By Beth Shumway Moore

The Haun’s Mill Massacre is a small part of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The little-known event that occurred on October 30, 1838, at Haun’s Mill, Missouri, is perhaps only a foot-note in that larger story, but it looms large in the tumultuous events that shaped the attitudes and beliefs of the nineteenth-century adherents called Mormons, who followed the teachings and revelations of their prophet, Joseph Smith.

The United States of America is a land where the freedom to practice one’s religion is historically honored. But in the nineteenth century this was not true for the Mormons. In the face of armed assault and banishment from Missouri, church leaders appealed to President Martin Van Buren for help. His response, as given in History of the Church was, “What can I do? I can do nothing for you. If I do anything I shall come in contact with the whole state of Missouri.” Governor L. W. Boggs of Missouri had issued an order on October 27, 1838, declaring that Mormons had to either leave the state or they would be killed. Known as the Extermination Order, it stated, in part:

“I have received by Amos Reese, Esq., of Ray county, and Wiley C. Williams, Esq., one of my aids, information of the most appalling character, which entirely changes the face of things, and places the Mormons in the attitude of an open and avowed defiance of the laws, and of having made war upon the people of this state. Your orders are, therefore, to hasten your operation with all possible speed. The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description.”

H.H. Bancroft stated in his History of Utah that “It was also openly avowed by the men of Missouri that it was no worse to shoot a Mormon than to shoot an Indian, and killing Indians was no worse than killing wild beasts.” Not until July 4, 1976, was the Extermination Order formally removed, with a heartfelt apology from the state of Missouri.

In less than a decade the Mormons would be driven once again from their homes in and around their city of Nauvoo, Illinois; their prophet killed while in jail; and their city devastated. It wasn’t until March 2004 that the state of Illinois printed an apology to the Mormons for the injustices done to them in their state in the 1830s and 1840s.

The well-known Mormon critic, J.B. Turner, stated in the early 1840s:

“Who began the quarrel? Was it the Mormons? Is it not notorious, on the contrary, that they were hunted, like wild beasts, from county to county, before they made any desperate resistance? Did they ever, as a body, refuse obedience to the laws, when called upon to do so, until driven to desperation by repeated threats and assaults on the part of the mob?

“Did the state ever make one decent effort to defend them, as fellow-citizens, in their rights, or to redress their wrongs? Let the conduct of its governors, attorneys, and the fate of their final petitions answer. Have any who plundered and openly massacred the Mormons ever been brought to the punishment due to their crimes?

“Let the boasting murderers of begging and helpless infancy answer. Has the state ever remunerated even those known to be innocent, for the loss of either their property or their arms? Did either the pulpit or the press through the state raise a note of remonstrance or alarm? Let the clergymen who abetted, and the editors who encouraged the mob, answer. We know that there were many noble exceptions, but, alas, that they were so few!”

Why were the Mormons so reviled? There were many reasons that non-Mormons found them intolerable. They had their own stores and economic system. They were clannish and voted in a bloc, thus tipping elections in their favor. They had a “different” religion and considered their faith superior to all others.

They were friendly to the Indians and thought to be abolitionists. Missouri was a slave state, and the western portion, where the Mormons settled, was also home to a great number of emigrants from the South. Many of the Mormon settlers in Missouri were from New England, bringing with them a regional bias against slavery.

Additionally, the Mormons invited blacks to join their church, something almost unheard of in slave states at that time. To the slave-holding Missourians, the Mormons were on the wrong side of the slavery issue, whether or not they were abolitionists. But none of these idiosyncrasies justified the violence and hostility visited upon them.

Two thousand years ago, when the early Christians were enduring terrible persecutions, Gamaliel, a Pharisee and doctor of the law, said, “And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”

A nation needs to know its history so, hopefully, its wrongs will not be repeated. These stories bear retelling for just that reason.

Editor’s notes:

This is the prologue from Beth Moore’s non-fiction book, Bones in the Well; Haun’s Mill Massacre 1838, available at ahclark.com online, by phone 1 800 627 7377.

Please read the address from Boyd K. Packer, “The Test,” given at last month’s general conference, available at www.lds.org. President Packer is the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and spoke of some of the same events in his address. He said, “If you can understand a people so long-suffering, so tolerant, so forgiving, so Christian after what they had suffered, you will have unlocked the key to what a Latter-day Saint is.” We would do well to study and learn these lessons.