Missouri 1838: Danites and the extermination order
How much of the 1838 catastrophe the Saints' own militancy brought on.
What the Church claims
The Saints were innocent victims of Missouri mobs and an extermination order; the Danites were an aberration Joseph knew little about.
Once the evidence is in, this claim: Contested. The facts of Mormon militancy are conceded; the apportioning of blame remains a matter of judgment, and the Church's recent essays are fairer than critics often admit.
The record
- The Church now states that 'historians generally concur that Joseph Smith approved of the Danites', though probably not all their plans; the group 'intimidated Church dissenters' and, absorbed into Mormon militia, 'raided two towns ... burning homes and stealing goods'.
- Sidney Rigdon's 'Salt Sermon' (1838-06-17) preceded an ultimatum signed by about 80 men ordering dissenters including Cowdery and the Whitmers out of the county; his 4 July oration threatened 'a war of extermination' against mobs and was printed with Joseph's endorsement.
- After the Gallatin election brawl (1838-08-06) and the siege of De Witt, Mormon forces burned Gallatin and Millport on 1838-10-18 and fought state militia at Crooked River on 1838-10-25, killing Moses Rowland; David Patten and Gideon Carter died.
- Governor Boggs's order of 1838-10-27 said the Mormons 'must be exterminated or driven from the State'; on 1838-10-30 vigilantes killed at least 17 men and boys, aged 9 to 78, at Hawn's Mill.
- Joseph surrendered at Far West on 1838-11-01; at the Richmond hearing Danite leader Sampson Avard turned state's witness and blamed Joseph for the organization.
The moving target
- 1839-1844: Portrayed the conflict as unprovoked persecution and disowned Sampson Avard as the Danites' author.
- 2014-05: Concedes the Danites as 'a paramilitary group', Joseph's approval, and the raids; omits the Salt Sermon and the 4 July oration.
- current: Same concessions; frames the Danites' actions as mainly against property while opponents killed noncombatants.
The exchange
Gospel Topics essay; Alexander Baugh; Church History Topics
The Saints had been driven from Jackson County in 1833 without redress; Missourians started the 1838 violence at Gallatin; Boggs's order and Hawn's Mill were the state's crimes; Danite excesses were Avard's.
The answer: All true, and the moral asymmetry of Hawn's Mill is real. But the 2014 concessions leave the traditional story untenable: Church leaders expelled their own dissenters by threat, a counselor in the First Presidency promised a war of extermination in print, Mormon forces burned two towns and fought the state militia before the order was issued, and the prophet approved the secret society that did much of it. Blame is shared.
What they get right: Critics who present the Saints as aggressors and Missourians as victims invert the larger picture: the Saints lost everything and the state paid nothing.
Alexander Baugh; FAIR; Gospel Topics, 'Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints'
Sidney Rigdon's Salt Sermon and Fourth of July oration, not Joseph Smith, set the confrontational tone in 1838, and Joseph's own military decisions were defensive responses to a mob-militia that had already besieged De Witt and driven families out.
The answer: Joseph sat on the stand while Rigdon preached both sermons and published the Fourth of July oration as a pamphlet, which is endorsement by any ordinary standard. The claim under test is not whether Missourians committed worse crimes — they did, and the extermination order and Hawn's Mill are theirs — but whether the Danites were an aberration the prophet knew little about. Sampson Avard was ordained to lead them in Joseph's presence, the band operated for months inside a community of a few thousand people, and Joseph's own history is silent about what he authorized. 'Our worst actors were freelancing' is the defense every institution offers, and it requires evidence rather than assertion.
What they get right: The Saints had been expelled from Jackson County in 1833 with no legal redress whatever, and no account of 1838 that leaves that out is honest.
Both cases at full strength
The skeptics' case
By its own account the Church in 1838 ran a secret paramilitary order with the prophet's approval, drove out its dissenters, burned Missourian towns and engaged the state militia. The extermination order was monstrous, but it answered real Mormon violence, which the Church's tellings still tend to omit.
The apologetic case
A persecuted minority that had been expelled twice and denied justice armed itself, and its worst acts were provoked by armed mobs, an election-day assault and a siege; the state's response was ethnic cleansing and a massacre of children.
What would change this
Evidence that Joseph opposed the Danites at the time or that the Gallatin and Millport raids were unauthorized.
Sources
- Danites (Church History Topics)
- Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints (Gospel Topics essay)
- 1838 Mormon War (Wikipedia; tertiary finder)
An independent project. Not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or with any organization cited here. Summaries are written here; short quotations are attributed and linked. Every page names its sources so that it can be corrected, and every page can be challenged.