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Sidney Rigdon, Appeal to the American People, 1840, Second Edition

Page 53

Source Note

[], 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, second edition; i-vi, 7–60 pp.; Cincinnati, OH: Shepard and Stearns, 1840. The copy used herein is held at CHL.

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 knowledge of all the facts and sufferings and abuses put upon them by the people of this ”. Among the earliest responses to JS’s call was ’s 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: Glezen and Shepard, 1840).
A manuscript draft of this pamphlet, simply titled “To the Publick” was presented to a conference of church members at , Illinois, on 1 November 1839. The conference voted to approve the manuscript and authorized its publication on behalf of the church. The pamphlet, when published, carried the endorsement of JS, , and as “Presidents of said Church.”
and collaborated on the publication of the text, which was available in print by May 1840. Though no author is named on the title page, was acknowledged as author in an 1840 Times and Seasons newspaper article, and when the pamphlet was advertised in that church periodical in 1841. JS and held some expectation that funds from the sale of An Appeal would eventually help defray costs of their late-1839 trip to .
By July 1840, and had been authorized to produce a second, revised edition to be published by Shepard & Stearns in . Page related some of the circumstances surrounding its publication and circulation in a letter sent to JS, “. . . at [Ohio] we parted for a few days . . . Elder Hyde went to Cincinnati where in my absince he published a second Edition of the ‘Apeal to the American people’ (2000 copies)[.] when I arrived the work was about completed[.] after disposing of as many of them as posible and suplying the market about cincinnati and the adjacient country he left me with some fourteen or fifteen hundred on hand, to dispose of” (John E. Page, Philadelphia, PA, to JS et al., Nauvoo, IL, 1 Sept. 1841, JS Collection, CHL). Funds from this printing were to be for the express purpose of subsidizing Hyde and Page’s imminent mission to in Palestine.
The second edition was essentially a lightly edited reprint of the first, with a four-page “Publisher’s Preface” added. In the preface, and noted the purpose of the publication, explained the severe hardships imposed by the persecutions upon Page’s own family, provided a detailed account of a vision experienced by Hyde, and expressed enthusiasm about the prospects of the mission. The preface also contained a copy of an official letter of appointment and commendation for Hyde and Page from an April 1840 church conference at , Illinois, signed by JS, and a letter of reference from , governor of .
Although many of the events reported in both editions of ’s pamphlet can be corroborated from other sources, his chronology of events is often inaccurate. However, Rigdon’s account does contain the texts of several significant documents. Among these are JS’s September 1838 affidavit concerning the 7 August 1838 visit to and those of and regarding the massacre. Consequently, though in many respects Rigdon’s document from a historical perspective is more advocacy than history, it offers access to some important material not readily found elsewhere.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Letter to the Church and Edward Partridge, 20 March 1839 [D&C 123:1, 6].

  2. [2]

    Sidney Rigdon, JS, et al., Petition Draft (“To the Publick”), circa 1838–1839.

  3. [3]

    “A History, of the Persecution,” Times and Seasons, May 1840, 1:99; Advertisement, Times and Seasons, 1 Jan. 1841, 1:272.

    Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

  4. [4]

    Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 1:103–104.

    Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Statement, circa 1 November 1839–B *Affidavit, 5 September 1838 [ State of Missouri v. JS et al. for Riot ]

Page 10

they took up arms in their own defence, several battles were fought, in which one of the saints was killed, and a number wounded. Two of the mob were killed, and several wounded. At last a number of them under the command of marched to , where a great multitude of the mob was collected for the purpose of giving them battle. , hearing of their intentions to give battle to the mob, organized the mob, and called them the Militia under the command of . On the arrival of , he was commanded to surrender his arms and those who were with him. This order, was given by the said ; this they, refused to do, until he, , gave the strongest assurances to and company that if they would, they should be protected, and return home in peace, and none should disturb them. After these assurances were given, they gave up their arms. But now, reader, for the sequel!
Did these high-minded and honorable men comply with their covenant? no, indeed, but something very different! They seized on the guns and other arms as a prey; and have kept them as plunder to this day; and having the saints disarmed, they carried their violence to all kinds of shameful lengths; men, women and children, were driven from their houses in the night, barefoot and nearly naked. This was about the middle of November. The men were whipped and abused beyond all descripton. A man, by the name of Benjamin Putnam, was whipped to death; his body was taken up a day or two afterwards and buried. Others were whipped until they had to tie handkerchiefs round them, to keep their bowels from falling out. A man by the name of [Lyman] Leonard was knocked down in his house with a chair, and was beat on the head and other parts of the body, until the blood was running from him on the floor. His wife, fearing lest they should kill him, ran and threw herself on him, begging for his life; but the brutal monsters, instead of regarding her tears and supplications, beat her with the same weapon, with which they were beating her husband, and they barely escaped with their lives. The women fled in all directions into the prairies and woods, and a greater part barefoot, and with but little clothing, being driven out in the night, many of them torn from their beds. In a short time, you could track them by the blood which ran from their feet. Wives were weeping and wailing, not knowing but their husbands were murdered; their children, with their lacerated and bleeding feet, were mourning and crying, asking for food but could get none! In this deplorable condition, they had to travel and sleep in the open prairies or under the rocks, in the month of November, without food or covering; and there ask and see what a kind Providence would do for them, while their robbers and plunderers were glutting themselves upon the food they had left in their houses; and gratifying their brutality, by throwing it to the beasts, and carrying it home for their own use, and that of their families, and by destroying the household stuff, or rather stealing it, while the little ones, whose fathers had laid it up care [p. 10]
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Editorial Title
Sidney Rigdon, Appeal to the American People, 1840, Second Edition
ID #
7509
Total Pages
62
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