THE PERILS OF THE PLAINS
THE MORMONS AND THE LATE MASSACRE
21 October 1857
Three emigrant families arrived, yesterday, in
Sacramento, by the Carson Valley route. They report, says
the Union, many sad evidences of outrage and
murder...
Reports
brought in by these families tend strongly to corroborate
the suspicion already existing against the Mormons as the
instigators, if not the perpetrators, of the recent
wholesale massacre of immigrants at Santa Clara canon….
Before Mr. Pierce’s family left Salt Lake, vague
declarations of a threatening character were made, to the
effect that, next year the overland emigrants must look
out; and it was intimated that the last trains this year
might be destroyed. From the Mormon train which recently
left the Carson Valley, and which these families met on
the way, similar statements were vaguely communicated, one
Mormon woman even going so far as to congratulate an old
lady in one of these families on her safe arrival so near
her destination, and assuring her that the last trains of
this year would not get through, for they were to be cut
off. We give these statements as we received them from
members of these families, and, admitting their
correctness, which we have no reason to doubt, they
certainly go far to confirm a terrible suspicion.
27 October 1857
From the
news published in another column, there can be no doubt of
the complicity of the Mormons with the Indians, in all the
outrages which have of late been committed on the middle
plains. There is no longer any safety for the emigrant he
is forced on one side to submit to the extortions of the
Mormon guides, and on the other, to the exactions of the
Indians, [and is] too happy to escape with life. Both have
united to fleece, rob and murder all those who fall into
their hands. We are very much afraid we have not heard the
last of the massacres by the Indians this year. Whatever
trains may yet be in the way, will not escape without
attacks. It will be seen from the statements published in
another column, that there is little doubt that the
Mormons had a knowledge beforehand of what the Indians
were going to do were in constant communication with them
during the time that the hapless emigrant train was
battling against the savage foe, by whom they were
assaulted that, though fully aware that men, women and
children were being cruelly murdered, they neglected to
render any assistance, and did not even go so far as to
remonstrate, and that they openly rejoiced with the
Indians in the successful accomplishment of their bloody
work. Indeed, according to the statements of Messrs.
Power, Warn and Honea, the Mormons cannot be separated
from the Indians in all these terrible outrages. They were
the prompters, if not actors in the dreadful scenes which
have been enacted on the middle plains. How well they have
succeeded in moulding the savages, with whom they dwell,
for the accomplishment of whatever objects they may have
in view, is sufficiently evidenced by the distinction they
now make between Mormons and Americans. They have been
taught to believe there are two races of white men in
existence Mormons and Indians, and that while the former
are their fast friends, the latter are their dreaded and
uncompromising foes. It is horrible to contemplate that
white men should be engaged in stirring up and goading on
blood-thirsty savages to the commission of deeds of
atrocity and blood to the massacre of defenseless women
and children of their own race at least; but we are afraid
it is but too true. The poisoning of a dead ox, for which
the Indians asked, is stated as the main cause of the
massacre; but that poisoning may have been done by the
Mormons. The swaggering course pursued by the emigrants,
and which no one will seek to justify, excited a thirst
for vengeance in their minds, and this may have been the
plan they adopted to gratify it, knowing the fearful
vengeance it would bring down on the heads of the
emigrants, if the act could be fastened on them. Such a
theory is by no means improbable or far-fetched. The
spirit by which the Mormons are actuated is no longer a
secret; and no act or proceeding of theirs, no matter how
fiendish or blood-thirsty, should excite astonishment. The
people of Los Angeles, at a meeting recently held, adopted
a preamble and resolutions calling on the President of the
United States to take measures for the punishment of the
authors of the recent wholesale butchery on the plains;
and also calling on the Governor of the State to enforce
the laws in San Bernardino, pledging themselves to respond
to the call of the proper authorities, if necessary in
enforcing obedience. Matters wear a menacing aspect!
