The politics of religion:
New history re-examines the 'myth' about a Mormon leader

By BILL KNIGHT

John Hallwas and Roger Launius. Cultures in Conflict: A Documentary History of the Mormon War in Illinois. Lagan: Utah State University Press. 1995. Pp. 384. $37.95 (cloth).

A self-proclaimed prophet, who claims to hear messages from God and who has sexual relations with some of his followers, isolates his new and unusual religious community, preparing for the worst.

Armed militias with romantic names don ragtag uniforms and roam the countryside, citing patriotism but threatening the peace. Government seems unable to help citizens caught in the crossfire. Property losses mount. People die.

This scenario could be about the Branch Davidians, or paramilitary groups in Idaho, or raids by federal agents, or bombings. But it's not. It's from Illinois' own civil war 150 years ago, when more than 10,000 people lived in Mormon-controlled Nauvoo in the northwestern region of the state.

"This is the most widely misunderstood episode in the state's history," says John Hallwas, a Western Illinois University professor who co-wrote the new book Cultures in Conflict. "[And] this is timely. America desperately needs to comprehend what happened in early Hancock County."

In fact, remembering what happened in Illinois a century and a half ago could help bring perspective to today's political and philosophical debates over such issues as separation of church and state and the concentration of federal power vs. local control.

Cultures in Conflict doesn't condemn any religious beliefs, but does criticize the appropriation of religion to accomplish political ends. That problem is a contemporary one, but the authors sort out some of the related issues in a historical — and less charged — context. Still, whether it's the National Rifle Association describing some federal agents as "jack-booted thugs" or the Rev. Louis Farrakhan accusing Republicans of genocide against African Americans, the impulse toward mixing religious beliefs with political aims — thereby limiting discourse to a black-or-white, do-or-die choice — has always been dangerous.

By 1841, thousands of Mormons had settled in Illinois along the Mississippi River, and the General Assembly empowered them to govern themselves as a virtual independent theocracy. The legislature sympathized with the sect's expulsion from Missouri (and appreciated the potential political power of the Mormon vote). It granted the church considerable autonomy in a Nauvoo Charter.

However, lawmakers probably didn't foresee that Mormon leader Joseph Smith would merge the executive, judicial and legislative functions of local government into a single, church-run system, nor that he would set up the local militia as the Nauvoo Legion, essentially creating a standing army.

This occurred after a 12-year struggle for Smith, who said in 1828 that he had discovered near his New York home a set of golden plates engraved in Egyptian by the Israelite prophet Mormon. The plates recounted a history of Jews who settled North America and witnessed Christ after the crucifixion. Smith said he was visited by Christ, prophets and God Himself, and was told to launch a church. Smith subsequently dictated the Book of Mormon based on the plates, which he said vanished back to Heaven.

Smith and his growing group of converts weren't well received by neighbors. So the Mormons left New York for Ohio, then for Missouri before being forced to move on to Hancock County, Ill.

Within a short time after settling in Nauvoo, tensions escalated: Thousands of Illinoisans took up arms, bands of assailants — Mormon and non-Mormon — destroyed businesses and farms. Casualties mounted, martial law was declared in some communities, and Gov. Thomas Ford proved unable to prevent bloodshed or create a situation in which Mormons and non-Mormons could coexist. (Indeed, the state technically provided weapons to combatants on both sides of the conflict.)

The friction subsided only when most Mormons left Illinois for Utah. But since then, the story of the "Mormon Wars" has been ignored or obscured by myth, according to Hallwas, an English professor and author of 14 books.

"Myth is a tricky, complicated business," says Hallwas, who has taught a literature course on the subject. In an interview — as in the book — Hallwas drew a distinction between documentable historical data and stories used to teach religious values and promote political points of view. "Myths are deeply held beliefs and patterns of perceptions — and all nations have them, whether [it is] the mission of 'a chosen people' or the special responsibility to spread democracy across the globe.

"People who hold a myth see it as truth beyond fact, with no possibility of falsehood. It needs no proof; 'it's obvious.'" But when history is examined exclusively through the prism of deeply imbedded myth, the picture can be distorted — whether it's Japanese histories of World War II or baseball great Ty Cobb's sanitized autobiography.

Cultures in Conflict revises the history of the Mormon Wars through eyewitness accounts and letters, period press coverage, and church and other documents. The book brings balance to the story of the Morman leader and at the same time reminds readers to learn from history and to make connections between cultural conflict in frontier Illinois and modern-day religious and ethnic strife.

