[], 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.
himself, went on to . The mob, by this time, felt themselves sufficiently strong, and declaring themselves four hundred in number, and knowing that the troops had returned; they felt all-sufficient to commence their operations; and accordingly, the very night of arrival in , the mob commenced their operations. The first attack, was made on the house of a man by the name of Smith, who had gone on business to . His wife, was there alone with two little children, neither of them able to walk, and withal, Mrs. Smith, a very delicate woman. They drove her out of her house; there was a very heavy snow on the ground—it was about the last of October or the first of November. She took her two children in her arms, and walked three miles through the snow, and waded , to . During the night, they burnt out seven families, and took all their goods and carried them off. They swore vengeance against the Mormons, as they called them, that they should leave , or they would sacrifice them all, and that they would make no terms of peace, but at the cannon’s mouth.
The next morning after this driving out and burning, Mr. , who was an officer in the military, asked , what they should do, he now saw the designs and purposes of the mob; and he wanted to know how to proceed.
Here let us just remark, that the saints had borne the abuse of the people of , without cause or provocation on their part, except their religion, from the summer of 1831, until this time, which was the first of November 1838, during which time, their crops had been destroyed, their goods and chattels plundered, their houses burned, and they, driven off their farms, in the face of the government, and appeal after appeal, made to the authorities for redress; but none could be had, and they had never, in one instance retaliated; but submitted to be thus robbed and plundered; and now they were not disposed to move, until the authorities of the country, said so: and seeing , was there, they appealed to him.— replied, with an oath, “go and give them a complete dressing, for you will never have any peace with them, [p. 43]