From my research I have come across this concept.
What people fail to realize is that the Mormon pioneers who migrated to Utah were not, of necessity, pure and holy. They were human beings who were subject to all vagaries, strengths, and weaknesses so common to homo sapiens.
To place them on a pedestal of adoration does them a great injustice and presents an erroneous image to the rest of the world.

They also fail to realize that before they were pioneers, they weren't just peaceful, law abiding folks, benignly trying to practice their religion.

They terrorized, stole, looted, swindled, counterfeited, threatened to overtake politics, etc. They were a very real threat to the non-mormons.

That's why they became pioneers.

Jonny the Smoke Wrote:
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> They also fail to realize that before they were
> pioneers, they weren't just peaceful, law abiding
> folks, benignly trying to practice their
> religion.
> They terrorized, stole, looted, swindled,
> counterfeited, threatened to overtake politics,
> etc. They were a very real threat to the
> non-mormons.
> That's why they became pioneers.

Um...sure, some did (the "power" bunch from Nauvoo).

My "pioneer" ancestors didn't. They ignorantly converted in England, took a boat to the US (with 2 of that family dying on the way), worked up to "Winter Quarters," then across to Utah (with another dying on the way).

I don't put them on a pedestal by any means...but they weren't part of the Nauvoo/Kirtland thieves, either.

Agreed. I was making a broad observation. There were definitely mormon thugs, but not all mormons were thugs :)

I don't regard my Mormon pioneer ancestors as pure or holy. When I think of them I relate to them on a human level, subject to human frailties they surely possessed with all its varying degrees of strengths and weaknesses.

That they were duped by charlatan con artists operating a fringe religious cult I forgive them because they were sincere followers who were deceived by the basest of mortal men.

I'm really glad that I'm not descended from Smith or Young. They are not the kind of men I am as forgiving of because of their chicanery. They knew they were committing fraud when they were going through the motions. They deceived many in order to enrich themselves.

I agree with you Amyjo. However a great percentage of the true believers does hold them in that esteem. My great grandfather was one of the handcart pioneers and eventually wound up in what is now southern Arizona. I have read his memoirs and also read his whitewashed history. To say the least they are not the same. However theses people did carve a civilization out of a wilderness and for that we should give them their just do.
Beyond that it is all illusion.

The cult was the illusion.

Their work was pure blood, sweat, and tears.

Some of my Mormon pioneer ancestors histories have been glossied over for church historical purposes.

One was a scoundrel where his plural wives were concerned IMO. He was married to several but only one actually lived with him, out of the three. My ggggrandmother was his first wife. She died young, around Nauvoo era before they moved westward. He wasn't allowed to take plural wives before they headed west.

While Joseph was whooping it up with the women, my ancestor was actually excommunicated for a time for flirting with a woman during Nauvoo. He was allowed to be rebaptized, and later granted permission to take plural wives in the pattern of Smith and Young. They were disastrous marriages, with the exception of one.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2018 06:30PM by Amyjo.

A lot of the European pioneers came for the free land.

My great great grandpa migrated from Wales as a tailor. He began his own shop in Ogden because Brigham Young sent him there since Salt Lake City had its quota of tailors by time he arrived to the valley.

He built up a sizable business - had 20 employees at its peak. He sold mens fine suits up and down the corridor between Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and Nevada made doable by the railroad.

He married the daughter of a polygamist, but didn't become one himself. He had his hands full as it was with one wife at a time. And a large brood of children.

My jack Mo cousins told me he left the church later in life. You don't hear that from the TBM's. It isn't listed in the Utah historical registry either that he left TSCC. But something happened that made him walk away. What it was we don't know, but he had his own awakening toward the end of his life.

Many of the pioneers originating from England came from the industrial slums of north western England where disease, poverty and despair were rife. I can hardly blame them for heading out to Zion...

Particularly since they were inveigled into doing it by out-and-out lies...

With the possible exception of Monson, all of the men who have served as President of the Church, from Brother Joe onwards trace their ancestry back to the British Isles. Such a source of pride for those of us who live in the British Isles.Obviously.

Just like most Australians.

I'm a convert and grew up hearing stories of my pioneer ancestors who settled in Ohio in the early 1800s when it was still covered in trees. It was a great forest that was basically massacred to make way for farms.

When I joined the Mormon church and heard the Mormons talk about the Mormon pioneers, you would think that they were the ONLY pioneers in America. My pioneer ancestors didn't count because they didn't make their way to Utah.

The Mormons followed trails (the Oregon trail and California trail) established by fur traders who had headed west long before the Mormons, but the way the Mormons talk about the trek west, they were the FIRST humans EVER to head west. It has always bothered me.

Reading of the hardships of the Mormon pioneers (burying
children along the trail) that are given as examples of their
great "faith" loses its impact after you read the same stories
regarding pioneers along the Oregon Trail.

Life was difficult back then as compared to now. Infant
mortality was common. Diseases that we think little of now,
were fatal back then. Much of the hardships that the Mormon
pioneers observed were common to all the people heading into new
territory back then.

Somehow we're supposed to forgive Brigham Young's racism (which
made its way into the Church's policies and doctrines for 126
years) as just "how things were back then." But we're not
supposed to look at "pioneer harships" that way.

There's two things I like about the Church: its face.

Oh, by the way, murdering 120 men, women, and children who just
happen to be coming through your area in a wagon train was NOT
"how things just were back then." That's something we can get
animated about.

God inspired the explorers and fur traders to establish routes across the country so that they would already be there for the Mormons. They were sent to prepare the way. I know this is true because my parents told me.

I didn't even know about my own pioneer ancestry until the last several years when I took an interest in my genealogy. What little my dad told us was the tip of the iceberg, compared to what's online via FamilySearch.org and the other genealogy sites online today. With many Mormons in my family, there is tons of genealogy accessible to work through when I'm ready.

Several years ago I went painstakingly through lines of family branches to form my own tree on an Israeli cousin's website. Evidently because that side was goyim and not Jewish, they became extricated from the Jewish family page. That I'm a hybrid didn't matter. Had all my lines been Jewish, they'd still be on there.

All that work for naught. Except it helped me learn better where my family origins stem from.

The pioneers were many of them descendants from earlier settlers who were colonialists to colonial America. Some of them were here as early as 1500's-1600's. That was another revelation for me. I had no idea my ancestors were here that early from England, but some of them were. :-)

All of the earliest Mormon converts their fathers (that's known,) fought and served in the Revolutionary War. One at least in the War of 1812. Those ancestors matter to me as much as my Mormon pioneer ones. We're inter-connected - I identify with them all.