Transcripts For CSPAN3 Latter-day 20240703

Fastpaced report of the stories of the day. Listen to cspan any time. Tell your smart speaker, play c span radio. Cspan, powered by cable. It is my pleasure to welcome dr. Woods of back to the library and to give a presentation on mormon transmigration in missouri between 1838 and 1868. These decades were an overlooked period of lds in missouri, history, when latter day saints traversed hundreds of miles across the state, despite a government extermination threat, issued by the governor. Woods has been a professor of Church History and doctrine at Brigham Young University Since 1998. He specializes in latter day saints immigration studies, and is the editor of the saints by the sea, since by the sea website, which documents lds maritime immigration in america , in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He is editor and compiler of the mormon immigration index, which was released in 2000, and is widely used by researchers. Woods has authored and co authored more than a dozen books and scores of articles on lds history. And has collaborated on several documentary films. The most recent being the saints of tonga, a century of violent faith, which is a companion work to his 2019 book. He has lectured extensively at conferences, universities, churches, and libraries. And we are thrilled to have him back at here in kansas city at the central library. Please join me in welcoming dr. Fred woods. [ applause ] well, good afternoon, and thank you jeremy for your kind introduction. I also appreciate on this sunday afternoon, we have joel jones, assistant directory of the library and i appreciate him being here. I appreciate all the help i have had with the technology. I hope that things are working well, it sounds like things are up. Okay, even though theres only a few here, i am told at least 10,000 a listening right now. So, i hope you have a good time today. I want to have a good time. I think history should be enjoyable. Even when you deal with some things, the good, the bad and the ugly, right . So i, for me, i like to generate light instead of heat. I will tell you right up front, i am not six generation mormon heritage. I am a guy that streetwise from l. A. , that tied into the latter day saints as an adult. And so i think it might be helpful for the audience, there was ive looked at this topic and others from the outside looking in and not the inside looking out, if that makes sense. So im going to kind of take you on a tourism of some things. I am going to talk about this topic for about 45, 50 minutes and then open it up for questions. I want you to have that opportunity. It if you can wait until im finished, i will say, q a time. That would be nice. So lets just kind of, get into this. I want to thank byu for their support of all my projects. And by the way, i love the Missouri Valley room right over here. If you have never been in it, you got to pop in on your way out. Most recently i was looking to have 532 sources, only to be used in the Missouri Valley room, if you search toward mormon. If youre looking under latter day saints, this 459 sources, only to be used. So they have a very rich collection of latter day saints sources. So with that, i want to go back to 1833. What you need to understand, and this is like were talking history, right . Like, you know you have this them and us. And hopefully, by the time we finished, it is like we. We go from conflict understanding and things work out. But i wanted to say before, even laying this thing out, that i was thinking this morning of the 19th 1828 Protestant Missionary journal i read, a guy coming from new england. He is being sponsored. He gets to Jackson County, right on the border, right . You have the organized territory. Once you cross the river, he saying, that this area at that time, certainly not now, was the most godless place he had ever seen. I mean, this is on the santa fe trail. This makes you know, gunsmoke look like kitty cartoons. Okay . It was a wild place. And his account, there was a multiplication of women, practicing the worlds oldest profession. A lot of whiskey. It was crazy. It was wild. There was cockfighting and people trying to take each other out from time to time. And when the federal marshals would come into the area he said, there was scurrying across the border. Kind of like if you are a drug runner in san diego and you are going to tijuana, Something Like that. At this is how it was in the 1830s. It was rough and tumble. Now we have great, upstanding citizens and things have changed. But mixing latter day saints culture with what was in at the time was oil and water. It wasnt jelling at all. So i want to point that out as we get into this. And there was, they call it an manifesto in history where the missourians at the time were making their point of why they wanted latter day saints to leave. Okay . They were tampering with slaves or they were northerners and had people, southerners coming in on the missouri side. Accused of being friendly to native americans. In indian territory, right . We had missionary sent over there and they were worried, you are going to get slaves to revolt or get the native americans, and you are going to come after us. It was economic and lyrical competition as well. So these were the issues. When the latter day saints were voting for one person, block