The Mountain Meadows Massacre

By: Juanita Brooks

I met this author once. It was back in 1985 at the grand opening of the Chicago Temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. I was still in the throes of apostasy and hadn’t worked my beliefs out. I probably had no idea what Mountain Meadows Massacre was, but I certainly swooned over meeting a real-life, successful author and historian.

Juanita Brooks, a scholarly researcher, was a successful writer, and The Mountain Meadows Massacre is an important work. She expected to be excommunicated for her success but was not. Nor did she get any sense of acknowledgment from the leaders of her church. Here, she writes of the dark day when the massacre took place, and also of the repercussions twenty years later when John D. Lee (see Nefarious Elders) was executed, as though he alone committed the crime. Clearly, he was a scapegoat, condemned by the leader of the church he had followed so faithfully and so blindly. It is the tale of a massacre, but it is also the tale of the consequences of putting your faith in one man; a man who claims to speak for God and promises blessings never dispersed. I look forward to working through this book report because I know it is stellar writing of a story that still needs to be told.