The long-awaited sequel to the 2008 Massacre at Mountain Meadows has finally arrived!1 Published by Oxford University Press, Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath was written by Richard E. Turley Jr. and Barbara Jones Brown. Both Rick and Barbara worked on the first book Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Rick as co-author (with Glen Leonard and the late Ron Walker) and Barbara as content editor.
Vengeance is Mine begins where the first volume left off, at the time of the massacre on 11 September 1857. Although details and context of the massacre are discussed throughout, this book’s emphasis is on the cover-up, investigation, and eventual prosecution of some of those responsible. The authors successfully illustrate how “[a]ttempts to wield the case as a political weapon resulted in justice delayed—and justice denied—for the innocent victims of the massacre and their families.”2
A major difference between Massacre at Mountain Meadows and Vengeance is Mine is the reference material. The first book had lengthy endnotes and various appendices listing the names of emigrants, militiamen and American Indians.3 In contrast, Vengeance is Mine has no appendices, and the endnotes are extremely brief. All pertinent information was included within the narrative itself. This leads to sometimes odd interruptions in the story, such as inserting that modern researchers believe naturally occurring anthrax was the likely culprit for cattle deaths near Fillmore rather than poisoning.4
More often than not, the interruptions are fact-checking, pointing out when folks were lying or purposefully obfuscating (which happens a lot in the book). Tracking the changing retellings and testimonies was likely infuriating for the researchers, but readers benefit by seeing how and when the stories morphed over time. In the process, the authors also debunk popular myths and explain how they likely developed.
Documenting when the perpetrators began to hide their involvement illustrates why Church leaders in Salt Lake City initially insisted that Paiutes were responsible for the attack. This was, after all, the story fellow member John D. Lee gave them. Non-Mormon government officials obtained more accurate intelligence about Mormon involvement in the massacre, but Latter-day Saints quickly dismissed these claims as anti-Mormon lies. In fact, one of the few “heroes” in the volume is undoubtedly Jacob Forney, the non-Mormon Utah Indian Affairs superintendent, who investigated the massacre in the late 1850s and worked to get the seventeen surviving children back to their families in Arkansas.
The multiplicity of government and military officials over the decades covered in this book can get overwhelming, but the authors worked to make the narrative as accessible as possible. Paragraphs and chapters are short. Like the first book, each chapter has a subheading providing the dates and locations covered. (There were still times I wished there was a separate timeline.)
Two maps are included inside the front and back covers. One illustrates the westward emigration trails in the United States in 1857 and also points out the locations in Arkansas where the massacre victims originated. The map inside the back cover shows the locations of attacks against emigrant companies in 1857 (both before and after Mountain Meadows).
This book is useful for those who want to understand the Mountain Meadows massacre, the cover-up, and why justice was ultimately lacking.5 Those studying the Utah War and the Utah Territory’s executive and judicial branches will also find the book helpful. Both the military conflict and bickering among various federal appointees affected investigation and prosecution of the Mountain Meadows massacre in the 1850s and 1870s. Other massacres in Utah, primarily against Amerian Indians, are mentioned to highlight racial prejudice, but they are not treated in-depth.6
For those who want to listen to the authors discuss the book, check out the most recent MormonLand podcast from The Salt Lake Tribune. Those who’d like to read comments from the authors instead can check out a post at From the Desk blog. To see the authors in-person, come to Benchmark Books in Salt Lake City on the evening of Thursday, June 1st, at 6pm.
1 Technically the publication date is 30 May 2023, but the book is available now to purchase via your favorite bookseller. Signed copies are available at Benchmark Books in Salt Lake City, which is where I got my copy.
2 Richard E. Turley Jr. and Barbara Jones Brown, Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023), xv.
3 Expanded versions of the emigrant and militiamen lists are available online at MountainMeadowsMassacre.com.
4 Turley and Brown, Vengeance is Mine, 174.
5 Nine men were finally indicted in September 1874, but it took until March 1877 before John D. Lee, the only person convicted, was executed. Turley and Brown, Vengeance is Mine, 287 and 375.
6 In speaking of the 1863 Bear River Massacre, the authors stated, “The irony in the opposing perceptions of Utah Territory’s two major massacres, occurring within six years of each other, is striking. While the Mountain Meadows Massacre was widely condemned, the significantly larger Bear River Massacre was hailed as a victory.” Turley and Brown, Vengeance is Mine, 237.
