Brigham
Young and the State of Deseret
The Mormon Pioneers, led
by Brigham Young to Utah in 1847, were Millennialists who believed the world
would soon end. They saw themselves as establishing the new Zion, where they
would live in prosperity and autonomy during the prophesied destruction of the
rest of godless humanity. The Lord had revealed to them via prophet Joseph Smith
that they were God's Chosen People and that the national government was corrupt.
From 1847 to 1894 there was recurring political conflict over the issue of whether
the Saints were in control of their chosen land of Zion or whether their State
of Deseret (or Utah) was subject to external governance from Washington D.C.
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The early Mormon
leaders were articulate and inspiring writers.
"We have no
business but to build up the kingdom of God, and preserve it and ourselves
in it. Whether it is ploughing, sowing, harvesting, building, going
into the canyon, or whatever it is we do, it is all within the pale
of the kingdom of God, to forward his cause on the earth, to redeem
and build up his Zion, and prepare ourselves." -Brigham Young,
December27, 1857, quoted in Swetnam (1991, p. 7):
"The race
is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but to him
that endures faithful to the end." -Joseph F. Smith, September
30, 1877, paraphrasing Ecclesiastes, quoted in Swetnam, (1991, p. 57).
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The Provisional State
of Deseret was organized by the Mormon Church in 1849. It covered most of the
Great Basin and Colorado River drainage basin. It extended on the east to the
Continental Divide, and on the west to the Sierra Nevada and to what is now
Los Angeles and San Diego. It demonstrated the grand scale with which the Mormon
leaders thought and the unrestrained ambition with which they planned for the
future.
The Mormons hoped that
two states, Deseret and California, would be admitted to the union following
the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In this treaty, ending the Mexican War,
Mexico ceded what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California and Utah to
the United States. The State of Deseret was proposed to Congress first in 1849,
and three times further in the next 30 years, but the concept of a state organized
and run by the Mormon Church was offensive to many Americans.
California was admitted
as a state in 1850. In 1851 the Territory (rather than the State) of Utah, which
consisted of most of the central and eastern parts of Deseret, was established
by Congress. Brigham Young became territorial governor. The choice of the name
Utah, commemorating an Indian tribe the Mormons disparaged, was symbolic of
the defeat of the Mormons' goals.
The State of Deseret
lived on past its official death in 1851 in the Mormon way of life and the Mormon
aspiration for home rule. Deseret lingered until the 1880s as a ghost state,
with an active legislature (generally the same one that governed the Territory
of Utah) that convened directly after the Utah legislature had adjourned. The
"Deseret News" is the most visible remnant of the name which meant
"honey bee" and was the symbol of the organized, patriarchal, communal
system established by the Mormon apostles and pioneers. In many ways the validity
of the concept of Deseret is demonstrated in the economic success of Utah and
the worldwide expansion of the Mormon religion in the last 100 years.
The
"Utah War" and Johnston's Army
Driven by faith
and well-supplied with the arrogance of God's Chosen People, Brigham Young and
the twelve Mormon Apostles chose not to believe that the nationally mandated
territory of Utah would stand. During the 1850s, the refusal by the Mormon leaders
to accept the sovereignty of the United States government was seen by many national
politicians as a manifestation of disloyalty to the U.S. similar to that being
spawned in the secessionist movement of the South.
In 1857-58, a Federal
army, led by Colonel A.S. Johnston, and commissioned by President Buchanan,
was sent to Utah to establish control over the Mormons. Such an occupation,
though certainly politically motivated, was not totally unprovoked. The early
Mormons were zealous and proud of it; laws of the United States were sometimes
held in disrespect; violent crimes against Gentiles (non-Mormons) were not uncommon.
Perhaps the worst offense was the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857 in which
a party of Gentile pioneers was decimated by Mormons in southern Utah.
The outcome of the occupation
by Johnston's army was death of any reality of the lingering Mormon State of
Deseret. Many of the far-flung Mormon settlements, from San Bernardino to Malad
City, were abandoned in 1857, as the Saints retreated back to Utah. Salt Lake
City was evacuated for a time and Brigham Young threatened to burn it to the
ground rather than see it occupied by a "foreign army." In the end,
the U.S. government peaceably imposed Governor Alfred Cumming on Utah.
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The master plans
of the Mormon settlers were elegant and noble.
Brigham Young sent these instructions to the new Idaho communities:
"You are
commencing anew, the soil, the air, the water are all pure and healthy.
Do not suffer them to become polluted...Strive to preserve the elements
from becoming contaminated... Keep your valleys pure, keep your towns
pure, keep your hearts pure, and labor as hard as you can without injuring
yourselves... Build cities, adorn your habitats, make gardens, orchards,
and vineyards, and render the earth so pleasant that when you look upon
your labours you may do so with pleasure, and that angels may delight
to come and visit your beautiful locations... Your work is to beautify
the face of the earth, until it shall become like the Garden of Eden."
(Quoted in Arrington, 1979, p. 46).
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Mormon
Settlement of Idaho
There were six stages
of Mormon settlement of present-day Idaho. In 1855, a preliminary settlement
was attempted at Limhi (lemhi) between present-day Leadore and Salmon. Fort
Limhi was abandoned in 1858, because of Indian hostilities and as part of the
retrenchment of Mormon expansion due to Johnston's army. A rush of migrants
to Cache Valley occurred in 1860, after the occupation of Salt Lake City by
Johnston's army. Franklin was founded in that year. In 1863, migration recurred,
this time from Cache Valley to Bear Lake Valley, led by Mormon apostle Charles
C. Rich. Within two years 16 separate communities had been founded. The fourth
settlement group began in 1873 in what is now Cassia County and resulted in
the founding of Elba, Almo, Albion and Oakley. In 1879, large
groups moved from Cache Valley into the Upper Snake River Valley. Eleven different
communities were settled, including Rexburg, Menan, Salem, and Teton. Finally
in the 1940s, and 1950s, farmers (mormon and otherwise) migrated to the
north side of the Snake River following the opening of reclamation projects
in the Rupert and Emmett areas.
The
Effects of the Civil War in Eastern Idaho
Many Mormons viewed
the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 as the confirmation of Joseph Smith's
prophecy that the national government was going to fall. The Mormon reluctance
to support the Union was met during the war by U.S. Army opposition to Mormon
expansion. The California Volunteers, led by Colonel Patrick E. Connor, were
sent to Utah to keep watch on the Mormons when regular armed troops went east
to serve in the Civil War. Connor hated Indians and to get even for Indian raids
on white farmers and for raids on Oregon Trail emigrants, especially at Massacre
Rocks along the Snake in the fall of 1862, his army massacred a large band of
Shoshoni at Battle Creek north of Preston in January, 1863. This attack was
partly designed to open up settlement of the area to non-Mormons (including
the Morrisites, who were Mormon apostates), although it had the effect of allowing
the Mormon population room to expand also.
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The
attitude of hostility toward Native Americans was not shared by Brigham
Young and the Mormon settlers at least during initial settlement.
Brigham noted that it was "manifestly more economical, and less expensive
to feed and clothe (the Indians), than to fight them". He urged his
followers to treat them with Christian values and respect:
"...be just
and quiet, firm and patient and benevolent, generous and watchful in
all your intercourse with them; learn their language so that you can
explain matters to them and pay them the full and just reward for their
labor, and treat them in all respects as you would like to be treated"
(madsen, 1980, p. 30).
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