Sidney Rigdon, Appeal to the American People, 1840
Sidney Rigdon, Appeal to the American People, 1840
Source Note
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; 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
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.
Footnotes
- [1]
Letter to the Church and Edward Partridge, 20 March 1839 [D&C 123:1, 6].
- [2]
Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 103–104, 124.
Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.
the reports found to be false—the fellows themselves, being witnesses.
I here give an affidavit taken during the time of this excitement
| State of ,) | ss. |
| .) |
Before me, , one of the Justices of the County Court, within and for the County of aforesaid. Personally came, Joseph Smith Jr., who being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and saith, that on the 7th day of August 1838, being informed that an affray had taken place in , at the election in the town of , in which two persons were killed, and one person was badly wounded, and fled to the woods to save his life; all of which were said to be persons belonging to the Society of the church of Latter Day Saints: And further, said informant stated that those persons who committed the outrage would not suffer the bodies of those who had been killed to be taken off the ground and buried. These reports, with others; one of which was that the saints had not the privilege of voting at the polls, as other citizens—another was, that those opposed to the saints, were determined to drive them from : And also, that they were arming, and strengthening their forces and preparing for battle; and that the saints were preparing and making ready to stand in self-defence. These reports having excited the feelings of the citizens of and vicinty, I was invited by and some others, to go out to , to the scene of these outrages; they having previously determined to go out and learn the facts concerning said reports. Accordingly, some of the citizens, myself among the number, went out, two, three, and four in companies, as they got ready. The reports and excitement continued until several of those small companies, through the day, were induced to follow the first; who were all eager to learn the facts concerning this matter: We arrived, in the evening, at the house of , about three miles from , the scene of the reported outrages: Here we learned the truth concerning the said affray; which had been considerably exaggerated; yet, there had been a serious out [p. 26]
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Source Note
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