voting, there was a problem when you have like 3500 people in the community and all of a sudden youve got a herd of these mormons coming in, to the tune of 1200, so we got to understand. I can really see, the other side of the issue. And so we have these land policies, you know, how would you feel if someone said to you, you can either sell is your land or we are going to take it from you, right . This kind of attitude, it was. So we could have done better as latter day saints. We could have generated light instead of heat on a number of days, weeks, and even years. So theres two sides of the story and im hoping by the time i get through this show, you can see this. So some of the factors i can see, this is what the mom manifesto, this is what they laid out. A live 1833, you need to leave because of this. This is not working, okay . So this idea of latter day saints, boasted taking missouri lands, or going to take, were gathering in haste. They were told, dont gather in haste but be consistent with the feelings of the people. Dont try to overpower them. And some of the things they were doing wrong, there were contentions, strife, they would say lustful and coveted desires and their latter day saints scriptures. So this is kind of laying out the big picture. And anyway, as a result, by 1833, Later Day Saints are cast out of Jackson County. But that isnt, that is kids stuff compared to what happens five years later. Five years later, we have the governor of missouri, low burn w boggs, who issues and extermination order. And quite frankly, and in fairness to him, i think you didnt want to go around and try to kill the mormons, but rather he was saying, look, if you dont remove peaceably, we are going to have to do something else. But i dont think he was trying to take out as many latter day saints as he could. This is what is happening. Theres a lot of misunderstanding and i think we are Getting Better at this. I hope we are. I love the idea of seeking to understand, before fully seeking the understood. Trying to understand the other perspective. Trying to look for the Common Ground instead of the battleground. [ captioners transitioning ] sot latterday saints by the sot thousands about 10,000 theyre going to leave western, missouri right go east and theyre going to go into the area for the most part in quincy, illinois. And eventually theyre going to migrate a little bit north to an area called commerce. Thats later called nauvoo, which is a hebrew word, which means beautiful. So some of the saints are saying to their leader joseph smith. I mean joseph this place is like a mud pit, you know, theres mosquitoes or swamps and he says look at well just drain it and he says we will drain it. That was the idea. What happens here is when they are driven out it is during this frigid season. It seems to be winter when the saints were moving. We created that frigid season with bitter feelings. Carries on into salt lake. I think they are more comfortable talking about what happened in missouri once they were on safe turf, quite frankly. A number had a very difficult time. Theres 678 petition we know file that the federal government. At the time, i can do nothing for you because of the issue of states rights and didnt want you to lose the vote. We had these kinds of issues going on but what i want to talk about today im dribbling the ball and now we are going to milan. I want to talk about what happened after the extermination or between the time of 38 and 68. The Transcontinental Railroad comes in at 69. People that study pioneer history seem to have this issue. Its a cultural myopia where theyre always thinking about the trail. They dont think about the sale and rail. Theyre just focused on this. Hopefully today you can see kind of a different aspect of migration, west immigration and see whats cooking here in what we refer to now as the show me state. I want to say my family has lived in missouri. I used to be a visiting professor out in st. Louis and the western and eastern side in this time period was really on quite different. We say the extermination order and all of misery when in actuality there are newspapers saying what the heck is he doing . It was an oasis in st. Louis at the time. Rather than it being a hotbed as it was in western missouri. The most important part is that last five minutes. When its five minutes before q a i want to drive it home that even though things are looking rather bleak, right, in the early period that things have really changed in the last 50 years which is awesome. Here we go. What did latterday saints experience when they passed through misery . You might be wondering. It was a twosided thing. These are people that have strong feelings towards each other. Those are tough things to deal with. Weve got to listen to the other person. I want to go back to the idea that they are driven from western missouri clear across the state about 200 miles so they are going into that area if you picture quincy north of st. Louis and then they go into this little area they call naboo. In this area this is actually a daguerreotype from 1845. Whats nice about the novel. Is its the first time we have latterday saints history in photographs because this frenchman that invents this foot now we have actual photographs of what is cooking in these latterday saints communities. This is an important time period. That building is