Parley P. Pratt, History of the Late Persecution, 1839
Source Note
, History of the Late Persecution Inflicted by the State of Missouri upon the Mormons, in Which Ten Thousand American Citizens were Robbed, Plundered, and Driven from the State, and Many Others Imprisoned, Martyred, &c. for Their Religion, and All This By Military Force, By Order of the Executive; i–vi, 7–84 pp.; Detroit, MI: Dawson & Bates, 1839. The copy used for this transcription is held at 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.” (JS et al., Liberty, MO, to the church members and Edward Partridge, Quincy, IL, 20 Mar. 1839, in Revelations Collection, CHL [D&C 123:1, 6].) 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 Illinois 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. In April and June 1840, 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). The sixth and eighth through tenth installments drew upon ’s pamphlet, An Appeal to the American People. The series concluded with an eleventh installment in October 1840, featuring Missouri militia general ’s callous speech to the Saints after their surrender at , Missouri, in November 1838.
wrote History of the Late Persecution, the document featured here, during his eight-month imprisonment in jails in 1838–1839. His wife, , daringly smuggled the manuscript out of the jail. After his escape on 4 July 1839 and reunion with the Saints in , Pratt left on a mission to England with the Twelve Apostles. When he reached he paused to visit relatives and arranged for the publication of his history there, obtaining a copyright for his book on 30 September 1839. Revised versions were subsequently reprinted in in 1840 as a pamphlet under the same title and as an expanded hardback with the title Late Persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints. (Crawley, Descriptive Bibliography, 89–90, 100–103.) Pratt later drew upon his history when he composed his autobiography in the 1850s.
’s History of the Late Persecution provides an autobiographical account of events in , , , and counties, Missouri, beginning in 1833. Some of the material describing events that transpired in Jackson County in 1833 was drawn from an earlier publication Pratt co-authored with and , “‘The Mormons’ So Called.” History of the Late Persecution also rehearses the conflict that engulfed Caldwell and Daviess counties, the expulsion of the Saints from Missouri, the mistreatment of Mormon prisoners by Missouri authorities, and the smuggling of Pratt’s manuscript copy of the History from jail, concluding with his narrow escape from imprisonment in Columbia, Missouri.
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and went with a company of militia, and took the arms and ammunition and brought them in triumph to the city of , where they helped to arm the patriotic citizens for defence. About the time of the taking of the cannon, a small party of our men, under the command of the brave Lieut. B. went out through among those who pretended great friendship for the laws, but were secretly aiding the robbers. This party pretended to be men from the Platt who had come down to assist the robbers against the citizens, or Mormons as they were called. Under this disguise their horses and themselves were fed free of cost, and welcomed every where to all they could eat and drink, and many furnished them rifles, and ammunition, together with coats, blankets, &c., wishing them success. Sometimes they would offer to pay for their entertainment, but their zealous hosts refused to take pay, and wished that their horses could eat a thousand bushels of grain, for they were more than welcome.
In this way our troops were supplied with considerable armament, and their secret enemies were discovered and detected in their wicked plottings. During this time the robbers were busily engaged in burning and plundering houses, and driving women and children from their homes, to perish with hunger and cold, while they were robbed of every thing they possessed, and their houses burned to ashes. Hundreds were thus compelled to flee to the cities and strongholds; women and children came in by night and by day; and some of them in the midst of a tremendous snow storm, in which they came near perishing; but those who fled were kindly received into the houses of their brethren, and thus their lives were spared, but only to witness a more dreadful scene at hand. It is said that some of our troops, exasperated to the highest degree, retalliated in some instances by plundering and burning houses, and bringing the [p. 32]