This past week I had a chance to participate as an adult leader in a brief and highly modified reenactment of the Mormon handcart pioneer trek.
For those of you with teenage children who may participate in such a trek, I will warn you here that I may spoil some of the surprising aspects of the experience, so allow them to read this at your discretion.
The Mormon Exodus is a mass migration of epic proportions, and one largely ignored by history in America.
It involved thousands on thousands of men, women and children from around the globe. Initially, the Exodus began in flight. Comprised primarily of Mormons, or members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, entire communities became ghost towns as local, state and federal governments refused to provide protection to the Saints against mobs of militia, ruffians, and neighbors.
Persecution was intense. The first "Gathering" of the Mormons was to Kirtland, Ohio. There, a small country crossroads became the headquarters of the newly formed church and the Saints began building a temple in anticipation of the restoration of the rites enjoyed in ancient Israel. Local opposition resulted in the Church establishing a secondary center on the fringes of the United States, in Jackson County, Missouri.
Hatred for the new church and its members was even more intense in Missouri. The governor of the state issued what became known as the "Extermination Order" which stayed in force until 1976. This order declared Mormons enemies of the state and authorized the militia and any citizen to drive the Mormons from the state or to kill them in the effort.
Mobs fought battles with Mormons at Crooked River, Missouri and Haun's Mill, Missouri among other places. The result of these battles was that the Saints were forced to leave their homes in Jackson County and were relocated to Caldwell and Clay counties and then, in the deep of winter, were forced to leave the state of Missouri altogether.
They crossed east into Illinois where residents were initially kind. From Quincy, Illinois they moved north to settle in a disease-infested swamp called Commerce. The Saints drained the swamp, established a settlement, and again began construction on a temple. They intended to stay in what they renamed "Nauvoo" for a long time.
As Nauvoo grew to be the largest town in Illinois, concern about the political power of a Mormon voting block grew also. Persecution followed. Outlying farms were vandalized and their occupants were terrorized. In 1844, seeking to put an end to a religion that they viewed mistakenly as a cult of personality, a mob with the tacit approval of the governor of Illinois murdered Joseph Smith the church's founder, and his brother Hyrum the church patriarch.
Contrary to expectations, this murder was seen as "martyr" and the Church continued to grow.
Mob pressure was relieved somewhat, but state pressure on the Mormons to leave Illinois grew until, in 1846, the leaders of the Mormon church were notified that the state could no longer ensure the safety of the Mormons. They were told that they would need to leave the state that year.
In the winter of 1846 thousands of members of the Church packed their belongings into wagons pulled by ox or horse teams and moved across the frozen Mississippi River into Iowa. In the muddy spring those same Saints pulled 300 miles across Iowa and across the Missouri River into Nebraska (Indian) Territory to establish Winter Quarters near what is now Florence, Nebraska.
In spring of the next year Brigham Young led an expeditionary party more than 1,200 miles across the Rocky Mountains and into Mexico's valley of the Great Salt Lake. Here, beyond the reach of the United States government, the Mormons hoped to live in peace.
By 1849 the pace of emigration had become deliberate. Wagon trains were organized and supplies were laid in.
In the following 20 years, until the railroad extended to Utah in 1869, more than 60,000 converts to Mormonism would leave their homes and make the trek of thousands of miles to "gather with the Saints" in the Intermountain West.
By the mid-1850s the cost of wagon travel had grown and emigrating Saints needed a less expensive means of travel. Brigham Young and other Church leaders conceived what they termed "the handcart plan". Rather than loading all their possessions into heavy wagons and using draft animals to pull them slowly across the plains, new emigrants would be allowed no more than 17 lbs. of luggage and would pull relatively light handcarts across the well-traveled road into the Great Salt Lake Valley. It was estimated that the Saints could pull 15 to 20 miles each day and move faster than the plodding oxen. Whatever they needed for living would be available to them when they reached the Valley.
Further, the handcart pioneers would not carry with them all the food they would need on the trail. Resupply wagons would be sent from Salt Lake City to meet them a little more than halfway between Winter Quarters and Salt Lake.
Of the 10-or-so handcart companies, only 2 ran into any significant trouble. It is the immense sacrifice and the tremendous dedication of these pioneers that the handcart trek reenactments seek to memorialize.
In our recent reenactment a mob (historically out of context, as handcart pioneers faced no such persecution) came to drive us out of our camp one night. They threw our gear around, took our food, and generally terrorized the group until we were forced to move.
As I looked into the faces of these mobbers, I recognized many of them. Some were even my friends, parents of friends, and young people I knew. I called them by name and tried to reason with them, but my efforts to calm them were unheeded.
And it struck me there, that this was just how it was for the early Saints who did experience mobbings. Their neighbors, people with whom they traded, people they thought of as friends, were among the paint-faced cowards now trampling their gardens and burning their barns. They would have seen the faces of prominent members of the community and clergy of other churches as they were dragged from their homes to be beaten, tarred, and feathered. And they would have called to them, just as I did. Tried to reason with them, just as I did. And failed, just as I did.
That was a powerful realization for me. As a child I was bullied incessantly from 4th grade until I started high school. To recognize my tormentors was too familiar to me. Primal feelings came to the surface during that experience as I recognized the mobbers. The instinct to fight, the ability to do so, and rage met in a perfect storm that I could barely control. (The "mobbers" later referred to me as that "mean Mormon".)
The rest of the experience was, I imagine, just as hundreds of other pioneers experienced it. Long days of hot and dusty walking. And thinking. And wondering about what lay ahead....
Posts
