Prophets and Power: The Unsettling Early Chapters of America's Homegrown Faith

Planning for retirement raises many questions. Have you considered how much it will cost, and how you’ll generate the income you’ll need to pay for it? For many, these questions can feel overwhelming, but answering them is a crucial step forward for a comfortable future.

Start by understanding your goals, estimating your expenses and identifying potential income streams. The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income can help you navigate these essential questions. If you have $1,000,000 or more saved for retirement, download your free guide today to learn how to build a clear and effective retirement income plan. Discover ways to align your portfolio with your long-term goals, so you can reach the future you deserve.

Get The Guide

Joseph Smith Jr. was born in 1805 in rural Vermont. At age 14, he claimed God and Jesus appeared to him, telling him all existing churches were corrupted.

Three years later, an angel named Moroni appeared and told him about golden plates buried nearby—containing the religious history of ancient Israelites who had sailed to the Americas around 600 BC.

In 1827, Smith claimed he retrieved these plates and translated them using "seer stones"—magical objects he'd place in his hat and see English words appear.

In 90 days, he produced the 588-page Book of Mormon.

The core message: True Christianity had been lost. God was restoring it through Joseph Smith.

In 1830, he founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The theology was radical:

God had once been human and became divine.

Humans could likewise become gods in the afterlife.

Polygamy was God's will.

Native Americans were descendants of Israelites cursed with dark skin as punishment—but the Book of Mormon taught their skin would literally turn "white and delightsome" if they converted and became righteous.

Smith was magnetic—a natural storyteller who attracted thousands of converts.

He also attracted violent opposition.

The Mormon story between 1830 and 1844 reads like a horror film on an endless loop.

Violence. Expulsion. Rebuild. More violence. Flee again.

Missouri, 1831-1838:

Local settlers panicked when Mormons voted as a bloc and opposed slavery. Mobs attacked settlements.

A mob stripped Smith naked and tried to castrate him. His infant son died from exposure during the attack.

When Mormons fought back through the Danites—a secret vigilante group of oath-bound enforcers—Missouri's governor issued Executive Order 44:

"The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state."¹

Seventeen Mormons were killed at Haun's Mill massacre. One boy hid under the blacksmith's bellows. A militiaman found him and shot him in the head, saying: "Nits make lice."

Apostasy—leaving the Mormon faith—was considered the worst betrayal. The Danites made sure apostates understood the price of leaving.

Illinois, 1839-1844:

The Mormons built Nauvoo, a new city that rivaled Chicago. Smith commanded a 5,000-strong militia, served as mayor, and secretly practiced polygamy with over 30 wives—some as young as 14.

When dissenters exposed this, Smith ordered their printing press destroyed.

He was arrested for inciting a riot.

On June 27, 1844, a mob stormed Carthage Jail and shot Smith to death.

The Mormons had their martyr.

And seventeen years of trauma that taught them America wanted them dead.

Where Joseph Smith had been the dreamer, Brigham Young was the builder.

Born in 1801, Young was a carpenter—pragmatic, blunt, authoritarian. He joined Smith's church in 1832 and quickly rose to leadership.

After Smith's assassination, Young outmaneuvered rival claimants. He would eventually marry 55 women and father 57 children³ by 16 of them.

In 1846, Young made a fateful decision:

They would abandon America entirely and build their kingdom in the wilderness.

The Great Salt Lake Valley sat in Mexican territory. Isolated. Defensible. Surrounded by mountains and desert.

A natural fortress where no mob could reach them.

In 1847, Young led the first company of Mormon pioneers on the 1,300-mile trek westward.

When he gazed upon the barren valley, Young reportedly said: "This is the right place."

The irony?

Just one year later, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War. Mexico ceded its northern territories to the United States—including the valley where the Mormons had just settled.

The Mormons had fled America only to watch America's borders expand to swallow them again.

But for now, they were hundreds of miles from any federal authority.

And Young intended to keep it that way.

By 1850, Brigham Young governed Utah Territory as both religious prophet and territorial governor.

A fusion of church and state that would have horrified America's founders.

The federal government appointed Young as Utah's first governor. It was the only time in American history a religious leader directly ruled a territory.

Young wielded absolute power:

As governor, he controlled law enforcement, courts, and the militia.

As LDS prophet, his word was literally God's will to believers.

Church-controlled cooperatives dominated commerce.

The church assigned where people lived, what they farmed, and whom they married.

Federal officials sent to Utah found themselves powerless—or in danger.

