REVIEW
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Title: No Place for Saints: Mobs and Mormons in Jacksonian America
Author: Adam Jortner
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Genre: Religious History
Year Published: 2021
Number of Pages: 185
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 9781421441764
Price: $22.95
Reviewed by Kevin Folkman for the Association for Mormon Letters
Jacksonian America was not a pleasant place unless you were white, male, and mainstream Protestant. Violence was common, popular sovereignty overruled the rights of minorities, and newspapers reprinted scandalous and false information about “undesirables” in the interest of improving circulation. It was also a time of intense religious turmoil, as new religious movements sprang up throughout the American landscape. Such was the environment that Joseph Smith, Jr. grew up in and established his new church. Students of Mormon History will be familiar with the persecutions that followed the Saints from New York to Kirtland, Ohio, and then to Jackson County, Missouri.
In No Place for Saints, Adam Jortner has placed Smith’s new church squarely in the midst of the sectarian chaos of Antebellum America. This was the time of the Indian Removal ACT, forcing Native Americans to relocate west of the Mississippi River, the founding of the Anti-Mason movement, the burning of Catholic convents over rumors of sex abuse and witchcraft, and slavery, with all its violence and brutality. No other work I have read so skillfully traces all these and other elements into a coherent explanation of why people who considered themselves good American citizens were capable of scorn, hatred, and physical violence against other American citizens. And Jortner does it with a refreshing economy of writing and strength of narration that captivates a reader’s attention.
Many academic works seem written to impress tenure-track search committees with obscure language and complex composition. Not so Jortner’s work. His sentences opening chapter 1 of No Place for Saints are a perfect example of how to communicate with a reader in simple but profound text:
“In 1805, Vermont had not yet earned its reputation for New England quaintness. It was a severe frontier landscape, more H. P. Lovecraft than Robert Frost.” [p7]
Such vivid and clear prose dominates No Place for Saints. Jortner has a light and concise style that is easy to read and clearly communicates his arguments. As he lays out the cultural, religious, and political environment of the 1820s and 1830s, Jortner makes his case for a unified view of the many conflicts surrounding the founding of the Latter-day Saints church.
One of the problems with Joseph Smith’s new church, Jortner says, is that the Mormons elevated visions, revelation, and other “supernatural” events above scriptural authority, a linchpin of Protestant doctrine. Jortner notes that to mainstream American Christianity, “…visions were all of the Devil” [p23]. The Book of Mormon as additional scripture also ran counter to Protestant belief in a closed canon. Stories of Smith’s earlier involvement in treasure hunting added to the negative impression of his new faith. Other churches and religious movements in the Northeast during the same time were also ridiculed and their leaders were discounted as frauds. Reports that church elders cast out demons was another problem. Such exorcisms, Jortner writes, were:
“…powerful proof of the divine sanctions of the exorcists and their church. For those who did not believe in demons, exorcisms worked the opposite way—proof of a charlatan making miserable dupes of ignorant fanatics.” [p78]
Despite this, the church added new converts at a rate that alarmed outsiders. Even as traditional Protestant beliefs were challenged, many found the new church and its teachings compelling. Almost entire congregations converted in Ohio. But as the church moved west from New York to Ohio and then Missouri, the problems followed. Persecution, rumor, and small-scale violence occurred everywhere the Mormons settled. In Missouri, small group acts became community campaigns against the new faith.
Fears about the Mormon’s relationship with Native Americans compounded the suspicions of those outside the church. Smith and other church leaders identified Native Americans as the direct descendants of the Book of Mormon Lamanites, leading to unsuccessful proselyting missions that created friction with government officials. As the church expanded into frontier Missouri, rumors of this outreach combined with other negative views of the Mormons to create a hostile environment. Missourians feared Mormons voting in blocs and dominating the political landscape. Coming on the heels of Indian Removal policies of the Jackson era, otherwise, law-abiding Missourians saw a precedent for the forced removal of some 1,200 Mormons in and around Independence, Jackson County. Militias which included local government officials demanded that Smith’s followers leave the county immediately.
Although Jortner never uses the term “popular sovereignty” in his text, the idea that a majority could subject an unpopular minority to deprival of rights and property was a key feature of Jacksonian America, and No Place for Saints clearly defines the effect this had on the problems in Missouri in 1833. Missouri Governor Dunklin’s response to pleas for help from the new settlers directed them to use the courts to address their grievances, ignoring the fact that those threatening the Mormons were the civic officials, potential jurors, and leading citizens upon which legal redress depended. As Jortner writes, a committee of these citizens
“…met peacefully and voted on resolutions…and then they decided to destroy and assault Mormon properties and persons to make their point. By calling themselves citizens, they implied that somehow the Mormons were not…Those who could not meet their standards had no rights.” [p3]
No Place for Saints clearly communicates how outsiders with new ideas and ideologies can be labeled as Others, demonized as strange and dangerous to the status quo. American Democracy still suffers, although at a lesser level, many of the same cultural, racial, and religious divides in the 21st century that prevailed in 19th-century America. Jortner’s short book is not only good Mormon History but a cautionary tale of how intolerance and suspicion can fuel even good people’s worst impulses. Jackson’s violent America is not all that far behind us. No Place for Saints is a sharp, easy read that underscores how American democracy can be undermined by vocal and potentially violent groups who designate others as undesirables and outsiders. The echoes of Jacksonian America are reverberating still.