[], 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.
them, would acquit the mob, notwithstanding, the mob would boast of their crimes in their presence. Up till this time, there was not a military or civil officer in , who had been called upon to quell this gang of plunderers, that would abide by his oath of office; from the down. When the civil officers were called upon, they would give decisions, the most barefaced violations of law, ever given by mortals; so much so, that they knew they were violating their oaths, when they did it. When the military were called upon, instead of bringing the mob to justice; they would call them Militia; which could be for no other purpose, but to keep them from the punishment justly due to their crimes. After the mob had been honorably dismissed as Militia, and ordered home, they took up their line of march directly to , in Corrill County, to drive out a settlement of the saints in that place. The history of which settlement we shall hereafter give.
Part of the mob which was at was from Corrill County. Their principal leader, was , commonly called . He was a Presbyterian Preacher. There was another Presbyterian Preacher with the Corrill County mob, by the name of Hancock. After the mob had departed for Corrill County; the inhabitants of that had belonged to the mob, began to make proposals to the saints, either to sell or buy. Two committees were appointed for this purpose, one on each part: after some arrangements in relation to the matter, the committee on the part of the saints, agreed to buy out all the possessions which the mob had in , and purchases were making of their lands and crops (the land consisted in pre-emption rights, as the land in that part of the had not as yet come into market) every day, and payment made, until there was some twenty-five thousand dollars worth of property bought from the mob, in improvements and crops. While these operations were going on, the mob would occasionally boast, that when they had got payment for their lands and crops, they would rise up, and drive the saints out and keep both their lands and their crops. They also sold a large quantity of hogs, some [p. 34]