Judges arrived to find empty courtrooms. No one would testify. No one would serve on juries.

Indian agents discovered the Mormons had already cut their own deals with the Utes, Paiutes, and Shoshone. The federal agents were irrelevant. Worse, they were unwelcome.

Surveyors sent to map territory faced harassment and threats. Equipment went missing. Camps were raided.

The message was clear: This is our land. We'll decide who settles here.

In 1856, a federal judge fled Utah and wrote to President Buchanan, claiming that Mormons had destroyed Supreme Court records, that a secret oath-bound organization operated above the law, and that "a state of rebellion exists" in Utah.

He was right about the oath-bound organization.

The Danites had been officially formed in Missouri in 1838 during the escalating violence between Mormons and gentiles.

Their original purpose: Protect Mormons from mob violence and punish dissenters who threatened the community.

Their actual function: Intimidation, theft, and targeted violence.

In Missouri, the Danites burned gentile homes, stole property, and sent threatening letters: "Depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befall you."

When the Mormons fled to Utah, the Danite spirit came with them.

Though Young claimed the organization was disbanded, its methods lived on.

Two men became legends as Young's "Destroying Angels:"

Porter Rockwell - Young's personal bodyguard, a crack shot who dressed in buckskins and wore his hair long. He was tried for the attempted assassination of Missouri's governor but never convicted. Stories circulated that he had killed dozens of men on Young's orders.

Bill Hickman - Another enforcer who later wrote a confessional memoir claiming he had murdered numerous "enemies of the church" at Young's direction, including apostates trying to leave Utah with evidence of crimes.

The fear they inspired was real—and useful.

Criminals and outlaws avoided Utah because they "weren't anxious to ride where badder men were said to be."

If you spoke against the church, testified against church interests, or tried to leave with damaging information—you might disappear.

Years later, former members would testify about mysterious deaths, bodies found in canyons, and a culture of fear that kept people silent.

Most read the move after it runs. The top 250K start before the bell.

Elite Trade Club turns noise into a five-minute plan—what’s moving, why it matters, and the stocks to watch now. Miss it and you chase.

Catch it and you decide.

Get the Next Alert

_{By joining, you’ll receive Elite Trade Club emails and select partner insights. See Privacy Policy.}

In the mid-1850s, Brigham Young began preaching a doctrine so extreme it shocked even some of his own followers.

Blood atonement.

The theology went like this: Jesus Christ's atonement on the cross covered most sins. But certain sins were so severe that Christ's sacrifice couldn't cleanse them.

The only way to be saved was for the sinner's own blood to be spilled on the ground.

Which sins required blood atonement?

Murder. Adultery. Apostasy. Stealing. Lying about serious matters.

Interracial marriage between whites and Blacks.

Young's sermons on the topic were chilling. From the pulpit of the Salt Lake Tabernacle in 1857, he asked his congregation:

"Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood?"

He claimed this wasn't murder—it was mercy.

By killing the sinner, you were saving their eternal soul.

John D. Lee—who would later be executed for his role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre—wrote in his journal about a case where a man was convicted of adultery by a Bishop's Council. According to Lee, the man was sentenced to death to atone for his sin.

"His throat was cut," Lee wrote matter-of-factly.

How widespread was blood atonement in practice?

We'll never know for certain. The doctrine created a culture of fear and secrecy.

What we do know:

Young preached it publicly and repeatedly in the 1850s.

Church records show some criminals were given the "choice" between prison and blood atonement.

As late as 1994, potential jurors in Utah capital cases were asked if they believed in blood atonement⁴—evidence that the doctrine still lurked in the cultural consciousness.

Utah maintained execution by firing squad until 2004.

The doctrine served multiple purposes:

It reinforced Young's absolute authority over life and death.

It provided theological cover for eliminating threats.

It kept the faithful terrified of straying.

It gave religious meaning to political violence.

You weren't being murdered. You were being saved.

May 1857, Arkansas wilderness.

A Mormon apostle lies bleeding on a stranger's farm, stabbed twice and shot in the neck.

His killer? The husband of his twelfth wife.

This is how Parley P. Pratt died.

And his death would light the fuse to Mountain Meadows.

Pratt was Mormon royalty—one of Joseph Smith's original Twelve Apostles, a beloved missionary and hymn writer. He had 12 wives and 30 children.

The twelfth wife was Eleanor McLean.

Trapped in what she called an abusive marriage to alcoholic customs official Hector McLean, she converted to Mormonism in 1854 and "married" Pratt—though legally still Hector's wife. She took the children with her.