important. Thats the latterday saints templeay. I will and on temples at the end of this thing. This is the outhouse picture. This is the river here looking up and so this will become a magnet for latterday saints coming from the British Isles. About one out of every four latterday saints in the nauvoo. Were from england. They sent missionaries over and they came from liverpool, of the mississippi through st. Louis and on their way to nauvoo. We have this interesting history. Latterday saints felt obligated to record their experience. Just like for a would be coming to jerusalem. Along with this Missouri Family room here. In Salt Lake City they have whats called the Church History library and even if youre catholic, jewish protestant, agnostic, atheist, whatever there is hundreds and thousands of firstperson immigrant accounts describing what it was like to go to america in the mid19th century. This is really interesting stuff with a lot of people that were fresh converts. What was it like to experience this or that . I love it and share with my historian friends the different cultures. Youve got to at least take a look at this. Here we go. These latterday saints converts coming from the British Isles are coming from liverpool in the new orleans and making their way up here. You can see nauvoo. I dont know if you remember dead Poets Society with Robin Williams where he says sees the day . The stories they had to tell leaving your homeland, joining a ddifferent faith. I have four different faiths in my family alone. Church of christ, evangelical baptist and latterday saint. This was really Emotional Trauma when somebody joined the church of jesus christ latterday saints made that leak and the adjustments of leaving home and family. These were real things. There were some feelings about missouri. This is one of the famous latterday saint leaders. Hes talking about how he landed with my family. The company continued on. My reason for landing there is i would not venture into missouri after the abuses in former times. As i go through all these things keep in mind im fully aware theres two sides to every story. Im going to give it now from the latterday saint perspective of what they are thinking about these things. Thomas wrigley. We felt afraid of the extermination orders which were. Still in force. This is five years after the extermination order. Stan kimball was a great historian from edwardsville notes at the time of the extermination there are several st. Louis newspapers in support of the states. They even held meetings for the purpose of raising funds to assess the latterday saints in their condition. A different story there. Its right at the time they are coming across where its been 800 banks have collapsed. It was the financial panic kind of a deal. They wanted someone to boost the political side of things. Really humanitarian appeal. This was big business in the mid19th century. Coming to st. Louis, the steamboat business, youre traveling about six days across the state in the steamboat and 207 miles on the railroad. A little faster. We have these different accounts. I dont know if youre aware but somewhere between 3000 to 4000 latterday saint were in st. Louis during this period of the early 50s and there was an immigration agent here. Its interesting the latterday saints even had their own newspaper. The st. Louis luminary. Because of polygamy these latterday saint newspapers were launched in the 50s so in 1852 from Salt Lake City it came out, yes, we do practice polygamy just like abraham. The message boom came out there and all of a sudden you see the western standard newspaper of the latterday saints in san francisco. Youve got the mormon in new york, the st. Louis luminary and as far as Sydney Australia youve got zions watchmen. They have these things in place to defend their doctrine. Also to teach the immigration. They had these newspapers. St. Louis is a fine large and flourishing city and has furnished employment. For latterday saints to do family search and i have the same spicy website that jeremy talked about. A lot of different things. People think that mom, dad and the kids all came together and left from liverpool and went to salt lake. They didnt realize that sometimes they were stuck in boston, philadelphia, new york, st. Louis, new orleans for months and sometimes years trying to raise enough money to be able to continue the journey. Does that make sense . This idea of having jobs in the missionaries had to send a passenger list ahead of time thats like we need eight miners over here. Whatever vocation. They are setting things up to try to help them but the idea at this time was it was a temporary location to make it to salt lake. Once the city of the saints is firmly established it becomes out of migration and latterday saints in the mid20th century start coming out to the st. Louis area, kansas city area and those kinds of things largely because of employment. H many of you are probably all our familiar with the missouri republican. Its interesting what they havek to say about latterday saints. Our city is the greatest recruiting point for mormon ta immigrants in the Eastern States whose funds generally become exhausted. They stopped for several months and frequently remain here for a year or two. During this time in st. Louis about 3000 english mormons, nearly all are masters of some o trip this