Parley P. Pratt, History of the Late Persecution, 1839
Parley P. Pratt, History of the Late Persecution, 1839
Source Note
Source Note
, History of the Late Persecution Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons, in Which Ten Thousand American Citizens were Robbed, Plundered, and Driven from the State, and Many Others Imprisoned, Martyred, &c. for Their Religion, and All This By Military Force, By Order of the Executive; i–vi, 7–84 pp.; Detroit, MI: Dawson & Bates, 1839. The copy used for this transcription is held at CHL.
Historical Introduction
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 state.” (JS et al., Liberty, MO, to the church members and Edward Partridge, Quincy, IL, 20 Mar. 1839, in Revelations Collection, CHL [D&C 123:1, 6].) 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 Illinois 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 beginning in 1838. In April and June 1840, the fifth and seventh installments reprinted passages from ’s History of the Late Persecution Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons (Detroit: Dawson and Bates 1839). The sixth and eighth through tenth installments drew upon ’s pamphlet, An Appeal to the American People. The series concluded with an eleventh installment in October 1840, featuring Missouri militia general ’s callous speech to the Saints after their surrender at , Missouri, in November 1838.
wrote History of the Late Persecution, the document featured here, during his eight-month imprisonment in jails in 1838–1839. His wife, , daringly smuggled the manuscript out of the jail. After his escape on 4 July 1839 and reunion with the Saints in , Pratt left on a mission to England with the Twelve Apostles. When he reached he paused to visit relatives and arranged for the publication of his history there, obtaining a copyright for his book on 30 September 1839. Revised versions were subsequently reprinted in in 1840 as a pamphlet under the same title and as an expanded hardback with the title Late Persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints. (Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 89–90, 100–103.) Pratt later drew upon his history when he composed his autobiography in the 1850s.
’s History of the Late Persecution provides an autobiographical account of events in , , , and counties, Missouri, beginning in 1833. Some of the material describing events that transpired in Jackson County in 1833 was drawn from an earlier publication Pratt co-authored with and , “‘The Mormons’ So Called.” History of the Late Persecution also rehearses the conflict that engulfed Caldwell and Daviess counties, the expulsion of the Saints from Missouri, the mistreatment of Mormon prisoners by Missouri authorities, and the smuggling of Pratt’s manuscript copy of the History from jail, concluding with his narrow escape from imprisonment in Columbia, Missouri.
their brethren. Even two or three families often crowded into one small house. The militia under made some show of trying to prevent these outrages, but at length informed our people that his forces were so small, and many of them so much in favor of the rebellion, that it was useless to look any longer to them for protection.— Several messages were also sent to the , but he was utterly deaf to every thing which called for the protection of our society, or any of the citizens who belonged to it. But on the contrary, he hearkened to the insinuations of the robbers; and actually presumed to give orders for the raising of several thousand volunteers from the middle counties of the , to march against the Mormons, as he termed them. This force was soon on their march with the at their head; but when he had come near the Upper Country, he was officially notified that the Mormons were not in a state of insurrection, but were misrepresented by the robbers. His then disbanded his forces and sneaked back to to wait till the robbers should drive the Mormons to some act which might be considered illegal, which would give him some pretext for driving them from the .
After the evacuation of , when our people were officially notified that they must protect themselves, and expect no more protection from any department of the Government, they assembled in the city of , to the number of near one thousand men, and resolved to defend their rights to the last; calling upon every person who could bear arms to come forward in the support of our houses, our homes, our wives and children, and the cause of our and our God. In the mean time the robbers elated with success, and emboldened by the negligence of every department of the Government, were increasing in numbers daily, and were on [p. 30]
Source Note
Source Note
Document Transcript
Document Information
Document Information
Go to page