Unsettling Mormonism
an archive of unsettling histories, mythistories, and mystories
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
 collage by nicholas b jacobsen On September 11, 1857:
 Artist depiction of the Mountain Meadows Massacre On this 9/11, my people massacred ~120 Euro-settler migrants, the Baker-Fancher wagon train, (in front of their children) who were passing through Mormon-occupied Nuwu (Southern Paiute) territory in so-called Southern Utah on their way to California. For the 5 days prior to 9/11 this wagon party was assaulted by my People who were dressed in Red Face in order to make the U.S. believe that "Indians" were the perpetrators of this massacre.  Artist depiction of the Mountain Meadows Massacre showing "Indians" as the aggressors  Image of Utah Mormon men dressed in Red Face taken from Jared Farmer's "On Zion's Mount" When the Mormon Militia members feared that their whiteness had been discovered they decided to approach in white skin, under a white flag and offer safe passage away from their "Indian" assailants. While escorting the Baker-Fanchers away, my People turned on a signal and massacred men, women, children (and possibly non-binary folk). On 9/11, all in the Baker-Fancher party deemed old enough to remember were massacred by the Mormon Utah Territory Militia. Everyone except for seventeen children, 6-years-old and younger who were not murdered, but abducted and adopted into Mormon families. (Mormons were also “adopting” enslaved Nuwu children then too) The Baker-Fancher’s property was then stolen and divided up. The children remembered. And their children are now Baby Boomers.  Artist depiction of the Mountain Meadows Massacre It took 150 years for Mormons to stop blaming the Nuwu for this horror. "For 150 years no one asked for our account" - Lora Tom, of the Paiute Nation. After 150 years of genocide and dominance the LDS Church only expressed “profound regret” to the Nuwu for blaiming the Mountain Meadows Massacre on them. On that same day the church made it very clear they were not apologizing though, as Mark Tuttle, a church spokesman shared, “We don’t use the word ‘apology.’ We used ‘profound regret." And a few years later, Dallin H. Oaks, when asked if the church would apologize for it's anti-LGBTQIA2s+ history, said, "I know that the history of the church is not to seek apologies or to give them," and made clear that the church doesn't "seek apologies...and we don't give them." Fuck repentance I guess 🤷🏼  Mountain Meadows Massacre stone monument The stones used to build the Mountain Meadows Massacre monument were found on the site of the massacre. They been there for millenia already as Nuwu and their Pueblo ancestors cared for this land. The stones were witnesses to this massacre and now they remember the massacre for us. My great-great-great grandpa and his father may have been a part of this massacre as they were enlisted in the Iron County militia at this time. But because of the lies and secrecy surrounding this event at the time, I have no way of knowing for certain if these ancestors participated or refused. Given that they did leave town and weren't powerful Mormons, I assume they were there. What still lives in my body as generational witness to these horrors?  Artist depiction of John D. Lee's execution by firing squad Brigham Young's spiritually-adopted son #JohnDLee, who led the massacre, was the only person held responsible. No one has really been held legally responsible for the massacres of Indigenous people during this period. John D. Lee's descendants include U.S. Senators Mike Lee, Gordon H. Smith, and Mark and Tom Udhall. Tom Udall is being considered for #SecretaryOfInterior (person in charge of managing all the stolen land in the U.S.) by Biden. Udall’s dad, Stewart Udall, served in this position under Kennedy and Johnson.