Wheat & Tares 
Great review. I’ll have to check out the book. I was impressed with the first book. I honestly didn’t even realize they were coming out with a second follow-up. But as is often the case, readers pay close attention to what happened at the time. How things are handled in the justice system and in the aftermath can be a bit of an afterthought for many readers.
“The irony in the opposing perceptions of Utah Territory’s two major massacres, occurring within six years of each other, is striking. While the Mountain Meadows Massacre was widely condemned, the significantly larger Bear River Massacre was hailed as a victory.”
A great observation on the part of Turley. The truth is that there was a massacre culture that emerged almost whenever whites came into contact with Native Americans. Not too many decades would elapse before tensions grew between white settlers and Native Americans and mostly the former would undertake massacres, although sometimes it would be Native American massacres of whites as well. The California Genocide 1846-1873, which resulted in the near eradication of all indigenous inhabitants of California, many of whom managed to make do with the Spanish missions, very much followed this pattern. And these massacres were at the time frequently celebrated by white groups as victories. Still the Mountain Meadows Massacre is a rare instance of a white group of Americans massacring another white group of Americans. And no doubt religion and the victimhood complex that had developed among the Mormon migrants to Utah whose leader Parley P. Pratt was killed in Arkansas four months before, influenced this. But Turley rightfully acknowledges this in the first book. Although, unlike Bagley, he is hesitant to place full blame on Brigham Young as a chief architect of the massacre. Though, Young, doubtlessly, contributed to fanning the flames indirectly.
In comparing the Bear Rive and Mount Meadows massacres and noting how indigenous peoples were treated, both accounts have atrocities committed against American Indians. The Shoshone were butchered on the Bear River. The Paiutes were blamed for a massacre they did not instigate and likely (IMO) played no role in. The Mormon participants at Mountain Meadows threw an entire indigenous nation under the bus. Have they ever received an apology?
Old Man,
The book suggests that some Paiutes did participate, but most if not all of the killing was done by Mormons. Regardless, the local Paiutes would not have participated were it not for Mormons encouraging them to attack and steal cattle from California-bound emigrants. Henry B. Eyring’s statements at the 150th anniversary of the massacre included an apology to the Paiute people.
“A separate expression of regret is owed to the Paiute people who have unjustly borne for too long the principal blame for what occurred during the massacre. Although the extent of their involvement is disputed, it is believed they would not have participated without the direction and stimulus provided by local Church leaders and members.”
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/150th-anniversary-of-mountain-meadows-massacre
John W,
Yes, many massacres were committed by Euro-Americans in the American West, and the book makes sure to mention many of them when they can fit them into the narrative. The book points out that Pratt’s murder in Arkansas was given as motive *after* the massacre. There’s no indication that it really played a part ahead of the massacre. Basically, Brigham Young was trying to hold the Westward emigration trails hostage to convince the government that they needed to be nice to the Mormons. He told his people to encourage native populations to attack and steal from California-bound emigrants, thinking that it’d prove that Mormons had been useful in keeping the emigrant trails safe. That’s why the authors emphasize that several emigrant companies were attacked (with Mormon approval) in the fall of 1857. The problem with Mountain Meadows is that some of the non-Mormon scouts in that group saw that Mormon settlers were working with the local Paiutes, and the Mormons weren’t able to kill all the scouts before they got back and told the rest of the emigrant company. The massacre itself was a cover-up, meant to eliminate any witnesses that could testify that Mormons were working with the Paiutes. The local Mormon leadership figured that if word got out, it would be a PR disaster and U.S. sentiment would turn against the Mormons even more. The cover-up was light-years worse than the original crime.
I’m trying to figure out how so-called human beings can massacre men, women, and children. And steal the young. I don’t care how wild the West was. This was an horrific event.
Blood atonement and the temple endowment must have had something to do with it. BY was an opinionated autocrat, to somehow absolve him of the massacre is not credible. For Haight, Lee et al to act without his approval, is not believable.
To say the perpetrators just disappeared, is not believable. How could these guys live with themselves? No more BS, members of the “only true” church of Christ wrongly massacred people. And then covered it up. And BY was up to his eyeballs in it. And we have a university named for a racist and a massacre instigator.
Roger,
Those are all good questions, and it was an absolutely horrific event. I urge you to read the book. It addresses most of the points you brought up.