was actually a good gig for everybody. This was synergistic and winwin. Im trying to contrast what was going on. This is 15 years since the extermination order. Just kind of keep those things in mind. What about the northwest . I know one of our people today mentioned they were from the northwest. This is interesting because as you look at the mormon trail re here they are also driven from nauvoo , illinois. They crossed iowa. It took them longer to this distance than this distance because of the mud. You can see it is weeding its way to various areas. Here where you see this northwestern corner there were people traveling down trying to get jobs. Working to be able to have funds to continue on in the journey. This was one of my colleagues saying they were far enough away. As not to provoke trouble get close enough to prevent trade and armslength. The elements of trade between missouri and the mormons must be seen on at least two levels. First, aggregate and corporate purchases for the church and second individual trade. Many hired themselves out as laborers for nearby farmers. Some and more desperate straits traveled incognito among northern missouri farm sites and villages to find interim employment. T my colleague maintains that from 46 to 50 missouri became the lifeline to the mormon exodus. Had it not been for this misery trade and employment folks would not have gathered sufficient needs to migrate. I think this whole idea of being economic salvation that im giving you snapshots. Its kind of a feel of what is happening here. At the time. This is the year that Brigham Young comes into the Salt Lake Valley. Jose kept a meticulous journal. He said the most opposition we have in missouri about a decade after the extermination and consequence of the stories of the dissenters otherwise the missourians are very friendly. Some left the church but couldnt leave it alone. This is reality taking snapshots. This gets a little more colorful and theres some language. I toned it down. When they get into salt lake, people are more relaxed. I think they shared how they felt. There was some difficult things that happened to men, women and children in missouri before they left. What i did is i went out to the library. They have a great collection for immigrants in the western migration. You have the library at yale. Uc berkeley. You have the private collection in the huntington library. You find these accounts particularly during the California Gold rush. 49 and 50 our peak years where people are traveling through w and some people from missouri do not want to go to Salt Lake City because they know the history. They dont want to risk it. Where you see here is we have this. I was told that these were people coming and skulking through inthe place on the way d california who had taken part in driving out. If he could catch them he would send them to. There were some missourians who became alarmed and started on as soon as possible. In reality the people that went to Salt Lake City in the mid 19th century stayed for 6 1 2 days d if you take every journa do Statistical Analysis its 6 1 2 days. Most of them wanted to get their supplies and go on to california but there were a few converts looking for something they felt was more valuable than gold. As i said after arriving to Salt Lake Valley there exists a certain security. Some saints took advantage when vocalizing their deepseated feelings concerning their poor treatment in western missouri in the 1830s. For example, and 49, James Humphreys of hannibal missouri said having some fear of going through salt lake on account of the old feelings the mormons had against the missourians. We concluded to take the servlets cut off. Bancroft library. Or another westbound immigrant road, july 19th 1849. I was riding along the street and i spoke to an aged man. If you did not drive us from out missouri which was all greek to me as i knew nothing of mormons or their history. This is something when you see these accounts you get the idea that something that happened back in the 30s is still festering. A decade or more later. This is whats cooking. Isaac Julian Harvey said i went north of Salt Lake City as the mormons were down on missourians. If their stock got into the gardens or any fields they were fined heavily. It was charged that the mormons would turn the cattle in on purpose to make trouble. I knew many emigrants that were ruined and had to work their way to oregon or california. That might be true because i know that not all saints where halos. These were some of the things going on. I debated whether or not to pull this one. I thought im going to leave it in there. The mormons this day celebrate the arrival of the first settlement of this valley three years ago by them. By 1850 we are in a hearing of their cannons by way of jolly vacation. The mormons curse the darn ragged emigrant slb from missouri and illinois. These are two places cast out. Traveling through their country. I share these accounts to share with you the feelings are still bitter. Let me introduce you to these outfitting posts. Theyre coming from across the atlantic. Theyre coming from the east coast and from the south. They have these different outfitting posts which here we have Winter Quarters as i told you. Just right across the way you can see the years. Here they have the frontier. They have another newspaper you can mine