[], 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.
themselve[s], drunkards, profane swearers, and all forming one company, and all declaring their determination, to aid their friends, if necessary. In one of these mob meetings in was seen , States Attorney, and now, one of the Judges: also, , who would wish to be called a respectable lawyer. At these meetings the most slanderous resolutions would be passed, that a people, so basely ignorant as they were could invent. The mob, thus encouraged by judges, lawyers, priests, &c., kept gathering in large numbers. The roads were infested with them; companies of armed men, were passing and repassing in every direction, while a great majority of the principal men of the country, if they did not join the mob, used no exertions, to prevent its operations. Among the rest, that headed a gang of these ruffians, was , who was the same season elected to the State Senate. He had but a short time before, been converted, and united with the baptist church.
The whole body made its way to . On ’s arrival, the saints were summoned to send a flag into his camp, forthwith, and receive terms at his hand. They however, paid no attention to the mandate of this new potentate. After they had, as they supposed, got sufficiently strong, they commenced taking cattle, corn, &c., to feed their army. Cattle, horses and grain, were taken with a liberal hand; and they publicly boasted, that they “lived on Mormon beef, and Mormon corn.” The saints dare not leave their homes, for if they did, they were stopped on the road,—they were shot at—their horses taken from them, and to all appearance, they would be ruined. All the time, the mob had their runners, telling that their wives and children were driven from their homes; that their fences were thrown down, and the Mormons were destroying all they had: Their wives and children, were either in the camp, or else sent off to some of their friends in the adjoining Counties: and all this, they pretended was through fear. But, to certain of their friends, they said their object in so doing was, to keep the public ignorant of their real design; for they did not [p. 29]