Mary Ann,
“The book points out that Pratt’s murder in Arkansas was given as motive *after* the massacre. There’s no indication that it really played a part ahead of the massacre.”
I’ll have to reread the book to see exactly what it says. Pratt was killed on May 13, 1857 in Crawford County, Arkansas. The Baker-Fancher Party consisted of migrants from Crawford County and other Ozark counties of Arkansas making their way to California via the Mormon trail. The Mountain Meadows Massacre took place Sept. 7-11, 1857. I have no doubt that the murder of Pratt excited a general sense of paranoia throughout Utah Territory and that as a result some Mormons felt driven to murder members of the Baker-Fancher Party as an act of revenge, or even out of suspicion that the murderer and accomplices were among the party. I have a hard time seeing these facts as not playing a role before the massacre.
Also, I’m unconvinced that the massacre was just killing that got out of hand. Meaning, that one person was killed, so hey, let’s just kill the others so that there are no witnesses. Massacres on that scale just don’t happen out of nowhere. They happen because of deep paranoia and delusion and thirst for blood on the part of the murderers. Mountain Meadows has one of the highest death tolls of all any massacres that ever happened in US history. I think that any and all researchers would do well to look at Mountain Meadows through a heavy comparative lens looking at other massacres in fine detail.
John W, I definitely recommend reading the book and evaluating the sources for yourself.
Yes, Mary Ann. I have read the book but it has been a while. It is worth pointing out that Turley is 1) employed by the church and 2) has a background as an attorney, not as a historian, although he has acted as the church’s historian for a while, but again, the church’s historian not employed at a university as a historian. These two facts have to be borne in mind by any reader. His book is good, but no doubt it exhibits tendencies to overly minimize and downplay facts and likelihoods that shed negative light on church culture at the time. The idea that Parley P. Pratt’s murder only appears as a factor after the fact seems a bit denialistic on the part of Turley. As if it is just mere coincidence that the Baker-Fancher Party just came from the same place where Pratt was murdered. As if the perpetrators of the massacre were just normal folks and just let things go. These were paranoid delusional people who believed in blood atonement as preached by Brigham Young. Of course Pratt’s murder was a motive. Of course Turley is putting on his lawyer hat in this regard. Lawyers can be good writers and thinkers, for sure. But they often wrongly assume they can just waltz into history and write it well. Sometimes yes, but too often I see bad histories written by lawyers. A different sort of thinking is preached in law school and the field of law, one that overlaps to some degree with history writing, but one that just doesn’t square well in other regards. Law is about dealing with the living, where property seizure, fines, detainment, and other punishments are at stake. History is a different ball game. That said, I think Turley did a good job. But his work is still colored by who is paying him and the fact that he doesn’t have a history background and hasn’t studied other areas of history as intently. Studying history overall gives perspective that law can’t.
John W,
You misunderstand me. Please read Vengeance is Mine, the book discussed in the post above. It represents over a decade of additional research by both Rick Turley and Barbara Jones Brown. Rick retired years ago, and the preface to Vengeance is Mine specifically notes, “Though this volume, like the first, benefited from extensive research funded by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints History Department, for the past several years we have written Vengeance is Mine independent of church funding. From start to finish, we have had sole editorial control over our manuscript, and we alone are responsible for its contents.” Barbara is the current director of Signature Books. That doesn’t exactly scream “pro-church bias.”
Vengeance is Mine points out that Pratt’s death was used as an excuse AFTER the fact, not before.
John W, also Rick didn’t write the first book alone. He worked with Ron Walker and Glen Leonard, who both had PhDs in history. Barbara Jones Brown obtained a master’s degree in history from the University of Utah.
Mary Ann, I see. I’ll be sure to check out Vengeance is Mine. Thanks for the review.
The first book had to have been with church approval, and done through its filter given Turley’s involvement. It’s still a good book. But we must always take that into consideration, and read it with that caveat in mind. Had Turley gone too far and been too critical, he would have lost his job and had his reputation damaged. Even independent projects, if scholars are known believing Mormons with lots of believing Mormon contacts and family and have a reputation among believers for writing “friendly” history on controversial topics, they will face a variety of social punishments imposed by the culture for writing things deemed too critical. Mormon leaders and the Mormon culture itself have long proven themselves to be extremely sensitive to how they and their history is portrayed. Things have gotten better for sure. But it’s still an issue, no doubt.