Dubbs wrote:Dubbs wrote:
Jaye wrote:
The Churches Modus operandi (M.O.) seems to have worked more successfully in the Inter-Mountain West then it did in Missouri, where they actually got the United States government to massively murder American Native people (Bear River Massacre) and eventually protected the Mormons squatter rights in assuming control of the many fertile valleys and main water sources (Las Vegas and etc.)of the far West.
This is in contradiction to your past comments about ownership of land, and the native american belief that you don't believe you own the land. So how can you say that your land was taken, if you don't own it to begin with?
And the church got the US government to murder people? 
Come on James, your getting ridiculous now, the US government disliked the Mormons in those days, there is no way they would murder people for them.
Here is a quote from Brigham Young on the subject...
"A significant policy established by Brigham Young at the time recommended that the Mormon settlers establish friendly relationships with the surrounding American Indian tribes, particularly with a policy to "feed them rather than fight them" Shoshoni Frontier, p. 17
Your view of history is a bit of Jame
The Native American belief regarding ownership of land was this:
They believed that the earth was their mother, and that rather than believing that the land belonging to them...they believed that THEY belonged to the land.
This did not stop some rivalry between bands regarding hunting territories...but this rivalry was necessary for survival, and to prevent decimation of their prey through over hunting.
Most of the Natives were nomadic, and didn't settle in one area for 12 months out of the year, but would follow the buffalo herds to hunt, and jerk meat and harvest and cure hides...and would then travel back to their winter campgrounds...although there were tribes in certain areas who were not nomadic, because the area they lived in provided for their needs year round.
As far as what James said about the Mormons influencing the government to murder Native Americans at Bear Creek...he was partly correct.
Even though the government had no great love of Mormons, and even though Brigham Young had announced that he would rather feed the Indians than to fight them...the Mormon settlements and other white settlements put a great strain upon the resources of the land, and resulted in the unrest of the local tribes.
And with the murder of a son of a local Shoshone chief who happened to be fishing in the wrong place at the wrong time and was suspected of the theft of a Mormon settler's stray horse...hostilities commenced, and the federal government was ordered to settle the issue.
You would do well to do some research on the issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_River_Massacre
I have read that, and it in no way says the Mormons influenced the government to attack and kill the indians, if YOU read the link you gave, you would see there was many things that influenced the attack. The Mormons influenceing them to attack as not mentioned. Nice try jaye, but you need to take your own advice and do some research yourself.Take a deep breath and try to think for a moment.
Smithfield was a Mormon settlement. It was a Mormon settler who after missing a horse, accused the young son of a Shoshone chief of stealing his horse. This lad had been fishing at Summit Creek right about when the Mormon discovered his horse to be missing.
Robert Thornley, an English immigrant tried to defend the lad, by pointing out that he had quite a line of fish on a line, and could not have been stealing a horse, but to no avail. A jury of Mormons tried the youth and hanged him.
This angered the Shoshone Chief, and he retaliated by making a raid and killing a couple of the Merrill family's sons as they were out gathering wood.
There were a number of attacks on settlers and immigrants.
George A. Smith, in the official Journal History of the LDS Church, wrote:
"It is said that Col. Connor is determined to exterminate the Indians who have been killing the Emigrants on the route to the Gold Mines in Washington Territory. Small detachments have been leaving for the North for several days. If the present expedition copies the doings of the other that preceded it, it will result in catching some friendly Indians, murdering them, and letting the guilty scamps remain undisturbed in their mountain haunts."
Good...so Smith realized that all tribals were not guilty...some were friendly.
"On the other hand, the Deseret News in an editorial expressed:
"...with ordinary good luck, the volunteers will 'wipe them out.' We wish this community rid of all such parties, and if Col. Connor be successful in reaching that bastard class of humans who play with the lives of the peaceable and law abiding citizens in this way, we shall be pleased to acknowledge our obligations."
As I said Dubbs...even though there was no real love lost between Mormons and the Federal Government...the Mormons were involved in this fray...from the moment a jury of Mormons tried and hanged that Shoshone boy.
If you truly believe that the Mormons cared one whit about the welfare of the Natives...you are more deluded than I originally understood you to be.
The Mormons set the Natives up right and left...and the Mormons were also party to murdering immigrants.
Do you understand that the federal army wasn't just interested in quelling the tribal attacks? But also in discouraging any further attacks on emigrant trains at the hands of the Mormons?