Indigenous people often talk about their responsibilities to their ancestors or how their ancestors are with them. I often wonder what my ancestors think of the work I do. Do they regret the ways they chose to survive and believe? Are they with me now helping to change the world they helped build? Suggested reading: Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Will Bagley. 2002
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Ensign Peak Advisors is the investment management company for assets of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both Ensign Peak Advisors and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are trademarks owned by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. Intellectual Reserve, Inc. holds the church's intellectual property, including copyrights and trademarks and is wholly owned and operated by the Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Like many other billionaires this church’s wealth grew by $2.4 billion over the pandemic
These investments have made this church the second most wealthy religious organization in the world. These investments also actively contribute to climate chaos and the sixth extinction (gotta bring those latter-days), oil and gas extraction, Indigenous land rights abuses, child-enslavement, worker exploitation, predatory lending, profit from healthcare, and outright poison people. These are the contemporary money handlers who make Jesus table-flipping mad.  wwjd? If this church were a nation (say like a nation called Deseret) and it’s current wealth were its GDP, it would be around the 70th most wealthy nation in the world. This list contains 213 nations, which hypothetically ranks this church in the top ⅓ most wealthy nations. This wealth was originally created through the collection of tithing. Mormon practitioners must pay 10%+ of their income to be "worthy" members and have access to the rituals that ensure Mormon salvation and eternal life with one’s earthly family. Ensign Peak Advisors is named after Ensign Peak. Ensign Peak is a hilltop park on public lands in the foothills near downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. It is approximately one mile north of the Utah State Capitol and sits almost directly behind it. Two days after arriving in the Timpanogos lands, on July 26, 1847, Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders climbed this hill and gave the peak its present name. Thus, the hill is given religious significance in Mormon history and symbolism.  Isaiah 18:3, an inspiration for the name of the peak and church owned investment company.  Merriam-Webster definition of ensign  “Ensign” is even the name of this church’s main magazine.
The Deseret flag is the ensign of this Mormon separatist theocratic ethnostate that fought against the U.S., was never recognized by the U.S., & directly stole Indigenous homelands through genocide, massacre, and assimilation. And much like the more well-known flag of separatist nation who fought against, and was never recognized by the U.S. (the confederate battle flag) there are Deseret Nationalist (or DezNat) white supremacists who want to bring this nation back into existence.
So what exactly is a religious flag with white supremacist ties doing in a government owned park? I don't know. That's a question for the SLC council. –And a moment to acknowledge that the US flag is also a symbol of white supremacist violence to many people--  “What is the proper way to display the US flag?” - Dread Scott "To some people, it's the flag carried by the cavalry that enacted genocide on Native Americans, that dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and napalm on Vietnam. It's the flag worn by cops who shoot people in the back. It's the flag of a country pillaging the world." - Dread Scott  “Interwoven” - Sonya Clark “The US flag is as much a symbol of oppression and terrorism against Black people as the Confederate flag. The dehumanization and oppression of Black people is not only built into the Constitution, it's an American past-time that takes place under the Stars and Stripes." - Kirsten West Savalionva *You may notice that the colors are inverted: this flag may or may not have been the flag of Deseret, the only source for the description of this flag was from an anti-Mormon territorial trader named Maguire, who was passing thru to make sure that Brigham Young, "the old devil," was dead.
 So I'm loving the way Under the Banner of Heaven is tying the violent extremism of Mormonism's founders to the Lafferty murder, but what I've yet to see is the series pointing to the influence of prophets contemporary to the Lafferty's--specifically Ezra Taft Benson who was President of the Quorum of the Twelve the year of this murder.