For Hector, this wasn't conversion. It was kidnapping.

For three years, he pursued them across the country.

In May 1857, he caught them in Arkansas. They were arrested on flimsy charges and acquitted. A sympathetic judge released Pratt early, hoping he'd escape.

Twelve miles outside Van Buren, Hector McLean caught up with him.

Stabbed him twice with a Bowie knife. Shot him in the neck.

Pratt bled out over two and a half hours, declaring himself "a martyr to the faith" to the end.

McLean was briefly arrested, then released. No charges filed.

He walked the streets openly before leaving town.

When news reached Salt Lake City in July 1857, Utah exploded with rage.

From Mormon pulpits, preachers compared Pratt's death to Joseph Smith's martyrdom. Stories spread that Arkansas gentiles had helped McLean hunt down a Mormon apostle.

That this was Missouri all over again.

The desire for vengeance was overwhelming.

Two months later, a wagon train from Arkansas would pass through southern Utah.

Their timing could not have been worse.

The same month Pratt was murdered, President James Buchanan made a fateful decision.

Alarmed by reports of Mormon rebellion, Buchanan appointed a non-Mormon governor to replace Brigham Young and dispatched 2,500 federal troops to enforce the transition.

But here's the thing: He never told Young he was being replaced.

In fact, Buchanan had canceled the mail contract that delivered post to Utah—cutting off official communication entirely.

Young learned about the approaching army from travelers who'd seen a massive military column heading toward Utah.

To Young and the Mormons, this looked like extermination 2.0.

They'd been driven from Missouri. Driven from Illinois. Joseph Smith had been murdered. Parley Pratt had just been murdered.

Now the U.S. Army was coming for them with 2,500 troops.

Young's response was decisive and defiant.

On July 24, 1857—the tenth anniversary of the Mormons' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley—Young interrupted the celebration with an announcement:

"We are invaded by a hostile force... We will not yield an inch."

He declared martial law. He forbade any armed forces from entering Utah Territory. He mobilized the Nauvoo Legion—the Mormon militia, thousands strong.

And he sent messengers throughout Utah with a terrifying message:

If federal troops enter the valley, burn everything and flee to the mountains.

Young also sent covert militia units to harass the approaching army:

Mormon raiders burned Army supply wagons.

They destroyed Fort Bridger to deny the troops winter shelter.

They scattered Army livestock.

They set prairie grass on fire to block the Army's advance.

The federal troops, without supplies or shelter, were forced to spend a brutal winter camped in the Wyoming wilderness.

Meanwhile, from every Mormon pulpit, rhetoric escalated.

Apostle Heber C. Kimball roared: "I will fight until there is not a drop of blood in my veins!"

George A. Smith traveled to southern Utah settlements, putting them on "war alert" and giving inflammatory speeches about defending Zion against American invaders.

It was in this atmosphere—rage over Pratt's murder, fear of approaching federal troops, martial law, war hysteria, and Young's apocalyptic rhetoric—that a wagon train of Arkansas emigrants entered southern Utah in early September 1857.

They were heading to California.

They never made it.

The Fancher-Baker wagon train was not a military threat.

It consisted of about 140 men, women, and children—most from Arkansas, some from Missouri. They were prosperous families heading to California with their life savings, their livestock, and dreams of a better future.

Their timing could not have been worse.

They arrived in southern Utah just weeks after news of Parley Pratt's Arkansas murder. Just days after Brigham Young's martial law declaration. Just as every Mormon settlement was on high alert, preparing for war with approaching federal troops.

And they were from Arkansas—the same state where Pratt had been killed.

As the wagon train passed through Mormon settlements, tensions rose. The emigrants needed to buy supplies, but Young had ordered a ban on selling grain to gentiles. Some emigrants were apparently rude or threatening when refused.

Stories later circulated—possibly true, possibly invented—that members of the party boasted about participating in earlier persecutions of Mormons in Missouri.

Whether these provocations were real or imagined, they created a justification for murder.

On September 7, 1857, the Fancher-Baker party camped at Mountain Meadows—a lush valley about 35 miles southwest of Cedar City, Utah.

That morning, they were attacked.

At first, it appeared to be a Paiute Indian raid. Arrows flew. Gunfire erupted.

But survivors noticed something strange:

Some of the "Indians" had pale skin. Some spoke English. Some wore clothes clearly taken from white settlers.