for firstperson accounts. There was a terrible steamboat explosion in lexington on the border of Jackson County about 45 minutes from here. Its like one dozen miles south of nauvoo. They tried that but they just didnt like the extra distance so they went back to westport here in this area. They are rotating mormon grove now we have the Castle Garden immigration depot and new york city is going to take trains out to iowa city. This is where the Handcart Companies come in. 1856 to 1860. We have companies totaling about 3000 latterday saints. They usually get the most news even though about 3 of the migration because people were fascinated. You keep nebraskas 45 mile south. This is an interesting one. They actually moved from florence, wyoming nebraska because the word they used was apostate. Members of the church of latter day saints that had left the church. Meaning mutiny from within. Theyve left the fold. One journal i read said there were more apostates in florence, nebraska and they were thicker than the lives of egypt in the days of pharaoh. They moved it 45 miles south so the congress coming from england werent going to be let me tell you what its really like. It was a strategy. We move into the railroad tents later but i want to Say Something about the mississippi missouri river. Im a fan of the steamboat museum. En how many have been there . If you havent and you love history this is an absolute must. This steamboat arabia went down in 1856 and they had to hundred tons of treasure there. Things like pickles, shoes, rakes, things going out to market. Its something to behold. I want to quote father schmidt who said the navigation is one r of the most Dangerous Things a man can undertake. I fear the sea but all the storms and other unpleasant things i experienced did not inspire me with so much terror as the navigation of this treacherous money missouri. It was a different ball game here. What are some risks . Brigham young sent a letter out that changed immigration in 1855 ssto not come up the mississipp and to go to boston, philadelphia, new york and you have the preellis island in new york because they were losing too many people. A lot of yellow fever and cholera. Along these things you folks understand these things but boiler explosions. I want to Say Something quickly. Heres lexington. They are coming here. They are coming in to pick up the journey here in the early 50s and they are on their way heading towards kansas city. Long story short this captain was trying to come around the river and he just put too much steam on it. The distance of a football. Exfootball fields. It was incredible. This happened 1852. About two dozen latterday saints were killed among others. The lexington citizens were heroic. They raised money to bury the dead instead of finishing them off. Remember the extermination order is still in effect. They took and orphaned children. Along with raising the money to bury the dead money to send them on to the Salt Lake Valley. There was truly compassion that was shown. I see this as a turning point in some ways that later would be built upon in order to build between latterday der to build saints and missouri neighbors in years to come. Heres the picture who was one of the citizens who helped to raise money. Abraham smoot. He said i will never forget the kindness of the citizens of lexington and caring for the living and bearing the dead. Prominent citizens did all they could to help comfort and the survivors. We go from extermination to compassion. This was a great thing. I look a little younger here 20 years ago. Here i am with my sweetheart here today. My good friend. Mayor tom hayes. When this thing was over he said i want you to come down and meet my friends. He took me down to the baptist church. Did any of you know mayor hayes . And he got a key to the city. I did too. It was a wonderful thing of bridge billing, building wounds and its still there. I ended up doing a book with william hartley. A i was supposed to teach a graduate course on mormon migration. I need to find a story that was generating. I thought oh my word ive got to do a book. This is great stuff because it was moving forward rather than talking about those people from the past that to these run things. It was showing healing, compassion. This is the history i enjoy telling. When we think of the other i did this film. He was involved with this. Jack did the steamboat introductory film. A great guy. All these civil war actors dont want to take a penny. They said we love the story and use us anyway you want. None of these folks were latter day saints. In our audience, i didnt know she would be here, annie she would be here, annie she started bringing youth groups of young women out. They started doing all these projects. They did far more than i started. Look at this lexington library. Serving at the hospital with donations. High schools. The cemetery. The civil war battlefield. I dont have time to read all this but its good stuff that was going on trying to turn the tide and trying to promote goodwill. Before i do the epilogue of got to Say Something about the trains. Here you have the hannibal in saint joe. 207 miles. This was an interesting story my friends. Brigham young was really it was colonization and immigration and he had different ages. George cannon says lets do a new route. Lets go from saint joe 20 years after the extermination order. You have these newspapers. There are scores and scores and scores. They were quite different. The papers that are going on the illinois side of the river and those coming into hannibal. You get these kind of derogatory things going on but they didnt mind taking their cash. Its just how it is. This. During the civil war. My favorite time. As the civil war. This is high adventure. You can kind of see the primary route of where they are heading here and you get these wonderful firstperson accounts. 