact.

This thread has taken an odd twist. Who here is suggesting that a movie should be taken as unquestioned fact? Any more than a book should. Clearly some folk's oxen are being gored.

You read "Wild West" magazine, as I do, and know right or wrong, all the articles there are thoroughly researched and written by serious historians.

You'll note in the most recent issue a lengthy six-page article specifically on the massacre at Mountain Meadows, the recurrent efforts of the LDS to cover up or alter the story, and that the author (Will Bagley) expresses skepicism that the movie (not yet seen when he wrote the article), would get the facts, as known, correct.

Bagley has been thoroughly researching this topic for at lest twenty years, personally knew prior published historians who did likewise, and has perused the records at Salt Lake to the extent he is well known by officials in the church. He has published one book and edited a second on the topic.

Reading his article, I think he is probably pleased with the movie.

Bagley also alludes to an upcoming book by three Mormon historians on the topic... "Tragedy at Mountain Meadows" based on what the LDS says is "documents not previously available to researchers". A project which Bagley states has been lavishly financed by the LDS church dspite their and the authors' claim that the book will not be the "official" word of the LDS on the subject.

As Bagley does, I smell a rat, in spades.

Anyhow, even the publishers (Oxford Press) for that upcoming book state... "this spell binding narrative offers fascinating conclusions as to why Mormon settlers in isolated Southern Utah decieved the emigrant party with a promise of safety and killed the adults and all but a few of the youngest children"...

Well at least they're off of the original party line of "that one bad White guy got the Indians to do it"...

The REAL question remaining is whether the order came from the top. Bagley believes that it did, quoting Brigham Young in the aftermath.

Utah historian (and Mormon) Juanita Brooks, who's 1950 book "The Mountain Meadows Massacre" Bagley states launched a scramble by the LDS to suppress moves to make the book into a movie, stated that "Brigham Young was not a credulous simpleton, he was not duped or hoodwinked, he was not misinformed." Naming him as an active accessory after the fact, from which one must conclude that, at the very least, Brigham Young lied about the atrocity afterwards.

Bagley though, builds a case that most likely Young knew before the fact, citing in part Young's own prior boast to his own... "Do you know that I have my threads strung all through the Territory, that I may know what individuals do?", further Bagley states that John Lee, an active instigator of and participant in the crime (and later the only man executed for it) was a key element in the prophet's intelligence network.

Quite clearly, this upcoming LDS-financed book is going to make the case that Young was clueless as to what those crazy Mormons in "isolated Southern Utah" did.

If there weren't so many folks in the US having their own particular ox gored by the events of this sad episode, I don't think there'd be much question of what transpired at all.

Adding credibility too is the historical fact that many of the perpetrators of the deed suffered for their actions, as any otherwise decent man would. Bagley states...



FWIW, Bagley also states...



Indeed, given the misplaced piety of the perpetrators, where ELSE would the proceeds go but to the Salt Lake City of that time and place?

Note that none of these lost assests were ever recovered, or any sort of reparation made to the relatives of the victims (two of whom apparently escaped the intial massacre, only to be ruthlessly tracked and finally killed a full hundred miles from the scene).

But of course to return assets or make reparations could mean admitting guilt.

Birdwatcher

I need to start reading Wild West again. I haven't picked up an issue for awhile and I'm about tired of the repetitiveness of their competitor. I'm aware of the controversy surrounding Mountain Meadows and whether or not Young was aware/involved. I would say the research as well as common sense points to his involvement. I also think that serious scholarship needs to be very careful when hooking up with Hollyweird. They do things like ruin a good historical story by getting facts wrong that they easily could have gotten right and introducing an element of doubt into what otherwise could have been an educational experience.

Brigham Young's private army of vigilantes was called the Danites, or sometimes the destroying angels or avenging angels. It was originated by Joseph Smith in Missouri for defense and later, in Utah, became Young's band of hit men. The official name Danite came from the Hebrew tribe of Dan who were said to be warriors.

Search on any of these 3 names and you'll get an eyeful of what kind of thugs they were. It wasn't a legacy to be proud of.

Dick

No fiction here, just history.

150 years ago today . . . link.

Another book I've not seen mentioned yet Wife No. 19, Or the Story of a Life...of Mormonism, and ... By Ann Eliza Young that includes details of the Mountain Meadow massacre. (Chapter XIII)

I just Amazoned that book. Thanks.

Well just to pile a little more on, two quotes of Young's during the years after the massacre (I mean other than the repeated denials that Mormons had anything to do with it) as per Bagley's article.

The first as related by John Lee, from 1861, on the occasion of their destroying a monument that had been raised by the US Army over the graves of the victims...

"...used up at Mountain Meadows were the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and connections of those that murders the prophets; they mertited their fate, and the only thing that ever troubled him was the lives of the women and children, but that under the circumstances could not be avoided."

