Sidney Rigdon, JS, et al., Petition Draft (“To the Publick”), circa 1838–1839
Source Note
, JS, et al., Petition Draft (“To the Publick”), ca. Sept. 1838–ca. Oct. 1839; handwriting of , , , , and two unidentified scribes; 112 inscribed pages with eight inserted slips of paper; JS Collection, CHL.
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 state.” 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 beginning in 1838. The fifth and seventh installments reprinted passages from ’s History of the Late Persecution Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons (Detroit: Dawson and Bates, 1839). In May 1840, the sixth installment drew upon ’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 the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri (Cincinnati: Glezan and Shepard, 1840), a draft of which is presented here. Though no author is named on the title page of the pamphlet, Rigdon was acknowledged as responsible for that publication when it was advertised in the Times and Seasons in 1840 and 1841. Also, much of this draft is in Rigdon’s hand. 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.
The manuscript version of ’s Appeal to the American People presented here is referred to as the “petition draft” titled “To the Publick”. On 1 November 1839, Rigdon’s recently completed petition draft, endorsed by JS, Rigdon, and , was read to a conference of Saints in , Illinois, who then 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.
Although many of the events reported in ’s draft and pamphlet can be corroborated from other sources, his chronology is often inaccurate. (Consult the annotation in Histories,Volume 2 for corrections 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 his 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.
and disgrace of the editors, who have devoted their papers to so foul a business. The scheme of lying so readily supported by the religeious papers of the country, generally, was invented for the purpose of plundering, robbing, stealing, and driving a people from their homes, and taking their property, as <a> prey, to the free booters who were ready to seize upon, <it> when the religeious <publick> papers of the country, had sufficeintly aided them, to a enable them to obtain their object, without being punished fer it. In this scheme of lying, no pen figured more than that of the Revd , the before mentioned baptist missionary, who has proved himself to be the abettor of thi[e]ves, robbers, and plunderers. Also the Revd E. G. Lovejoy was an assistant in this foul <vile> business; but he has received his reward, a mob has since sent him to his grave. A just punishment for his having aided a mob, to murder and plunder others; but still, the mob is now the less guilty for this that.
After the mob had gotten all things sufficiently prepared, and the publick mind, as they supposed, completely blinded, having been so well assisted by the publick prints of the day, they commenced their opperations in earnest, in every part of the . Tering down houses, housesdrging men out of there houses and whipping men were dra[g]ged out, and whipped in the most shocking manner, without regard to age: of this number were four revolutionary soldiers, over the age of seventy years, who had offered there lives for the liberty that their oppressors were enjoying; but they now, with sorrow, beheld the liberty for which they faught, torn from from them, by the violence of those who were enjoying freedom, at the expence of their blood and treasure. Widows also from sixty to eighty years of age, whose husband were among the number of the revolutionary patriots, were driven violently from there houses, in that inclement season, by this ruthless banditta of wretches, worse than savages, and their properity made common plunder, to gratafy their rapacity: and those females at that advanced age and in an inclement season [p. [2[b]]]