[], An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri; 1–84 pp.; Cincinnati, OH: Glezen and Shepard, stereotypers and printers, 1840. The copy used herein is held at Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Historical Introduction
While incarcerated at , Missouri, in March 1839, JS addressed a letter to the church “at Illinois and scattered abroad and to in particular,” instructing the Saints to gather up “a knoledge of all the facts and sufferings and abuses put upon them by the people of this .” Edward Partridge responded with an account that became the three opening installments of “A History, of the Persecution, of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints in Missouri,” an eleven-part series published in the church’s newspaper, Times and Seasons, between December 1839 and October 1840. “A History, of the Persecution” receives comprehensive treatment in volume 2 of the Histories series of The Joseph Smith Papers and is available on this website.
may have intended to tell the entire story himself, but he fell ill shortly after publication of “A History, of the Persecution” began and died on 27 May 1840. Prompted by Partridge’s illness and subsequent death, the editors of the Times and Seasons, and , sought elsewhere for source materials to continue the series. It is probable that they composed the fourth installment to provide a brief transition from Partridge’s account, which ends in 1836, and the conflicts in and adjoining counties in 1838. The fifth and seventh installments reprinted passages from ’s History of the Late Persecutions Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons (Detroit: Dawson and Bates, 1839). In May 1840, the sixth installment reprinted passages from ’s eighty-four page pamphlet, An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri (Cincinnati: Glezan and Shepard, 1840). More of Rigdon’s work was reprinted in the eighth through tenth installments, published from July to September 1840. The series concluded with an eleventh installment in the October 1840 issue, featuring General ’s callous speech to the Saints after their surrender at , Missouri, in November 1838.
A manuscript version of ’s Appeal to the American People, referred to as the “petition draft” titled “To the Publick” and endorsed by JS, Rigdon, and , was read to a conference of Saints in , Illinois, on 1 November 1839. The conference voted to approve its publication in the name of the church. and then collaborated to arrange for publication of the text in late 1839 and early 1840. Though no author is named on the title page, Rigdon was acknowledged as author when the pamphlet was advertised in the Times and Seasons in 1840 and 1841. JS and Elias Higbee had some expectation that funds from the sale of the publication would help defray costs of their trip to in late 1839. In July 1840, a second edition was printed by Shepard & Stearns in to raise funds for Orson Hyde and ’s mission to .
Although many of the events reported in ’s pamphlet can be corroborated from other sources, his chronology is often inaccurate. (Consult the annotation in Histories, Volume 2 for correction to portions published as part of “A History, of the Persecutions.”) However, his account contains the text of several significant documents. Among these are JS’s 5 September 1838 affidavit concerning the 7 August 1838 visit to and those of and and regarding the massacre. Consequently, though in many respects Rigdon’s document is more advocacy than history, it offers access to some material not readily found elsewhere.
witness did not swear to please the attorney, , he would order them to be taken into custody, and they were immediately cast into prison, and the next morning they would be brought forward and tried again. Such was the course the Court and their armed body pursued during their settings till they got through; by such means they got men to swear for them, and to swear to most unhallowed falsehoods. It was indeed suborning witnesses to swear, to promise a man’s life if he would swear, and death or imprisonment if he did not swear, and not only to swear, but swear to please them.
This matter of driving away witnesses or casting them into prison, or chasing them out of the county, was carried to such a length that our lawyers, and , told us not to bring our witnesses there at all, for if we did there would not be one of them left for the final trial, for no sooner would and his men know who they were, than they would put them out of the County; as to making any impression on , if a cohort of angels were to come down and declare we were clear, said it would all be the same, for he () had determined from the beginning to cast us into prison; we never got the privilege of introducing our witnesses at all; if we had we could have disproved all they swore.
We here must rather go back a little, for after arrived at , he arrested a great many persons, an account of which will be found in the memorial of the citizens of , to the Legislature of . Their trials also went on at the same time. One thing in relatien to ’s proceeding, we forgot to mention—we will insert it here. After he had arrived, some persons made application for a privilege to go and plunder houses for goods; this was readily granted, and, under this authority, houses were plundered, locks broken, and property taken at pleasure; and all this without any civil process whatever.
We will here give a specimen or two of their swearing. We will first introduce . This said was angry at one of the prisoners—, in consequence of a law-suit existing between them. , we suppose, thought he had a fair oppor [p. 67]