The massacre at Mountain Meadows on September 11, 1857, was the single most violent act to occur on the overland trails, yet it has been all but forgotten. Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets is the most extensive investigation of the events surrounding the mass killings since Juanita Brooks published her groundbreaking study, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, in 1950.

At Mountain Meadows, local settlers and Southern Paiute warriors waylaid the Fancher party, a wagon train bound from Arkansas to California. Pinned down in a circle of wagons in a remote corner of southewestern Utah, some forty men, thirty women, and seventy children fought for their lives for five days before surrendering under a promise of safe conduct. As the Mormon militia and their Indian allies escorted the emigrants away from their wagons, they killed all of them except seventeen children below the age of seven.

Bagley draws on unpublished journals, letters, and documents from Mormon archives as well as from accounts by Mormons who opposed subsequent efforts to cover up or expunge the record. He explains how the murders occurred, reveals the involvement of territorial governor Brigham Young, and explores the subsequent suppression and distortion of the events surrounding the massacre. Also included here are maps and photographs never before published.

Will Bagley is an independent historian and columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune. He is the editor of numerous books, including The Kingdom of the West documentary series and The Pioneer Camp of the Saints: The 1846-1847 Mormon Trail Journals of Thomas Bullock.

Sisältö

List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Preface
Acknowledgments
Prologue The Mountain Meadow

1. Their Innocent Blood Will Cry unto the Lord of Hosts
2. The Battle-Ax of the Lord
3. Political Hacks, Robbers, and Whoremongers
4. The Arkansas Travelers
5. I Will Fight Them and I Will Fight All Hell
6. We Are American Citizens and Shall Not Move
7. The Knife and Tomahawk
8. The Work of Death
9. The Scene of Blood and Carnage
10. Plunder
11. All Hell Is in Commotion
12. They Have Slain My Children
13. Vengeance Is Mine
14. A Hideous Lethargic Dream
15. Lonely Dell
16. As False as the Hinges of Hell: The Trials of John D. Lee
17. He Died Game: The Execution of John D. Lee
18. The Mountain Meadow Dogs
19. Nothing but the Truth Is Good Enough

Epilogue The Ghosts of Mountain Meadows
Appendix Victims of the Massacre
Notes – Bibliography – Index

Lyhyt selostus joukkomurhasta
Will Bagleyn luento 5.10.2002