Some of the perps -- Mormons -- dressed up as Paiutes.
From the article: Why would anyone want to be an Indian in Southern Utah? In this very area, Indians have been called wagon burners and baby killers ever since the Mountain Meadows massacre. The massacre had been committed by Mormons and falsely blamed on the Paiutes. Mormon militia had painted their faces and worn feathers to look like Indians, although the Paiutes never wore feathers themselves. They had dressed up to look like Indians with banners around their head, red paint and turkey feathers. They whooped and hollered, even though the Paiutes never had a culture of hollering...Paiute elders have related the Mountain Meadows story to me numerous times. The oral histories I have heard from Paiute elders are sincere, strong, compelling and spoken from the heart. Indians know that the official Mormon accounts of the massacre are completely wrong...At least 120 individuals were massacred. Only 17 babies and children deemed too young to know that these were Mormons dressed as Indians were spared.
From Sally Denton's book, 2003 book entitled: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857 (Vintage Books, division from Random House): One child died as they arrived at Hamblin's ranch. Another, one-year-old Sarah Dunlap, had had her left arm nearly severed by a musket ball. Clinging frantically to her, their dresses soaked in blood, were her sisters Rebecca, six, and Louisa, four. They had all seen the slaughter of their seven brothers and sisters, as well as both parents, and Rebecca had pried her baby sister from the arms of their dead mother. Rebecca and Louisa had also watched as the Mormon killers, disguised as Indians, washed off their war paint in one of the meadow streams. They would eventually be among the first witnesses to report this occurrence, thereby attributing the murders to white men rather than Paiutes. (p. 140)
One of the ways we know that the Mormon church was implicated either as part of the plot or criminal cover-up is how the wagon train's plunder was dealt with:
The plunder proceed with a strange quiet. Women from Cedar City and nearby settlements arrived to remove the calico dresses and lace pinafores of the women and children, pulling off their expensive shoes, and ripping earrings, brooches, and rings off the corpses, most to be turned over to the church. 'Their fine stock, their pleasure vehicles, their musical instruments, and abundant and elegant outfit, excited the cupidity of the sacerdotal robbers,' the Salt Lake Daily Tribune later reported... (Sally Denton's 2003 book entitled: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857 Vintage Books, division from Random House P. 149)
'There was no clothing left on man, woman or child, except that a torn stocking leg clung to the angle of one. Haight, Higbee, and Dame would argue asa well over the distribution of goods. The bloody clothing and bedding that had been gathered by the women and others were taken to the cellar of the church tithing office in Cedar City...As for the reported $100,000 worth of gold said to be on the train, most of what was retrievedthe actual amount would never be revealedwas turned over to the church treasury in Salt Lake City. The forty wagons were given to local Mormons for use in hauling lead ore from Nevada. The carriages emblazoned with stags' heads were transported to Salt Lake City, where at least one of them was used by Brigham Young. Approximately nine hundred head of cattle were corralled near Cedar City, branded with the church's 'cross,' and driven north to the capital. (Denton, p. 150)
Klingensmith was a Lutheran to Mormon convert who became a witness in the Lee trial: "He told how he traveled to Salt Lake City in October 1857 and in the presence of Lee and another witness discussed with Young the details of the murders and the distribution of the plunder. Klingensmith testified that Young ordered him to turn over all the loot from the massacre to Lee. The cattle had been branded with a cross--the church designation... (Denton, p. 224)
This article brings up an interesting angle not usually discussed in accounts of the Mountain Meadows Massacre: What the Paiutes suffered @ the hands of the Mormon false rumor mill for 150 years. Even as late as yesterday, we had a Mormon Freeper poster still blaming only the Paiutes -- while 100% deflecting any Mormon responsibility for the atrocity. (see Utah massacre site dedicated as national landmark (see post #2)
How does this mesh with official accounts today that the Paiutes were primarily involved in the early siege of the Fancher-Baker party several days before Sept.11 -- and that some remained to club women & children to death on Sept. 11, 1857? Well, it's interesting. BYU received permission from the Mormon church to conduct an archaelogical excavation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre site in 1998 and began the excavation in August 1999.
...Utah state archeologists Kevin Jones reaffirmed to church and law enforcement officials the legal requirement that any unidentified remains uncovered must be forensically examined, and failure to comply would be a felony. (Denton, p. xxii - see title & source below)
Still, a team of anthrolopologists, archaeologists, and other church and state scientists from around Utah began working long hours poring over the remains. It was a marathon forensic study. As the scientists from around the region gathered, news of the discovery leaded to the national press, unleashing a storm of public controversy over the unexpected skeletons...Delicately removing hundreds of pieces of bone from the opening dug by the backhoe, the scientists worked eighteen hours a day to determine how and when the victims were killed. Before the examination could be completed, however, it was stopped. For descendants of both victims and perpetrators, for institutions of church and state implicated in what the bones signify, the issue was as volatile and ominous as it had been nearly a century and a half before. Utah governor Mike Leavitt, himself a direct descendant of someone who participated in the murders, ordered the bones be reburied as quickly as possible; he then directed state officials to find administrative or other means to do just that...Before the probe came to a standstill, the scientists reconstructed eighteen different skulls and reported publicly that the killings were more complicated than previously believed. But the dead would not be allowed to speak. (Sally Denton's book, 2003 book entitled: American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857 Vintage Books, division from Random House, pp. Xxii xxiii)
From the article: Just like the Arabs are despised in America for 9/11, we were despised in Southern Utah for the massacre on 9/11 of 1857. For 150 years. Until as recently as 2007. ...the Mormon Church expressed regrets to Indians and admitted that it was the church leaders and members who had committed the massacre and had blamed it on Indians. But this regret wasnt widely disseminated. And in private communication to its members, the church continues to strongly implicate Indians in the massacre. The church concedes that the Mormons killed the men but as of the present insists that Indians clubbed all women and children to death. However, forensic pathologist Shannon Novak and her team found bullet holes in the skulls of women and children, which ran counter to the churchs claim that the Paiutes clubbed them to death.
Ah, forensic complications with official Mormon accounts, eh?
Mountain Meadows PING
Wow, September 11 has been a date with a LOT of traction for major events!
SUREly not!!
#13
Joseph Smith
|
Rights and use information.
|
"The Mormons didnt want the attacks to be traced back to them, so after the unarmed emigrants had marched about a mile up the valley, all surrendering emigrant men and older boys were shot without warning. Then all women and children were shot. At least 120 individuals were massacred.
“Indians continue to be hated in southern Utah today.”
Does that mean that in northern Utah they love the Indians?