The Papers
Browse the PapersDocumentsJournalsAdministrative RecordsRevelations and TranslationsHistoriesLegal RecordsFinancial RecordsOther Contemporary Papers
Reference
PeoplePlacesEventsGlossaryLegal GlossaryFinancial GlossaryCalendar of DocumentsWorks CitedFeatured TopicsLesson PlansRelated Publications
Media
VideosPhotographsIllustrationsChartsMapsPodcasts
News
Current NewsArchiveNewsletterSubscribeJSP Conferences
About
About the ProjectJoseph Smith and His PapersFAQAwardsEndorsementsReviewsEditorial MethodNote on TranscriptionsNote on Images of People and PlacesReferencing the ProjectCiting This WebsiteProject TeamContact Us
Published Volumes
  1. Home > 
  2. The Papers > 

Sidney Rigdon, Appeal to the American People, 1840

Page 73

Source Note

[], An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri; 1–84 pp.; Cincinnati, OH: Glezen and Shepard, stereotypers and printers, 1840. The copy used herein is held at Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Historical Introduction

While incarcerated at , Missouri, in March 1839, JS addressed a letter to the church “at Illinois and scattered abroad and to in particular,” instructing the Saints to gather up “a knoledge of all the facts and sufferings and abuses put upon them by the people of this .” Edward Partridge responded with an account that became the three opening installments of “A History, of the Persecution, of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints in Missouri,” an eleven-part series published in the church’s newspaper, Times and Seasons, between December 1839 and October 1840. “A History, of the Persecution” receives comprehensive treatment in volume 2 of the Histories series of The Joseph Smith Papers and is available on this website.
may have intended to tell the entire story himself, but he fell ill shortly after publication of “A History, of the Persecution” began and died on 27 May 1840. Prompted by Partridge’s illness and subsequent death, the editors of the Times and Seasons, and , sought elsewhere for source materials to continue the series. It is probable that they composed the fourth installment to provide a brief transition from Partridge’s account, which ends in 1836, and the conflicts in and adjoining counties in 1838. The fifth and seventh installments reprinted passages from ’s History of the Late Persecutions Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons (Detroit: Dawson and Bates, 1839). In May 1840, the sixth installment reprinted passages from ’s eighty-four page pamphlet, An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri (Cincinnati: Glezan and Shepard, 1840). More of Rigdon’s work was reprinted in the eighth through tenth installments, published from July to September 1840. The series concluded with an eleventh installment in the October 1840 issue, featuring General ’s callous speech to the Saints after their surrender at , Missouri, in November 1838.
A manuscript version of ’s Appeal to the American People, referred to as the “petition draft” titled “To the Publick” and endorsed by JS, Rigdon, and , was read to a conference of Saints in , Illinois, on 1 November 1839. The conference voted to approve its publication in the name of the church. and then collaborated to arrange for publication of the text in late 1839 and early 1840. Though no author is named on the title page, Rigdon was acknowledged as author when the pamphlet was advertised in the Times and Seasons in 1840 and 1841. JS and Elias Higbee had some expectation that funds from the sale of the publication would help defray costs of their trip to in late 1839. In July 1840, a second edition was printed by Shepard & Stearns in to raise funds for Orson Hyde and ’s mission to .
Although many of the events reported in ’s pamphlet can be corroborated from other sources, his chronology is often inaccurate. (Consult the annotation in Histories, Volume 2 for correction to portions published as part of “A History, of the Persecutions.”) However, his account contains the text of several significant documents. Among these are JS’s 5 September 1838 affidavit concerning the 7 August 1838 visit to and those of and and regarding the massacre. Consequently, though in many respects Rigdon’s document is more advocacy than history, it offers access to some material not readily found elsewhere.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Letter to the Church and Edward Partridge, 20 March 1839 [D&C 123:1, 6].

  2. [2]

    Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 103–104, 124.

    Crawley, Peter. A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. 3 vols. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997–2012.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Statement, circa 1 November 1839–B *Affidavit, 5 September 1838 [ State of Missouri v. JS et al. for Riot ]

Page 10

brutal monsters, instead of regarding her tears and supplications, beat her with the same weapon, with which they were beating her husband, and they barely escaped with their lives. The women fled in all directions into the prairies and woods, and a greater part barefoot, and with but little clothing, being driven out in the night, many of them torn from their beds. In a short time, you could track them by the blood which ran from their feet. Wives were weeping and wailing, not knowing but their husbands were murdered; their children, with their lacerated and bleeding feet, were mourning and crying, asking for food but could get none! In this deplorable condition, they had to travel and sleep in the open prairies or under the rocks, in the month of November, without food or covering; and there ask and see what a kind Providence would do for them, while their robbers and plunderers were glutting themselves upon the food they had left in their houses; and gratifying their brutality, by throwing it to the beasts, and carrying it home for their own use, and that of their families, and by destroying the household stuff, or rather stealing it, while the little ones, whose fathers had laid it up carefully for their sustenance, were bewailing their condition in the open prairie without a morsel to comfort, or a blanket to cover them.
However incredible it may appear to a civilized people, it is a fact, that there were at one time, one hundred and ninety women and children, who crossed a prairie of nine miles, aided by three men only; the rest having been driven away by the violence of the mob. The saints being unarmed and the mob armed, they fell an easy prey to them.
The women and children, after crossing the prairie, travelled a number of miles, in all probability from twelve to fifteen, and then stopped and waited until their husbands and fathers found where they were, and got to them. They there built houses to winter in; but before they had continued long, the mob found where they were and went and drove them away, and burned their houses.
A company consisting of about two hundred, nearly all of them women and children, got to the , late in the afternoon, and could not get across that night. [p. 10]
View entire transcript

|

Cite this page

Source Note

Document Transcript

Page 10

Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Sidney Rigdon, Appeal to the American People, 1840
ID #
7830
Total Pages
84
Print Volume Location
Handwriting on This Page
  • Printed text

© 2024 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of UseUpdated 2021-04-13Privacy NoticeUpdated 2021-04-06