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Power, Control, and Violence in the Utah Territory, 1847-1857

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Sole and Exclusive: Power, Control, and Violence in the Utah Territory, 1847-1857 Brendan Cummins Department of History University of Lethbridge Abstract From the time of the Mormons’ arrival in the Great Salt Basin in 1847 to the dispatch of U.S. Army troops in 1857, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was very close to establishing their prophesied temporal Kingdom of God. The isolation of the Mormon settlement in Utah and the commitment of the settlers who made the long, difficult overland journey from the east made it possible to build the theocracy, or theodemocracy, that had failed in Missouri and Illinois. The ten years between 1847 and 1857, free of serious outside interference, allowed the Saints to assume control of all aspects of life in the territory. The total power over the physical, spiritual, and civil realms enabled the Saints to stand against outside influences until the end of the nineteenth century. Non-Mormons were not part of the Church’s plans for the Kingdom and those who were not willing to be part of the theocracy were harassed, threatened, or physically driven out. The systems of government that existed in other parts of the United States were used to further the Saints’ designs for their perfect millennial state. The decade of 1847-57 is pivotal in understanding how a marginal sect grew to be the influential international organization of today. This project relied heavily on primary source research, including newspapers, diaries, and discourses from Mormon and non-Mormon perspectives. Brendan Cummins. 2017. “Sole and Exclusive: Power, Control, and Violence in the Utah Territory, 1847-1857.” Meeting of the Minds Graduate Student Journal 1 (http://ulgsajournal.com): DOI 10.5281/zenodo.398867. © 2017 by Brendan Cummins under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution – Non-Commercial Licence (CC-BY-NC). 2 BRENDAN CUMMINS: SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE: POWER, CONTROL, AND VIOLENCE IN THE UTAH TERRITORY, 1847-1857 Sole and Exclusive: Power, Control, and Violence in the Utah Territory, 1847-1857 In October 1851 in a district court of the Utah Territory, the jury in the trial of Latter-day Saint Howard Egan, accused of killing non-Mormon James Munroe, were given directions before deliberating on a verdict. The prosecution presented evidence that Smith had travelled to meet Munroe, who he suspected of seducing and impregnating one of his wives, sat with him for an hour and then shot him in the head with a pistol. In his closing argument George Smith, Egan’s defense attorney, called on the jury to consider common law values. He said, “The principle, the only one that beats and throbs through the heart of the entire in habitants of this Territory is simply this, The man who seduces his neighbour`s wife, must die, and her nearest relative must kill him.”1 Judge Zerubbabel Snow, a senior member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, acknowledged the evidence was strong, and under the laws of the United States, the accused should be found guilty. However, Snow added: When sitting as Territorial courts, we must try criminals by the laws of the Territory and look to them for our authority to punish. The United States, when it established the Territorial governments, created a jurisdiction within its own jurisdiction, therefore it is not the sole and exclusive jurisdiction within the limits of existing territories. You see, the crime must be committed within the places over which the United States have the sole and exclusive jurisdiction…if you find the crime, if any has been committed, was committed within the extent of country over which the United States have sole and exclusive jurisdiction your verdict must be guilty. If you do not find the crime to have been committed there, but in the Territory of Utah, the defendant, for that reason is entitled to the verdict of not guilty.2 With these directions to the jury, Snow explicitly and publicly declared the laws of the United States did not apply in the territory of Utah. In Utah the laws of the Mormon Kingdom of God were superior to the laws of the United States of America. The accused, incidentally, was found not guilty. Six years later, President James Buchanan ordered a detachment of regular army troops to march on Utah to protect new federal officials and to restore and maintain the laws of the United States Constitution. John Hyde, a former elder in the Church, summarized what many federal lawmakers and officials believed: 1 Deseret News, November 11, 1851, accessed February 13, 2016, http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/desnews1/id/170571, italics original. 