The Mormons' myth about the period portrays the Illinois residents as the children of God who were persecuted by evil-doers from a wicked place. That myth

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distorts objective reality and is rooted in an abolutism — which is not much different from some Islamic fundamentalists' view of the U.S. government as "the Great Satan" or some street gangs' demonization of their rivals.

"Ninety percent of the material about [the Mormon] period reflects a religious bias that affected the scholarship," Hallwas argues. In fact, as the central figure in the Mormon War, the picture of church leader Joseph Smith is more complete in Cultures in Conflict. Whereas most Mormons believe Smith to be the next best prophet to Jesus Christ, according to the authors many of his contemporaries — some Mormons — regarded him as a repressive and power-hungry leader, a self-deluded weak man.

Written with co-author Roger Launius, a Washington, D.C., historian who has written 12 other titles, the book uses many previously unpublished or obscure documents. The new evidence fills gaps in information and corrects some accounts.

The authors' evidence reveals that some of the harshest critics of Smith's authoritarianism and semi-secret polygamy were Mormons themselves, some of whom started the opposition Expositor. The newspaper was destroyed by Smith and other Mormons in 1844, an incident that led to his arrest. Other dissidents were chased from Nauvoo by Mormons. Such Mormon intimidation, deception, repression, theft and violence was present alongside intolerant or unruly non-Mormons in the county.

Non-Mormon Sheriff David Bettisworth was unable to apprehend Smith and bring him to trial for charges filed in connection with the Expositor melee (which also caused some $30,000 in losses to dissident Mormons' farms and other property) because Smith cited church authority for the acts and had a sympathetic Nauvoo judge release him after the arrest. Smith in turn judged the other defendants not guilty and freed them before declaring martial law and calling out the Legion to protect Nauvoo from attack.

The episode exemplifies a confusion of roles between Smith as spiritual leader and Smith as community boss.

Non-Mormons from communities throughout western Illinois, eastern Iowa and Missouri were enraged at Smith's resistance to legal authority and began to gather, armed and angry. Both sides called on Gov. Ford to respond to the explosive situation, and he came to Carthage to meet with both parties.

Smith, his brother Hyrum and a handful of followers surrendered and were arrested for rioting, then treason. Many from a crowd of 1,400 people remained at the jail or returned when Ford went to Nauvoo to head off any rescue attempt by the Legion. The mob attacked the jail and shot and killed the Smiths.

During the following year, the conflict included a nine-day occupation of Carthage by a Mormon posse. By 1845, the state legislature repealed the Nauvoo Charter. But new Mormon leader Brigham Young substituted "ecclesiastical for civil authority," and Mormons retained power in Nauvoo.

A smoldering guerrilla war continued for another year, until a group representing nine area counties bargained with the Mormons to leave. In 1846, after the exodus of most Mormons from the county, an anti-Mormon posse of about 600 armed men (some from such militias as the Carthage Greys and Augusta Dragoons) attacked the remaining Mormons — as well as a detachment of the Illinois State Militia sent to protect Nauvoo.

Courtesy of the Illinois State Historical Library Gen. Joseph Smith reviews the Nauvoo Legion.

Comparisons among Smith and some modern religious political figures are compelling. Father Charles Coughlin — the 1930s radio pastor — the Ayatollah Khomeini and David Koresh come to mind. These men favored closed societies, if not separatism; they were authoritarian and hierarchical; they urged the destruction of the wall separating church interests and political interests; and they were largely unwilling to compromise — they had received personal instructions from God.

Arguably, some things never change. Thankfully, others have. The 19th century militias, for instance, were authorized as volunteer armies in each geographic area to protect neighbors and friends. Or battle them.

"Unlike today, authority in frontier militias rested with local leaders," Hallwas says. "There's no longer that local control, where mayors call out the militia. And Ford — one of the state's greatest governors, a man with a background as a judge who wanted each side to respect the other, respect the law — realized that government just can't use the people to control the people."

But people can be manipulated by myth, Hallwas warns, whether the myth is religious or political zealotry.

"Unfortunately, when discourse ... is reduced to myth vs. history, myth usually dominates."

Indeed, from intolerant Illinois settlers and zealous Mormon pioneers, to Jewish Zionists and the Islamic jihad, myths persist. And they remain powerful, with consequences that stretch from yesterday's histories to tomorrow's headlines.

Bill Knight teaches journalism at Western Illinois University at Macomb.

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