Most of the Lafferty boys were born in the 1940's. During their teens & early 20's (the 1960's) ~75% of Benson's General Conference talks were on a far-right/ constitutionalist/US. exceptionalist/libertarian political topics. In the decades between the Lafferty brothers' births & the 1884 murder, W. Cleon Skousen taught religion (mixed with far-right politics) for 15 yrs at BYU, and wrote different books combining far-right politics and Mormon history. Skousen was also chief of SLC police during the Lafferty's teen years. Skousen and Benson were friends and followers of the far-right, anti-communist, constitutionalist hate group--the John Birch Society. Beginning in 1967, 17 yrs before the Lafferty murder, Skousen also founded the National Center for Constitutional Studies (NCCS). Skousen's NCCS still exists and is hugely influential to far-right Mormon activists & politicians like the Bundys, Glenn Beck, Orrin Hatch, & Mike Lee. “No one is better qualified to discuss the threat to this nation from communism.” -Ronald Reanan, United States President His books are popular among conservative politicians broadly thanks to Glenn Beck. Orrin Hatch eulogized Skousen (an early contributor to Hatch's campaigns) from the senate floor. Ben Carson marks Skousen’s book, "The Naked Communist" as one of his favorites. Carson liked it so much he even plagiarized from it when writing his own book. Ezra Taft Benson told Mormons from the General Conference pulpit that they should all read Skousen's "The Naked Communist" in tandem with the church's official pamphlet on communism. "According to the NCCS, the founding of the United States was a divine miracle. As such, the NCCS worldview and program are based on two major pillars: (1) understanding the divine guidance that has allowed the United States to thrive and (2) rejecting what it views as the sometimes tyrannical or sinful deviations of the modern U.S. federal government from that divine mold. Skousen's NCCS follows Mormon ideology that the founding of the US was a divine miracle & that it is up to Mormon to save the constitution when it is "hanging as if by a thread'" because of modern deviations from the founding purposes. This supposed divinity of US constitutional & Mormon originalism is what led the Lafferty's & leads the Bundys & DezNats to radical extremism & justifies their violent, patriarchal white-settler-suprmacist, US-exceptionalist beliefs and actions. Obsessing over the divinity of the violently white-supremacist founding fathers of both the U.S. & Mormonism is inherently tied.  In 2019 President Nelson said God defines marriage as between a (cis)man and a (cis)woman and "has not changed His definition" marriage.
“As members of the Church, we respect the laws of the land and abide by them, including civil marriage. The truth is, however, that in the beginning--in the beginning- marriage was ordained by God! And to this day it is defined by Him as being between a man and a woman. God has not changed His definition of marriage.” - President Nelson He also says that the church respects and abides the laws of the land. I wonder if he forgot about the time in 1880 when God's voice box proclaimed that God did define marriage "different(ly)" and that the church would openly defy the laws of the land, especially civil marriage laws. "God is greater than the United States, and when the Government conflicts with heaven, we will be ranged UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN against the Government. The United States says we cannot marry more than one wife. God says different." - President Taylor After the Supreme Court changed the U.S.'s definition of marriage in 2015, The Church lamented these deviations from this alignment of civil law and God's law, listing abortion as a notable exception. “For much of human history, civil laws have generally been compatible with God's laws. Unfortunately, there have been notable exceptions to that pattern. For example, it is legal in the United States to perform an abortion on an unborn fetus. However, this practice is not morally acceptable before God.” - THE 2015 COUNCIL OF THE FIRST PRESIDENCY AND QUORUM OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS They neglected to mention the "notable exception" listed on their website in their "additional resource" on "Polygamy" “In other words, the standard of the Lord's people is monogamy unless the Lord reveals otherwise. Latter-day Saints believe the season the Church practiced polygamy was one of these exceptions.” - Additional Resource, Polygamy: Latter-day Saints and the Practice of Plural Marriage. Once again, ignoring their own history of fighting the Supreme Court over marriage laws, President Oaks declared in 2017 that the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage had overturned "thousands of years" of monogamous cishetero-patriarchal laws, even tho the Supreme Court (and all their laws) are just over 200 yrs old. “Just 20 years after the family proclamation, the United States Supreme Court authorized same-sex marriage, overturning thousands of years of marriage being limited to a man and a woman.” - President Oaks So for clarity's sake:
All clear? The Teachings of Brigham Young: the curse of Cain, enslavement, miscegenation, and blood atonement6/6/2022  Statue of Brigham Young on BYU campus dowsed with red paint, June 2020 This speech is found in “The Teachings of President Brigham Young: Volume 3, 1852-1854” and was given on the day Utah first legalized enslavement. Section 4 of this legislation banned "any white person” from “sexual intercourse with any of the African race.”
