Brigham Young 1801-1877 After 17 months and many miles of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Utah’s Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Gazing over the parched earth of the remote location, Young declared, “This is the place,” and the pioneers began preparations for the thousands of Mormon migrants who would follow. Seeking religious and political freedom, the Mormons began planning their great migration from the east after the murder of Joseph Smith, the Christian sect’s founder and first leader. Joseph Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont, in 1805. In 1827, he declared that he had been visited by a Christian angel named Moroni, who showed him an ancient Hebrew text that had been lost for 1,500 years. The holy text, supposedly engraved on gold plates by a Native American prophet named Mormon in the fifth century A.D., told the story of Israelite peoples who had lived in America in ancient times. During the next few years, Smith dictated an English translation of this text to his wife and other scribes, and in 1830 The Book of Mormon was published. In the same year, Smith founded the Church of Christ–later known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints–in Fayette, New York. The religion rapidly gained converts, and Smith set up Mormon communities in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. However, the Christian sect was also heavily criticized for its unorthodox practices, which included polygamy. In 1844, the threat of mob violence prompted Smith to call out a militia in the Mormon town of Nauvoo, Illinois. He was charged with treason by Illinois authorities and imprisoned with his brother Hyrum in the Carthage city jail. On June 27, 1844, an anti-Mormon mob with blackened faces stormed in and murdered the brothers. Two years later, Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, led an exodus of persecuted Mormons from Nauvoo along the western wagon trails in search of a sanctuary in “a place on this earth that nobody else wants.” The expedition, more than 10,000 pioneers strong, set up camp in present-day western Iowa while Young led a vanguard company across the Rocky Mountains to investigate Utah’s Great Salt Lake Valley, an arid and isolated spot devoid of human presence. On July 22, 1847, most of the party reached the Great Salt Lake, but Young, delayed by illness, did not arrive until July 24. Upon viewing the land, he immediately confirmed the valley to be the new homeland of the Latter-day Saints. Within days, Young and his companions began building the future Salt Lake City at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains. Later that year, Young rejoined the main body of pioneers in Iowa, who named him president and prophet of the church. Having formally inherited the authority of Joseph Smith, he led thousands of more Mormons to the Great Salt Lake in 1848. Other large waves of Mormon pioneers followed. By 1852, 16,000 Mormons had come to the valley, some in wagons and some dragging handcarts. After early difficulties, Salt Lake City began to flourish. By 1869, 80,000 Mormons had made the trek to their promised land. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore named Brigham Young the first governor of the U.S. territory of Utah, and the territory enjoyed relative autonomy for several years. Relations became strained, however, when reports reached Washington that Mormon leaders were disregarding federal law and had publicly sanctioned the practice of polygamy. In 1857, President James Buchanan removed Young, who had 20 wives, from his position as governor and sent U.S. Army troops to Utah to establish federal authority. Young died in Salt Lake City in 1877 and was succeeded by John Taylor as president of the church. Tensions between the territory of Utah and the federal government continued until Wilford Woodruff, the new president of the Mormon Church, issued his Manifesto in 1890, renouncing the traditional practice of polygamy and reducing the domination of the church over Utah communities. Six years later, the territory of Utah entered the Union as the 45th state. Davy Crockett 1786-1836 Davy Crockett was born on August 17, 1786, in Greene County, Tennessee. In 1813, he participated in a massacre against the Creek at Tallushatchee. In 1826, he earned a seat in the 21st U.S. Congress. He was re-elected to Congress twice before leaving politics to fight in the Texas Revolution. On March 6, 1836, Crockett was killed at the Battle of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. Davy Crockett was born as David Crockett on August 17, 1786, in Greene County, Tennessee. He was the fifth of nine children born to parents John and Rebecca (Hawkins) Crockett. Crockett's father taught him to shoot a rifle when he was just 8 years old. As a youngster, he eagerly accompanied his older brothers on hunting trips. But, when he turned 13, his father insisted that he enroll in school. After only four days of attendance, Crockett "whupped the tar" out of the class bully and was afraid to go back lest he face punishment or revenge. Instead, he ran away from home and spent the next three years wandering, while honing his skills as a woodsman. Just before he turned 16, Crockett went home and helped work off his father's debt to a man named John Kennedy. After the debt was paid, he continued working for Kennedy. At just a day shy of 20, Crockett married Mary Finley. The couple would bear two sons and a daughter before Mary died and Crockett remarried to Elizabeth Patton, who gave him another two children. In 1813, after the War of 1812 broke out, Crockett signed up to be a scout in the militia under Major John Gibson. Stationed in Winchester, Tennessee, Crockett joined a mission to seek revenge for the Creek Indians’ earlier attack on Fort Mims, Alabama. In November of that year, the militia massacred the Indians' town of Tallushatchee, Alabama. When his enlistment period for the Creek Indian War was up, he re-enlisted, this time as a third sergeant under Captain John Cowan. Crockett was discharged as a fourth sergeant in 1815, and went home to his family in Tennessee. Back at home, Crockett became a member of the Tennessee State House of Representatives from 1821 to 1823. In 1825, he ran for the 19th U.S. Congress, but lost. Running as a Jacksonian candidate in 1826, Crockett earned a seat in the 20th U.S. Congress. In March of 1829, he changed his political stance to anti-Jacksonian and was re-elected to the 21st Congress. In the next election, he failed to garner a seat in the 22nd Congress. He was, however, elected to the 23rd Congress in 1833. Crockett's stint in Congress concluded in 1835, after his run for re-election to the 24th Congress ended in defeat. During his political career, Crockett developed a reputation as a frontiersman that, while at times exaggerated, elevated him to folk legend status. While Crockett was indeed a skilled woodsman, his notability as a Herculean, rebellious, sharpshooting, tale-spinning and larger-than-life frontiersman was at least partially a product of his efforts to package himself and win votes during his political campaigns. The strategy proved largely effective; his fame helped him defeat the incumbent candidate in his 1833 bid for re-election to Congress. After Crockett lost the 1835 congressional election, he grew disillusioned with politics and decided to join the fight in the Texas War of Independence. On March 6, 1836, he was killed at the Battle of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. While the exact cause of Crockett's death is unknown, Peña, a lieutenant on the scene, stated that Crockett and his comrades at arms died "without complaining and without humiliating themselves before their torturers." General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana (1794-1876) The dominant figure in Mexican politics for much of the 19th century, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna left a legacy of disappointment and disaster by consistently placing his own self-interest above his duty to the nation. Born in the state of Vera Cruz in 1794, Santa Anna embarked on his long career in the army at age 16 as a cadet. He fought for a time for the Spanish against Mexican independence, but along with many other army officers switched sides in 1821 to help install Augustin de Iturbide as head of state of an independent Mexico. Mexico was a highly fractured and chaotic nation for much of its first century of independence, in no small part due to the machinations of men such as Santa Anna. In 1828 he used his military influence to lift the losing candidate into the presidency, being rewarded in turn with appointment as the highest-ranking general in the land. His reputation and influence were further strengthened by his critical role in defeating an 1829 Spanish effort to reconquer their former colony. In 1833 Santa Anna was overwhelmingly elected President of Mexico. Unfortunately, what began as a promise to unite the nation soon deteriorated into chaos. From 1833 to 1855 Mexico had no fewer than thirty-six changes in presidency; Santa Anna himself directly ruled eleven times. He soon became bored in his first presidency, leaving the real work to his vice-president, who soon launched an ambitious reform of church, state and army. In 1835, when the proposed reforms infuriated vested interests in the army and church, Santa Anna seized the opportunity to reassert his authority, and led a military coup against his own government.