61 to 65 just reminding us. Sometimes they would actually go into canada briefly and come back out. It gives you this description of whats going on at the time. The confederacy wanted general mcclellan named after a union officer. Sometimes they would cross the atlantic and you would have a southern boy with a stogie and he would say Something Like this. You better say your prayers mormons because youre going down. Youre going down. We have firstperson accounts of reddish latterday saint converts crossing the atlantic and these kinds of comments that they didnt want to have more repercussions in the civil war. If i had 1. 5 million and jeremy could raise funding i could do this film. Anyway. Maybe thats ageold question. Im kidding. You get this war zone. I have many firstperson accounts because of people that made the journey that kept a journal. Keep a journal. Houses burn, fences destroyed, bridges guarded by union troops. This is interesting stuff. We had to change into a train of cars in the car i got was so much safer to go in those cars because if you want the nicer cars with the Union Soldiers thats where the guerrilla warfare is going and they are shooting cannonballs over their head. They are riding where the animals went which was actually safer even though it was stinky. Going to see this over and over again of whats cooking. They said they were afraid of the good cars being burned by the confederates. They are taking this route. Over in the California Museum its rare to find a photo like this. Here we have this idea of here we have this idea of a very disagreeable ride where the inhabitants in nearly every station did all they could to consult the immigrants. This was at the time of civil war so this isnt saying everybody is from missouri. You can kind of read between the lines of whats happening here. They said they were afraid of their good cars been burned by confederates. You get rough travel not only on the river but on the rail. Every few miles the debris were it not that god is with his people the thought of the saints traveling over such a road would be almost unbearable. Another thing you should understand is that in the journals during this time. Latterday saints felt they were modernday israel. Brigham young was an american moses. Thats in the journals. Thats in their thoughts. This idea that god will watch over us if we simply gather. Salt lake was considered zion just like for the. We pass the soldiers camp and it was here we had a place to diss rail the cars. Youll see this a lot over and over again. We have the bushwhackers who are trained and went to the passenger card exactly eight inches and the other through the baggage cart. When we passed through missouri the people are bitter again the mormons and set a bridge on fire. We dont know for sure that was missourians are whatever but this is the feeling going on. After experiencing all this we stayed in saint joe three or four days afraid to go on because of the soldiers being all through the country. I can say i saw little war between the north and south. You also have accounts in saint joe missouri. This was the battle period. The soldiers would get one dollarr for each other they would get a pen or ribbon on. If it was pinned on the man it was counted as in the army. No one would believe him. He also reported one girl was taken by the soldiers. During this period latter day saints feared soldiers more than native americans. The mid19th century. I wanted to do a quick epilogue for a few minutes. There appears to be no evidence of missouri enforcing extermination. T thats important. The other is latterday saint immigrants obstacles and the threat of disease, resulting in military conflict and abundance of bad press however in the border cities of joe missouri the latterday saints were able to make useful trades. The saints no longer needed to cross missouri to get to the Salt Lake Valley. Us an abundance of effort to build good relations with various communities as they left utah to establish families and other states including missouri. Hearts were turned towards moving from conflict understanding. I know that is my fiveminute point. We are doing okay. Let me say this. I appreciate barrys people in this community that have been involved. Whats going on now and what has happened with this extermination order . Ive been interested in this one when governor christopher s bond as part of the bicentennial rescinded the extermination order. It was not rescinded until 1976. After they are jeremy out and 38 people arent hunting for latterday saints in the state of missouri. It was resented and good for governor bond. Another thing i learned was the reorganized church of jesus christ were actually in 1975 saying it would be a really h nice thing if you could help with resenting the extermination order and the latterday saints played a key