I did not know that Mormons did the same things that they accused Missouri of doing.

I was always upset that children were forced from their homes to walk in snow barefoot.
http://archive.org/stream/historyofchurcho01robe#page/438/mode/2up
"I could easily follow on their trail by the blood that flowed from their lacerated feet on the stubble of the burnt prairie."

Today I found these documents from Missouri of what the Mormons did to the non-Mormons:

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/findingaids/fulltext/rg005_01-B01_F32-47.asp?rid=f38_f01-02&ref=js

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/findingaids/miscMormRecs/rg005_01/B1F38_18381021.pdf

"They have plundered or robbed and burned every house in Gallatin , our County seat, among the rest our Post Office, have driven almost every individual from the County, who are now flying before them with their families, many of whom have been forced out, without necessary clothing - their wives & little children wading, in many instances, through the snow without a shoe. When the miserable families are then forced out, their houses are plundered and then burned."

The Mormons did it too. All these years I thought that Missouri had been so cruel and the Mormons were so persecuted. My god, the Mormons did the very things they cried about.

We don't really know how bad the supposed Mormon persecutions were because church leaders deliberately inflated the stories to try to get government compensation.

And far from being thrown out of their homes in the middle of winter, the Mormons were permitted to remain until spring. They left Missouri earlier of their own accord.

CZ

the first acts of violence and coercion in missouri were carried out by the MORmONS. and the infamous extermination order originated with the MORmONS too.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QknCsJQBcco

If you happen to be from Arkansas and need food, water and shelter for your wife and kids, hit up the Catholics in New Mexico and Arizona and skip the Mormons in Utah.

+1, it took me a second to catch what you were referring to.

If you'd like even more information there's a book about Missouri and the mormons that came out in 2011:

The Mormon War: Zion and the Missouri Extermination Order of 1838,"by Brandon G. Kinney.

It's written by a nonmormon attorney. He goes into lots of details, but basically the story is the same as what you already found out - all the horrible things done to the mormons were almost always in response to equally horrifying things that the mormons did first.

For example, I grew up hearing stories about the "Haun's Mill Masacre." What I didn't know is that the mormons fired on the Missourians first and the Missourians responded. Of course, that doesn't justify the Missourians slaughtering everyone, but you wonder if things would have turned out differently if the mormons weren't the aggressors in that situation.

No one ever talks in Church about how the Mormons burned homes and stole in Galatin or how the 'extermination order' was the result of the Mormons firing on MO state milita troops where at least one non-LDS man was killed. Or how the action of the Danites, JS and Sidney Rigdon made things much worse. The persecution narrative has been rehearsed so much over the past 175 years that the concrete is long since set.

Like LDS assuming that extermination meant the same thing in the 1830-40s.

Also I think it's pretty telling that the events are now referred to as the Missouri WAR now by historians. 'War' as in a 2 sided conflict.

That said I think it's important to acknowledge that the Mormons got a raw deal in a lot of cases. But to act like they were blameless is just silly.

...

I'm sorry but wow. Maybe it's because I'm still a tad new at this "Everything about church history I learned at church is a lie." or it's because I grew up in the KCMO area but seriously...This is horrible and terrible. Excuse me while my world is a bit shaken.