The emigrants circled their wagons and dug defensive positions. They were well-armed and held off the attackers for five days, though several were killed or wounded.

Water was running low. Children were crying from thirst and fear in the September heat.

Meanwhile, in Cedar City, Mormon leaders met to decide what to do.

According to later testimony, some argued the emigrants should be destroyed before they could reach California and potentially join federal forces against the Mormons.

Others worried that letting them go would expose the Mormon role in the attack.

A messenger was sent to Brigham Young in Salt Lake City—a three-day ride—asking what to do.

Young's reply, written September 10, was unambiguous:

"Go with all speed... Let the emigrants go in peace."

The messenger rode as fast as he could.

But he arrived too late.

On September 11—the same day Young wrote his letter—John D. Lee and other Mormon militia leaders approached the besieged wagon train under a white flag.

Lee was an adopted son of Brigham Young and a major in the Utah militia.

He addressed the desperate, thirsty emigrants with what seemed like salvation:

The Paiutes were furious and beyond Mormon control, he said. But if the emigrants laid down their arms and left their property behind, the Mormons would escort them safely back to Cedar City under protection.

The emigrants, exhausted and desperate, agreed.

The plan, as Lee later described it, was methodical:

Women and small children would walk ahead in a group.

Men would follow, each escorted by an armed Mormon militiaman.

Older children would be separated and led separately.

All weapons would remain in the wagons.

At a prearranged signal, the massacre began.

The Mormon militiamen turned on their charges and shot them point-blank. Other militia members fell upon the women and children with clubs, knives, and guns.

The killing was systematic. Thorough. Ruthless.

Men were shot where they stood. Women tried to run and were chased down.

Even older children were murdered—anyone old enough to testify about what had really happened.

Only children under age seven were spared—young enough, the killers reasoned, that they couldn't reliably tell the story later.

The final count: Approximately 120 men, women, and children murdered. Only 17 small children survived.

The bodies were left in shallow graves, barely covered.

Wolves and coyotes scattered the bones. When a federal investigative team arrived months later, they found skeletal remains still littering the meadow.

The surviving children were distributed among Mormon families as servants or adopted children.

When U.S. Army troops finally recovered them two years later, some of the children recognized their murdered mothers' dresses and jewelry being worn by the Mormon women now "caring" for them.

Every day, IT teams make decisions that affect security, budgets, and how the business runs.

IT Brew is built for those moments—delivering clear, timely coverage of the trends shaping IT so you understand what’s changing before it turns into a meeting, a ticket, or a fire drill.

Join 125K+ industry pros reading {IT Brew’s newsletter} for free.

Check it out

Immediately after the massacre, the cover-up began.

The official story: Paiute Indians did it. The Mormons had tried to stop them but arrived too late. Mormon families generously took in the orphaned children.

Evidence was destroyed. Property from the wagon train was distributed among participants. Witnesses were sworn to secrecy.

Anyone who talked faced death.

Brigham Young was informed of the massacre shortly after it happened.

His response was to reinforce the cover story. He met with federal investigators and blamed the Paiutes. He praised those who had "rescued" the children.

For nearly two decades, the truth remained buried.

The U.S. government was distracted by the Civil War. Investigations were stymied by a wall of Mormon silence. Witnesses disappeared or refused to testify.

Finally, in 1874—17 years after the massacre—John D. Lee was arrested and charged with murder.

Even then, he was the only person charged.

Lee went to trial twice. The first jury couldn't reach a verdict. The second, in 1876, convicted him.

On March 23, 1877, Lee was taken back to Mountain Meadows.

He was seated on his own coffin at the site of the massacre. A firing squad shot him as he sat there—the only person ever punished for the deaths of 120 people.

Lee's last words were defiant:

He insisted he had been made a scapegoat for orders that came from church leaders above him. He claimed Brigham Young and other leaders had known and approved.

Brigham Young died five months later, on August 29, 1877.

His role in the massacre officially denied but widely suspected.

The Utah War ended not with battle, but with negotiation.

In April 1858, Young agreed to step down as governor. In exchange, President Buchanan offered amnesty.

On June 26, 1858, Johnston's Army marched through a completely deserted Salt Lake City. Thirty thousand Mormons had evacuated south as a final act of defiance.

Young remained prophet. He'd lost political power but kept religious control.

The federal government's real weapon wasn't military—it was legal.

Over three decades, Congress systematically dismantled Mormon theocracy through anti-polygamy laws.

The Morrill Act (1862) outlawed plural marriage. The Edmunds Act (1882) made it a felony and stripped polygamists of voting rights.

The Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887) dissolved the LDS Church as a legal entity and confiscated millions in church property.

Mormon leaders went into hiding. Polygamists filled prisons. The church teetered on extinction.

On September 24, 1890, church president Wilford Woodruff issued "The Manifesto"—officially discontinuing polygamy.

It wasn't divine revelation. It was survival.

The gamble worked.

By surrendering polygamy, the church saved itself. The federal government returned confiscated property. In 1896, Utah became a state.

The church that had been legally destroyed in 1887 was quietly allowed to re-incorporate⁵—reborn as a more compliant, more American institution. Blood atonement faded from sermons. The Danites became historical footnotes. Mountain Meadows was buried under official silence.

New generations grew up in peaceful Utah with no memory of Missouri mobs or theocratic rule.

If you encountered Mormons today, you'd meet some of the most clean-cut, family-oriented, law-abiding citizens in America.

The modern LDS Church teaches a strict health code (no alcohol, tobacco, coffee, or tea), expects two-year missions from young men, and promises eternal families sealed in temple marriages.

Polygamy? Grounds for excommunication.

And yes, polygamy still exists—but in breakaway fundamentalist groups the mainstream LDS Church excommunicates and distances itself from. An estimated 30,000-50,000 fundamentalist Mormons still practice plural marriage in isolated communities across Utah, Arizona, and Texas, claiming they're following Joseph Smith's original doctrine.

The official church condemns them as apostates.

The church today numbers over 17 million members worldwide. They're in Congress (Mitt Romney), Fortune 500 boardrooms, Hollywood, and academia. The Tabernacle Choir performs at presidential inaugurations.

Distance, communication, and priorities.

In the 1850s, Utah was a 3-month journey from Washington D.C. Telegraph lines didn't reach Utah until 1861. The U.S. Army numbered only 16,000 soldiers scattered across the frontier.

And the nation was consumed by the slavery crisis—Kansas was bleeding, the Dred Scott decision was tearing the country apart, and civil war loomed.

Some politicians calculated that letting the Mormons have their desert kingdom was the price of peace.

Only when polygamy was paired with slavery as the "twin relics of barbarism" did the government commit to breaking Mormon power.

Mountain Meadows changed the calculation.

Before September 1857, Mormons were a peculiar religious sect. After, they were mass murderers.

Even then, the Civil War delayed justice for two decades.

Religious groups using violence to claim territory is the norm in human history, not the exception.

The Crusades. Islamic expansion. Spanish conquest of the Americas. The Thirty Years' War. The Inquisition.

Even today: Hindu nationalism in India, Buddhist violence in Myanmar, Islamic theocracies enforcing religious law through violence.

The Mormon case is unusual mainly because it happened in 19th-century America—when we thought religious violence was behind us.

Brigham Young died in 1877, five months after John D. Lee's execution.

He never faced charges. Never admitted involvement. Never apologized.

The story of Brigham Young isn't just about Mormons.

It's about what happens when fear fuses with divine certainty.

When persecution breeds paranoia. When paranoia justifies violence. When violence wraps itself in righteousness.

Under the right circumstances—enough trauma, enough isolation, enough absolute conviction that God is on your side—any community can slide from defense to massacre.

Under pressure, belief can harden.
Fear can narrow judgment.
And violence can begin to look like protection.

Mountain Meadows does not ask us to imagine monsters. It asks us to examine a progression — persecution, isolation, concentrated power, and the conviction that survival justifies severity.

None of these are unusual in human history.

Two memorials now stand in the meadow. Each year, descendants of the slain and the perpetrators gather on the same ground.

The dead are buried.

The warning is not.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre Site is located in southwestern Utah, about 35 miles from Cedar City. Both memorials are open to the public. Annual memorial services occur each September 11.

Books:

Online Resources:

Archives:

¹ The extermination order (Missouri Executive Order 44) was not formally rescinded until 1976 - 138 years after it was issued.

² The Book of Mormon originally stated that righteous Lamanites would become "white and delightsome" (2 Nephi 30:6). This was changed to "pure and delightsome" in 1981 editions.

³ Brigham Young had 55 documented wives and 57 children by 16 of those wives.

⁴ Blood atonement questioning of Utah jurors continued into the 1990s despite the doctrine being officially dormant since the 1890s.

⁵ The LDS Church was legally dissolved by the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, had its property confiscated, and was not re-incorporated until after polygamy was officially discontinued in 1890.