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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ly and charitably overlooked by the candid reader. And I must now give some account of the manner in which part of the manuscript escaped destruction, and made its way out of prison. From the beginning of our confinement, it had been the study of our enemies to prevent us from sending the truth abroad in the world; for they dreaded our pen more than the swords of a legion of Sampsons; they were well aware that this little scribbling goose quill would, if unchecked, work more mightily against their awful proceedings, than the sling stone in the hand of David, or the jaw bone in the hand of the mighty Nazarine against the Philistines.
They had never suffered us to receive or send out any writings without they were first read by our guards.— No one except our wives, could converse with us without the guard was present to hear all that was said, and every handkerchief or other article was carefully examined when handed in or out. The guard and sheriff had noticed for some time that I had been very busy in writing, and at length it came to our ears once and again, that my writings would be siezed and never suffered to go out of prison. At length the time was set for a search. had then been in the prison for some days, and the sheriff was coming with the guards to search our room and beds and trunk; and even they said that should not leave the jail again without being searched by some female.
The manuscript was then in a pillow case, and the pillow case was suspended from her under garments in the form of an apron. We looked out and saw the company coming with the sheriff to search. I feared that if these writings were found about her person, she might be injured by their rage, and therefore hurried her below, where we rip[p]ed open the straw bed and laid them in a flat position, and sewed it up again. I then turned to go up in haste, lest the guards were at the door.— Our little Mary Ann, of six years of age, had followed us down. It was a steep ladder, and a huge trap door, [p. 66]