[], 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.
robbed the henroosts, and carried off everything which was valuable, they burned the houses, amounting in all to upwards of two hundred; and then commenced a general destruction of the timber on the land. Some tracts which were well timbered, were soon stripped of every tree. Such of the farms as they did not occupy, they took all the rails from and used them for their own purposes. There were several thousand acres of land thus seized, on which improvements were made to a considerable extent, and the owners utterly forbid to enjoy them, and they have been compelled to sell them for no valuable consideration, while those usurpers were quietly enjoying the good of them. While these brutalities were going on, the public papers were constantly employed in giving publicity to the foulest lies that could be created.
While this mob was engaged in this course of plunder, for it was altogether a plundering and robbing business; there were outrages of the most extraordinary character committed by them, ever committed by human beings. The plans they laid, in order to plunder, were of the most extraordinary kind. They would serve writs on those whom they wished to plunder and have them thrown into jail, and then rob them of every thing they had about them; watches, money, and other valuables, and bear them off as plunder. In this business were employed some of the leading, (some, did I say) better say all the leading men of the .
Men were caught and tied to trees, and then shot at: but the heart sickens to tell all the abominations of this band of barbarians; for who but barbarians could be guilty of such deeds of cruelty? We wish it to be distinctly understood, that the and all the authorities of the , were acquainted with these cruelties; and no effort was made to bring the offenders to justice, or to have the property, thus taken, returned to the owners. The guns that they ordered to be given up by the authority of the , they keep until this day. In this, the government of the , has identified itself in the number of the plunderers, and become one with those villians. [p. 12]