The second quote bagley identifies from a second Mormon source present at the same occasion...

"When he came to the monument that contained their bones, he made this remark, vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord and I have taken a little of it".

Sure comes across as a cold SOB.


Anyhow, on the general topic of Mormonism a couple of parallels to Islam.

Both are based upon the testimony of ordinary men who had been visited by entities that they identified as angels, IIRC the infallibility of these mortal men being fundamental to each faith (which I suppose must necessarily extend to Brigham Young too).

Both creeds still have their fanatics, but both have large numbers of followers who reject certain aspects of their prophet's message, and practice their faith differently than their prophet did, presumably rejecting parts of their own holy book.

By way of constrast, none of the ordinary humans in the Bible are presented as infallible (with the possible exception of Mary, Jesus's mom??). Even Peter, Jesus's right hand man who spoke DIRECTLY to Jesus, famously lied three times, out of fear for his own life.

This from a man who knew Jesus personally, had WITNESSED his miracles on a number of occasions, and had just spoken with him that very day.

Birdwatcher

Quote: 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."

The story has not been sqelched or sabataged. There is no developement going on. The site is now a Utah State Historical Site that has a large monument . The property is owned by the LDS church who made the monument and has openly ommited it happening. There are just those out there that like to keep the fire burning. I can send pics of the monument if someone wants to post them.
Dixie State College did a documentary years ago with interviews of historians that spent all their lives researching the history of Mountain Meadow .

From the article...



...and this...



and, again from the article...



Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first monument at the site, a tall cairn of rocks, was first erected by Carleton's US Dragoons in 1859, this same cairn torn down two years later under the personal direction of Brigham Young.

Interestingly, in relation to the earlier quote attributed to Young at that time, the original cairn bore the inscription..



Apparently up until 1990 all that marked the site were the remains of this original cairn surrounded by a stone wall.

In 1955, a tall cross was erected in Carrolton, Arkansas to celebrate the 1859 return of the 17 children "too young to have speech" not shot at Mountain Meadows and taken to be raised as Mormons. Remarkable that folks so far away should still remember.

In 1990, the Mountain Meadows Association, a descendant's organization based in Arkansas, finally got permission from the LDS to erect a monument (paid for by the State of Utah in conjunction with the MMA) at the massacre site.

It was not until 1999, one hundred and forty-two years after the fact, that the LDS themselves erected a marker on this, their property, ironically building a replica of the original cairn torn down by Brigham Young in 1861.

During construction of this second monument, at least twenty-nine sets of remains of the massacre victims were unexpedectedly unearthed.

I'm sure I'm not the first to observe that sounds like that could've been God getting in on the act.

I don't believe this story is quite done yet.

Birdwatcher

I think this could all help Mitt. We are in a war against terror, aren't we? This could give Romney warrior credibility. Nothing stiffles an insurgency like mass murder. Sadam proved that. Maybe Mitt has an answer that we ain't looked at yet.

Where the Mormons made their mistake was in not getting rid of Young altogether. Besides this massacre, he preached some things that are so outrageous that even the Mormons won't accept them. They've been used against Mormonism ever since. Young was obviously a liar of the worst kind, but the Mormons still claim him as their 'prophet'. They'd have been much further ahead in the long run to have dumped him and been done with it.

Dick

Birdwatcher et al.,

Your minds are made up! I love that Wild West magazine is infallible. Zane Grey is infallible and now Hollywood movies are infallible.

MMM happened! It was ugly!! But, the only true source of facts we should believe are those that bolster Birdwatchers and the movie makers agenda. The movie was made with an agenda. Bagley has an agenda, but theirs is truth and anything the Mormons say can't be believed because of course they have an agenda and are liars.

We rail on the fact that most news sources today have very much a liberal agenda and slant. Thus they are taken with a grain of salt. Yet this movie, Bagley, Birdwatcher and others are pure as the driven snow, have no personal animosity toward Mormons or Utah, (at least Rock Chuck doesn't pretend to hide his dislike of Mormons), and their version of MMM, Mormons, and Utah should be taken as the only truth.

I've known lots of wonderful Catholic people in my life. Not a single one ever molested anyone! Yet if I believed newspaper accounts, Catholics are pretty much Satan personified. Christ at the Campfire disappeared because of the constant religious bashing, predominately against the Catholics.

Everyone has an agenda!!! Everyone has their pet hates and prejudices! I will look at what Bagley and his crowd say, what the Mormons themselves say about Mountain Meadows and hopefully come somewhere close to the truth.

Henry;

Don't bother trying to make sense....

Same CATC schit, different location.....

The only difference here is that it ain't hidden in a forum of it's own, and this time, it ain't Catholics ..... yet....

Just remember, if you don't believe the same as some others here, then you're just wrong....

Henry - you're reading way too much into what has been posted here. Perhaps, a bit too sensitive?