Persecution Complex: Another time that “LDS culture” was “under attack”

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So this Tuesday, Utah's Fox News ran a story / headline “Is LDS culture under attack?” and I made a rant about it in stories the other day. (see “persecution" highlight).

The story below is  meant to show why it is so dangerous when an oppressive organization labels the self-defense and justice work of those they oppress as persecution.

Indigenous Peoples were being massacred by Mormon settlers through European diseases, environmental destruction, and military violence. They were losing their lands, waters, foods, lifeways, and spiritualities.

Timpanogos People tried to work with Mormons, but they “seemed never to be satisfied.” So, often in desperation, some Indigenous Peoples moved to militant self-defense.

My ancestors saw their genocidal project as their divine destiny. Thus Indigenous resistance to their own destruction was understood as an attack.


Today, once again Mormons claim that their culture is “under attack” when once again what is happening is that people are engaging in self-defense and justice work in response to this church’s history and perpetuation of violences.

And the violences enacted by an organization this powerful when they can convince themselves that their “religous freedom” to oppress, dominate, and destroy is “under attack” are many-fold.

Be aware of toxic empathy and the oppressors call for it.

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Collage featuring a certificate of award to my great uncle Aroet Hale making him a Second Lieutenant of the Nauvoo Legion in March 1955, signed by Brigham Young; the medal Aroet recieved for his part in the settler-colonial genocide name "Utah Indian War" or "Black Hawk War" or "Wakara War"; and photos of my great grandpa Alma Hale and his brother Aroet.

This is Alma and Aroet Hale. They’re my 4th Great Grandpa and Granduncle. Their biographies, hosted on the Mormon-owned ancestry website FamilySearch frequently mention how they were “under attack” from Indigenous Peoples. Not once do they mention how these supposed “attacks” were Indigenous Peoples trying to defend themselves from genocide.

To hear Timpanogos leader Wakara explain it (through an interpreter):
“Settlements have been made on all their hunting grounds in the valleys, and the graves of their fathers have been torn up by the whites … He said the Gosoke (Goshute) who formerly lived in the Salt Lake valley had been killed and driven away, and that now they wished to drive him and his band away also. He said he had always wished to be friendly with the whites—but they seemed never to be satisfied. The Indians had moved time after time, and yet they could have no peace … The whites want everything, and will give the Indians nothing … They shoot the Indians if they walk over their grounds … His heart was sick.”
- M. S. Martenas, Interpreter, July 6 1853

To hear Grandpa Alma’s biography (c. 1961) explain it:
"On July 30, 1853 Alma and Aroet were called … to assist in the DEFENSE of the settlements against the RAIDS being made by the Indians under Chief Wahkara (sic). This tribe … were particularly FEROCIOUS and made forays throughout the entire Southwest stealing horses, cattle, and taking slave children. (None of this existed prior to Spanish colonization). Much damage had resulted to property of the Saints.” 

Note the author makes no mention of Mormons stealing land, fish, deer, grass, water, or how after Mormons would massacre an Indigenous community they’d enslave the surviving women and children and call this saving them.

Perhaps these Timpanogos were being “ferocious” because four years earlier in Jan. 1849 Apostle George A. Smith commanded the Nauvoo Legion "remove the Indian people from their land … (they have) no rights to their land."  

Or because the next January the top 15 most powerful men of the Mormon church signed the Timpanogos Extermination Order with Brigham Young adding: “I say go [and] kill them—let the women and children live if they behave themselves… We have no peace until the men [are] killed off—never treat the Indian as your equal.”​

The Timpanogos Extermination Order or "Council meeting for January 31 and Sunday public meeting for February 10. Recorded by Thomas Bullock" from the Church History Catalog.

Or because in 1852 the all-Mormon Utah legislature officially legalized settler enslavement of Indigenous persons (this was already being practiced), stating that “a white man need only be in possession of an Indian for that Indian to be enslaved,” including children. (When Brigham Young commands: “let the women and children live” it is so that they can be enslaved)

"An ACT for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners" passed by the all-Mormon Utah Territorial Legislature on March 7, 1852 from the text, "Acts, Resolutions, and Memorials Passed at the Several Annual, and Special Sessions, of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah"

But Grandpa Alma’s bios make no mention of any of this. Instead they are filled with lines like:  “They could not sing around the campfires at night, play games, or do much cooking for fear of the Indians … Alma had to help guard the livestock from Indian raids … He was called back into the Militia to help against the Indians … (Alma escorted Brigham Young) from settlement to settlement (to protect) him from the attack of the savage Indians … She was so very frightened of the Indians. They would come from Skull Valley and beg for food and they were often quite mean if they didn't get it … I made several trips to Skull Valley to keep the Indians from stealing the people's cattle tethered and herded there.”

Indigenous Peoples were starving at this point because European cattle were eating all the Indigenous grasses causing the Indigenous animals to go elsewhere or starve. So, Indigenous Peoples did what they could to survive.

“For his services in the Militia Aroet received (the medal in the collage above and) a grant of 160 acres on Willow Creek in Tooele County (Goshute land).” 

In 1846 there were about 70,000 Timpanogos and zero Mormon settlers in Indigenous lands of the Great Basin. Mormons poured in. By 1860 there were 40,184 Mormons. 

By 1910 Timpanogos (pop. 1300) had lost more than 92% of their population while Utah Territory (pop 373,351) was nine times larger than it was 50 years earlier. 

Today the Timpanogos population is about 900. Utah’s dominantly white settler population is about 3,271,616 and nearly every body of water in the state is in a mega-drought and threatened with extinction.

LDS culture–you’re not “under attack”. People are just moving forward in self-defense and toward justice.

meme I made for this post