- While explaining why “any white person” shouldnt “mingle seed” with “any of the African race,” Brigham suggests that if he were to mingle seed in this way, “it would be a blessing” if a priesthood holding man were to “cut off (his) head.” - Brigham says: “It is the greatest blessing that could come to some men to shed their blood on the ground, and let it come up before the Lord as an atonement.” - He even says that this isn’t really even murder as our lives are eternal. Blood atonement simply separates the “tabernacle” from eternal body. - He compares blood atonement to Old Testament sacrifices & Jesus’s atonement. - Brigham goes so far as to say that “You nor I,” speaking only to worthy Mormon men, “cannot take any more life than we can give.” - He justifies murder bc he can sire children. He can give life (babies) and thus he is emboldened to take it as well. - With sociopathic, megalomaniacal white supremacist founders like this is it any wonder the Lafferty’s exist? the Warren Jeffs, the Bundy’s, the DezNats, the Mormon Trumpers who stormed the capitol, World Family of Congress/Family Watch International, Ayla “Wife With A Purpose” Stewart, and on and on. - Is it any wonder there is a deep U.S.-white-nationalist, eugenic-great-replacement believing, far-right libertarian, fascist heart in the Book of Mormon belt? Here is the text: “The Teachings of President Brigham Young: Volume 3, 1852-1854” "The principle of slavery I understand...Long ago mama Eve…partook of forbidden fruit and this made a slave of her. Adam…our old daddy says I believe I will eat of the fruit and become a slave too. This was the first introduction of slavery upon this Earth. "I am as much opposed to the principle of slavery as any man (but) in the present acceptation or usage of the term - it is abused. I am opposed to abusing that which God has decreed, to take a blessing, and make a curse of it. It is a great blessing to the seed of Adam to have the seed of Cain for servants. "(B)ut those they serve should use them with all the heart and feeling, as they would use their own children and their compassion should reach over them, and round about them, and treat them as kindly, and with that humane feeling necessary to be shown to mortal beings of the human species. Under these circumstances their blessings in life are greater in proportion than those who have to provide the bread and dinner for them. "Were the children of God to mingle their seed with the seed of Cain it would not only bring the curse of being deprived of the power of the Priesthood upon them[selves] but they entail it upon their children after them, and they cannot get rid of it. "Let this Church which is called the Kingdom of God on the Earth…declare that it is right to mingle our seed with the black race of Cain, that they shall come in with us and be partakers with us of all the blessings God has given to us. On that very day and hour…the Priesthood is taken from this Church and Kingdom and God leaves us to our fate. "Let my seed mingle with the seed of Cain, [and] that brings the curse upon me, and upon my generations. "(And then) If a man in an unguarded moment should walk up and say cut off my head, and kill man, woman and child… would this be to curse them? No, it would be a blessing to them it would do them good, that they might be saved… A many would shudder should they hear us talk about killing folk, but it is one of the greatest blessings to some to kill them, although the true principles of it are not understood. "How many times I have heard it said…that to take a life, is to take what you cannot give; this is perfect nonsense. "What do I do by taking a man's head off after he is condemned by the law? I put an end to the existence of the mortal tabernacle; but the life still remains. The body and the spirit is only separated...Can I give that life? I can I can make as good tabernacles as any other man, if you do not believe it, go and look at my children; therefore that saying is nonsense. "What was the cause of the ancients drawing up…sacrifices unto the Lord? Was it not for the remission of the sins of the people? "It is the greatest blessing that could come to some men to shed their blood on the ground, and let it come up before the Lord as an atonement. "You nor I cannot take any more life than we can give." |
AuthorI am nicholas b jacobsen, an artist, researcher, historian, educator, and organizer. I am a trans-non binary Euro-settler raised in the Nuwu lands of so-called Utah. My family has been Mormon and Utahn for as long as either of those concepts have existed. My ancestors sacrificed everything--their identities, homelands, jobs, health, & safety to become Mormon, Utahn, U.S. American, & white--to settler their Zion. I take it as my personal responsibility to unsettle what my ancestors settled. and to help my fellow settlers do the same through writing, art, and community building. ArchivesCategories
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