Review
Title: Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath.
Author: Richard E. Turley, Jr., and Barbara Jones Brown.
Publisher: New York City: Oxford University Press.
Genre: 2023.
Year Published: 2022
Number of Pages: xvi–501.
Format: Hardback
ISBN: (hardback): 9780195397857
Price: $34.95.
Reviewed by Sam Mitchell for the Association of Mormon Letters
Based upon years of extensive research, Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath is a masterpiece that examines not only the catalysts and culmination but also the consequences of one of the most infamous episodes of both Latter-day Saint and Western U.S. history—the Mountain Meadows Massacre. By no means an “easy read,” Vengeance is Mine offers the perspectives of Massacre perpetrators, prosecutors, and those caught in the middle, fresh with incriminating details and evidence. Through careful reconstruction, a cohesive and heart-breaking narrative emerges that reveals much about the worth of the human soul and the absolute highs and lows of humanity.
Divided into seven parts, Vengeance is Mine follows a roughly historical trajectory that traces the roots of Mormonism and the Massacre and then follows the Massacre through to the fates of several of its perpetrators and survivors. Part One, “Crime” (pp. 1–42), describes the tense theological and political settings from which the Massacre sprung. All the way to the perpetration of the Massacre, its braided narrative uses flashbacks to weave a tapestry that gradually reveals the abominable act while also introducing key characters and contexts.
Turley and Brown effectively demonstrate that the Massacre—which took the lives of over 100 men, women, and children, sparing only seventeen small children who were thought to be too young to testify in any future court proceedings—occurred at the instigation of white Mormon church/military leaders in Southern Utah. Utilizing Paiute warriors (who, along with innocent Indigenous people like the Pahvant, would bear the brunt of the Massacre’s blame for many years), militiamen from Cedar City, Parowan, and other southern Utah locales besieged and then murdered a wagon train of California-bound Arkansan emigrants. As infamous as this tragic episode is, one’s familiarity with it can never fully remove the shock and gore of the Massacre. Turley and Brown spare many gruesome details, I am sure, but they include enough to paint vivid pictures of violence that capture the Massacre’s brutality.
Vengeance is Mine follows a more chronological approach for the Massacre’s aftermath. Parts Two through Four—“Cover-Up” (pp. 43–83), “Negotiation” (pp. 85–125), and “Investigation” (pp. 127–222)—describe the lengths to which Massacre perpetrators went in order to protect their own interests and shift blame for the Massacre on Native Americans. They also address the increasing tensions between the Latter-day Saints and the U.S. Government at the height of the Utah War, as well as initial and later moves to investigate the Massacre and to return the surviving seventeen children back to their families in Arkansas. This latter point was a particularly moving one and brought to light an unsung hero of the Massacre’s aftermath—Indian Affairs Superintendent Jacob Forney. His near-herculean efforts to gather and conduct the survivors to their families is incredibly moving, and, for me, one of the highlights of Vengeance is Mine.
Part Five, “Interlude” (pp. 223–277), is largely occupied with the shadow of the Civil War and renewed post-war efforts (often politically motivated) to bring Massacre participants to trial. The final two parts, “Prosecution” (pp. 279–354) and “Punishment” (pp. 280–394), center on the trial, sentencing, and execution of John D. Lee, although Turley and Brown are sure to address the post-Massacre lives of other major perpetrators Isaac Haight, Philip Kingensmith, John Higbee, and William Stewart. The final pages of Vengeance is Mine recount Juanita Brooks’s encounter with Massacre participant Nephi Johnson, whose death-throes serve almost as a prequel to her own work, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, “the first scholarly book on the subject” (391):
“Amidst his hallucinations, Johnson suddenly opened his eyes ‘wide to the ceiling’ and screamed, ‘Blood! BLOOD! BLOOD!’
‘He acts like he is haunted,’ [Juanita Leavitt, later Brooks] fretted to a man at the ranch.
‘Maybe he is,’ the man replied. ‘He was at the Mountain Meadows Massacre.’” (391)
Vengeance is Mine is dense with historical detail and heavy with harrowing trauma. It is, as noted above, not an “easy read,” nor should it be lightly skimmed. Vengeance is Mine seeks to present as many facets and versions of the Massacre as possible, forcing us as readers to not only consider all the available facts (becoming in that sense something of a jury ourselves) but also to face the horror and tragedy of Mountain Meadows. This confrontation with a stark reality is one of the most important features of Vengeance is Mine. Helpfully, the authors often “reintroduce” (however briefly) the major historical characters and their functions at the beginning of nearly every chapter, helping readers to maintain focus on the narrative and keep track of the vast cast of characters.
Vengeance is Mine offers a nuanced approach to the attitudes of Brigham Young and other general Church leaders before and after the Massacre. The tinderbox of 1850s Utah—filled with Mormon Reformation teachings, friction with the United States, and settler-Indigenous relations—is an important context to consider when confronting the lead-up to and initial aftermath of the Massacre. Turley and Brown approach such with equity and honesty, and while their authorial position on any given part of the Massacre and its roots is readily evident, they nonetheless include as many “sides of the story” as they can.
Similarly, Turley and Brown offer an intriguing glimpse into the political turbulence that surrounded the later trials of Massacre perpetrators and the conviction of John D. Lee. I was surprised to learn of the intense political maneuvering that took place in the courtrooms of the mid-to-late 1870s when the Mountain Meadows Massacre became more of a talking point and political leverage than a human tragedy. I found myself frustrated by the courtroom finagling, just as I was on the seat of my chair as I read about the actual events of the Massacre and the final moments of John D. Lee’s life. In these and many other instances, Vengeance is Mine captivated me and held my attention—in some moments a historical docudrama, in others a political thriller, and in some a brutal glimpse of horror and bloodshed.
Turley and Brown explain why it took so long (twenty years!) to prosecute and execute John D. Lee. The Utah and Civil Wars, tensions between Latter-day Saints and American officials, and other sociopolitical turmoil created circumstances where the pursuit of justice became nearly impossible for twenty years. During that time, Massacre perpetrators lived (often in hiding from the law) and even sometimes thrived, though fateful natural disasters and mounting piles of evidence would eventually push them in later life to stark survival and ignominious deaths.
More than once, as I encountered the “ends” of their stories, I was reminded of the biblical punishment God gave to Cain after murdering his own brother. God, in His vengeance, did not sentence Cain to death, but rather to life … in exile: “And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth” (Genesis 4:11–12). In like manner, many of the Massacre perpetrators lived out their lives filled with regret, self-delusion, deception of others, and the horrible memories of those fateful days in September 1857.
Learning the hard lessons of the past will help us make a better future for ourselves and others. To that end, I am pleased to highly recommend Vengeance is Mine. Who should read it? Everyone! If you are unsure whether you should buy it, do yourself a favor and do it. Read it, weep over it, wrestle with it, and I believe you will be a better person—one more genuine, merciful, tolerant, and thoughtful—by the end.