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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bers dare not show themselves among a free people, on such an errand, and those who are not robbers do not wish to see us imprisoned again, but rather feel to weep over suffering humanity. I found our Society scattered wide through , and , and many of them destitute of home and the comforts of life, and hundreds of them dwelling in tents during the sickly season, and thus exposed, many were sick and dying, when I left them on the last of August, 1839.— Thus through the mercy of God, my life is still spared. I am delivered from a dreadful bondage, and again permitted to persue my calling. And I now bear witness to small and great, that the system of religion for which we are persecuted, is true; and that God has committted unto us a dispensation of the Gospel in its fulness; restoring the Ancient order of the doctrine and kingdom of God—and being specially commissioned by Revelation from the Almighty, we hereby warn all men to repent of their sins, and to be baptised in the name of the Lord, for the remission of their sins, and those who do these things shall receive the Holy Spirit; and signs shall follow them that believe, and if they endure in faithfulness to the end, they shall be saved.
And again, concerning the signs of the times, we are authorized to say to all people, that the time is at hand for the restoration of the Jews and all the remnants of Israel to their own land, for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and for the fulfilling of the covenants and promises which God made with their fathers; and when the remnant has re-turned and Jerusalem is rebuilt, behold the Messiah will come with all his Saints, and he will set his feet on mount Olivet, which is before Jerusalem on the East. He will defend the Jews and sanctify the nation of Israel. He will set up his kingdom in their midst, and reign over all the earth, and the brightness of his coming will destroy the wicked, and there will be but one fold and one shepherd. [p. 79]