2 Deseret News, November 11, 1851, italics in original. MEETING OF THE MINDS GRADUATE STUDENT JOURNAL (2017). DOI 10.5281/ZENODO.398867 3 “The real object of the Mormon Church is the establishment of an independent kingdom of which Brigham [Young] shall be king. This they believe is a temporal kingdom to be soon set up and to be begun at Utah, in fulfillment of ancient and modern prophecies.”3 The confrontation between the federal government and the Mormon Church did not occur overnight. As historian Kenneth Stamp wrote in his 1990 monograph America in 1857, “A series of events and a cluster of problems had been slowly drawing them toward a potentially violent conflict.”4 The Saints had been the victims of targeted campaigns in Illinois and Missouri that involved threats, intimidation, physical assaults, and murder. In Utah, surrounded by mountains and far removed from their main detractors, the Saints were determined to do what they believed God had called them to do. It was precisely this unyielding spirit and unquestioned belief that would bring the Saints into conflict with the world outside of Utah. Mormons believed that they were destined to create a Kingdom of God on earth that would supplant all governments. The failures in Missouri and Illinois would not be repeated in Utah; in the Great Salt Basin, the Saints would set up a settlement that would exclude all but the faithful from the fruits of their success. To a greater extent than any of the western states, with the possible exception of Texas, the history of Utah is one of control. Like Texas, the inhabitants of Utah felt their culture and society were different than any place else in the United States. As such, the people who made their home in the Salt Lake Valley were particularly concerned with maintaining control over how the places and people were governed. The Mormons believed the only way they would succeed, where previous attempts had failed, to establish their exclusive society was to obtain and maintain complete governance over the civil and public arms of government and marry them with the spiritual laws of their faith. Through the 1850s the Church created a government, judiciary, and economic system designed to create a fortified cultural and political enclave. In Utah, there was no difference between the church and state, and there never would be for as long as the Mormon Church could maintain control. I have attempted in this paper to balance pro and anti-Mormon historiography as evenly as possible. In examining some of the more notable events, I endeavour to trace primary sources and use them in a less charged and biased context than has been done in previous works. This can be difficult given the rhetoric and language used in many of the nineteenth century publications. 3 John Hyde, Jr., Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs (New York: W.P. Fetridge & Company, 1857), 172, accessed January 31, 2016, http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b302254;view=1up;seq=1. 4 Kenneth M. Stamp, America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 201. 4 BRENDAN CUMMINS: SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE: POWER, CONTROL, AND VIOLENCE IN THE UTAH TERRITORY, 1847-1857 Where possible I use the work of both Mormon and non-Mormon historians to illustrate the tension and violence that permeated the Utah territory after the arrival of the Mormons in 1847. In 1847, after only seventeen years in existence, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was already well acquainted with the negative attention their faith created. After being officially established in a small farmhouse in upstate New York in 1830, membership grew rapidly. Mormonism had a living Prophet in Joseph Smith, strict rules and guidelines for salvation, and offered an Old Testament type of rigid hierarchy and deference.5 Smith led his growing flock first to Kirtland, Ohio, and then into the new and expanding state of Missouri in 1831. Tensions between Mormon and non-Mormons in Missouri would continue to rise through the 1830s with a series of clashes over land, price control, and a declaration that the Mormons would not adhere to any law other than their own.6 This culminated in the so-called extermination order from Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs in which he called on the Mormons to be driven from the state.7 Joseph Smith and five other leaders of the Church surrendered on the guarantee the faithful would give up their weapons, abandon their property, and leave Missouri within ten days.8 The majority of the refugees headed north into Illinois and began building a city at Nauvoo. Despite the continuing belief that Mormonism was a strange religion, the Saints’ violent confrontation and expulsion from Missouri was viewed with disgust throughout the country.9 Perhaps as an extension of this good will, Nauvoo was granted an extremely liberal charter by Governor of Illinois Thomas Carlin. It allowed the mayor and council the power to control everything from education to the courts.
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