[], 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.
cattle and sheep and other property. These threatenings were making continually, but the saints did not however, entertain any great fears of their doing so, but the sequel will show, that their threats were real.
While the mob was operating thus in , there were scattering families in other Counties which had to suffer violence also, at the hand of their neighbors. In , a family by the name of Lathrop, who lived on a farm which they had purchased from a man by the name of James Weldon, was attacked, Mr. Lathrop was driven from home: his wife and some of his family were sick: after he was driven away, one of his children died, and his wife was there alone and laying very sick; and there were twenty-five or thirty armed men around the house, threatening her husband’s life, if he attempted to come home. In this situation Mrs. Lathrop lay without attendence, surrounded by a body of armed ruffians: and while in this situation, her child died, and her husband dare not return to comfort her. Her own situation at the time being delicate; and terrified by the mob, her condition was afflicting in the extreme. The mob took and buried her child. A body of armed men was sent by the authorities to relieve her. They arrived at the place and found the mob there, the most of whom fled at their approach. They took the woman and her goods and family which remained, and brought her off with them, with another family by the name of Jackson. Mr. Jackson had also been driven from his family. Mrs. Lathrop survived the abuse but a very short time. There were also scattering families of the saints in , and other Counties, who were severely threatened, and some left the country out of fear, at the sacrifice of much property.
We have already mentioned, that after the mob had been turned into Militia, and disbanded as such, they went to Corrill County to attack a settlement of the saints in that place. The mob in Corrill County, began to assemble on the first of October 1838. We are not able to state the precise day; but it was as early as the first week of the month. We will now leave th[e] affairs of , and the other Counties, to give an acconnt of [p. 35]