Often sermons during the period spoke of past persecution, including the martyrdom of church leaders Joseph and Hyrum Smith, as well as apostle Parley P. This news came during the “Mormon Reformation,” an effort by Young and other church leaders to encourage renewed religious commitment. But by 1857, in a move dubbed “Buchanan’s blunder,” President James Buchanan determined Utah was in a state of rebellion and sent troops to replace Brigham Young with a new federally appointed governor. Latter-day Saints thought they were leaving conflict behind when they fled west. they became much more inclined to do that which previously might be considered unthinkable.” “As people became caught up in their extremism. “At the polar opposites people on both ends are more inclined to use violence against the other side than they would have been previously, which I think is a good example of what happened in 1857,” Turley said. They noticed a distinct pattern: First, a disrupting event, like war, economic instability or rapid demographic change, produced general anxiety among a population, which in turn, exacerbated group divides. In preparation for writing the book, Turley and Brown researched what prompted mass killings around the world. “I think that our digging deeper than anyone else has ever dug before on this topic and finding the truth of what happened leading up to the massacre and what happened after the massacre, as this new book tells, has helped and will continue to help people become freed from the emotional prisons in which they found themselves,” Turley said. Turley and Brown’s research relied on primary documents, many of them previously unused, including never-before-transcribed passages from legal proceedings and new transcriptions of Lee’s two trials. Though the Mountain Meadows Massacre had already been treated at length in several books, Turley and Brown and their colleagues were given unprecedented access to sources by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for this project, making its contribution unique and allowing the authors to move beyond established narratives.

“To work so hard on it for all these years, and then see it finally come out and hold it in your hands is just an indescribable feeling,” Brown said in an interview with the Deseret News. The book’s authors have now spent a combined total of 40 years working on the Mountain Meadows Massacre project, Brown said, making its completion the end of an era. On the cross was inscribed, “Vengeance is mine: I will repay saith the Lord,” hence the title of the book. In 1859, a cedar cross was erected by U.S. The book also explores myriad psychological and emotional consequences to befall the participants who avoided legal punishment. Whereas the first book unravels the sequence of events leading up to the Mountain Meadows Massacre and the details of the crime, Turley and Brown’s new book begins with the attack and examines efforts to cover it up, as well as the subsequent government investigations and eventual conviction of Lee. “Vengeance Is Mine,” officially out May 30, comes as a much-awaited sequel to 2008’s groundbreaking book, “Massacre at Mountain Meadows,” which Turley, a former assistant church historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, coauthored, and Brown, the company director of Signature Books, edited. … And when that happens, then people are much more inclined to do extreme things.” Forty years in the making “Extremism and polarization push people in a direction that extinguishes the Spirit. “I think it’s important that we learn the lessons from the past, such as what we’ve learned from our study of the Mountain Meadows Massacre,” Turley said in an interview with the Deseret News. In addition to unveiling new details about the massacre and subsequent attempts to cover it up, “Vengeance Is Mine” also reveals a pattern of intergroup conflict and escalating tensions that bears an uneasy resemblance to today’s polarized environment. Turley and Barbara Jones Brown employ in their new book, “Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath,” to fully bring to light one of the greatest tragedies in Utah history.

Hoag’s testimony is one of dozens that Richard E. Hinckley dedicates massacre-site memorialīefore the week was over, the mission would result in the deaths of more than 100 innocent travelers.

Monument instills healing at Mountain Meadows site.

Why the church’s new volume of ‘Saints’ doesn’t shy away from difficult issues.

The mountain politicats