An abstract for an article I am working on
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Mormons End Slavery at Mountain Meadows.

No one has put the Mountain Meadows massacre into its correct national historical context. It occurred in the highly charged atmosphere of the last desperate attempt by the South to use political means short of full-scale war to make slavery legal in the entire United States. The army sent to Utah was there with the mission to make Utah a slave state, finally giving the South a decisive congressional political advantage over the North, enabling a change in legislation to allow universal slavery. If successful in Utah, California would be next, offering a more effective congressional advantage to the South. The contemporary and parallel situation in “Bleeding Kansas” is very instructive about the issues and methods in the Utah case, including the use of federal troops to scatter/kill/intimidate the free-soil people.

The army was stopped cold in its mission by the Mormons, leaving only full-scale civil war as the last option. The efficient elimination of the hostile Fancher party, with no Mormon casualties, demonstrated the likely fate of Johnston’s army, should it begin a shooting war in Utah. It convinced the army its original mission was doomed to certain failure regardless of its actions, making any further loss of life pointless. The Fancher party would have helped the army if the shooting war started, and intended to be there to vote for slavery after the Mormons were conquered and disenfranchised. The Fancher party’s threat to stay there near Cedar City long-term with its 900 cattle, take over Mormon lands and homes, kill or drive out the Mormons again, was taken seriously. Other, friendly wagon trains were let through and even helped on their way by the Mormons, including help with negotiations with the threatening Indians. Recall that no one was allowed to own property in Utah until 1869, so there was no legal way to protect land use. Only the threat of direct violence against intruders had any chance of success. Letting a few stay (even less threatening parties) would have quickly invited an overwhelming flood.

Iraq parallels: Regime change was the US goal in Iraq, as was the US army’s goal in Utah. The only question is who were the good guys and the bad guys in each situation.
All the left-wing types in the US today are willing to say they, and the president, knew all along that Saddam was bluffing about WMD. However, if Saddam’s own generals believed him, what intel guy is going to claim that he, the said intel guy, knows better than the generals? That would require direct revelation.

By this I mean to say that the Fancher party would be taken at their word on their intent to kill or scatter the Mormons and take their property. This makes the removal of that mortal threat a high priority for the Mormons. No need for esoteric sociological/psychological violence models. No need for psycho-fanatics. This is primitive self-defense. The Fancher party was similar in combat power to the entire Cedar City area Mormons, and they were compact while the Mormons were widely scattered. The Mormons could make an assault and take casualties or use strategy to save their own people. The Fancher party was very foolish to think that a few threats plus a little violence would make the Mormon run as they always had before. The Mormons were very determined and very able to stop their enemies this time. The Mormons were left with the very unpleasant choice of letting the Fancher party take over their lands, or removing them forcibly, possibly killing some or all of them in the process. I believe in the end there was much more killing than intended, the Indians involved not being very sensible or disciplined, but the Fancher party had to go, one way or another. Trying to escort them as prisoners all the way to California held many perils for the small band of Mormons. There were only bad solutions to the stubborn intruders. The leaders were violent, slave-owning people: those terms were necessarily synonymous. Slavery can only be maintained by threat of violence. Utah Indians had already been made slaves, and the Mormons could expect to be next. The Southerners thought Northern factory workers should be made into slaves, so adding Mormons to the list would be nothing new. We have papered over the ghastly pre-Civil War issues until we have no idea what was at stake.

Occasional kind acts to favored members also reinforce this Capo-a-capo mentality; not to mention that irregular positive reinforcement works best to train both pets and humans.

So, what about that cover-up?

My criticism of framing analysis is that a lot of it goes beyond the science. The very term framing analysis can mean quite different things as even a quick scan of say JSTOR shows. (Even though often folks point to the same initial papers) I mentioned Lakoff but just because he’s an easy target with his view that it is a particular theory of metaphor that are these schemas. But there are plenty of other theorists one could point to with their own theory of what framing analysis is.

Anyway, relative to the MMM I certainly agree that rhetoric has a different effect depending upon the chosen words. I thought I made it clear that I agree Brigham Young’s word choices during the fire and brimstone period were unfortunate. The only question I had was how much Young was aware of that and Bill appears to have cleared that up quite well. (And, as I said, I’m eager to read his book)

history.utah.gov/history_programs/utah_historic_quarterly/table_of_contents/documents/Winter2005-v73-01.pdf

/shameless plug