role in this. The whole fleshed out story. Ive been in contact with people who have been in Public Affairs like judy rex. She was doing these wonderful things from 94 to 2012 i said give me some activities. She talked about being in partnership doing different things. Musical groups joining coalitions for positive family relationships and media workshops. Better together Community Church concerts aand things. I got a little of that also had been in this area for 50 years and served other assignments and just trying to promote goodness. A few examples from the communitiesay. Someone said latterday saints are buying too much this or that. There might be someone who stepped to the plate that says lets have one of your Senior Church leaders come out and explain what you are doing this for. Really causing tensions to be eased or invitation to serve on community outreach. Or invitation extended to the member of the kansas city prayers. These small and simple things perceived that which is great. Being involved with the boy scouts of america has been hugeg thing as far as trying to pass out. 70s and 80s you that the rescinding order. We also have the 80s latterday saint president s. Working in connection with other groups. Being involved. To move from to being a part of. Trying to leave things together. Late in the 80s again, move from apart from to being a part of. You have this Public Affairs joining with Community Service cultivating relationships, initiating various awards as judy talked about. The mormons have the tabernacle choir. They came several times. You know how music is the universal language. So, in the last 20 years you get them together and the kc star. I have a daughter that lives in this area and im like what happened . It was dedicated a decade ago and its really interesting you never see this where theres only one protester. Think about the background. One protester. Thats unusual. Large turnout. Dozens of leaders coming. The apology on the extermination order in the motif of the temple is interesting. The olive leaf. Dedicated in 2012 by then president of the church of jesus christ of latterday saints. I love when he gave the prayer that he made the point the church signs fourth in the sunlight of goodwill because of the people in this community that allow this to take place. The gratitude is a crime more despicable than revenge so i had to put up a few sources. Thank you for listening to me and we will turn it over to q a. Thank you. Okay. Im two minutes over. Sorry. Any audience member has a question we ask you go to one of the microphones. If someone from watching online has a question that will be relayed to me. I will start off. You laid out in the early 1830s of the mop manifesto and grievances of locals against the mormon settlers. Five years later theres an extermination order. Was this an escalating resentment over a few years and hatred . Was there a specific event that really triggered this order . Good question. I think its really a combination of both. After a while the latterday saints are driven out of Jackson County. You probably noticed name from history. He was a real asset for latter day saints. He was an attorney. He was staking out lands for caldwell counties. One was for latterday saints. I think all the way along there was a feeling like this isnt going to work because it was a cultural conflict where youre trying to mix oil and water. These things of latterday saints had what you would call a new testament of all things common where they would want to pool their Economic Resources and that didnt help the economy for everyone else. It had the issues of politics. Things are escalating. Theres whats called the battle of Crooked River that takes place in october of 1938 thats a problem. You had if you killed on each side and you had the mask mentioned. It was when the latterday saints decided to kind of step it up as far as the defense this was when things really escalated. The governor wanted to remove the problem. I dont think he was going out trying to see how many mormons he could kill. It wasnt working. Sometimes theres marriages we want to work and sometimes we know it isnt going to work. We have some coming in. Someone mentioned they are from iowa. Their family had escaped slavery to settle there. Another question. You mentioned sympathizers. The st. Louis newspapers that sympathized with the mormons. Were there any sympathetic parties or vocal sympathetic parties on the western side or were things so bad there really were no vocal sympathizers on this part of the state in Jackson County or nearby counties . Im thinking of the journal of albert rock would who wrote in 1838 speaking of western missouri. It seemed like the devil was in every man and azeri. A decade later jose is saying it was the dissenters causing problems and these folks were friendly so i think there were sympathizers on the left side. It took a few years to come down the tension of what was happening at the time. Im giving you a general sketch of things. Theres always somebody. Alexander donath and. This is an important point. Joseph smith spent some time in liberty jail not far from here. He was sentenced to be shot at the end of october of 1838. Alexander donath and stood up to his officer and said if you carry this out i will hold you responsible before an earthly tribunal so help me god. Heres an example of someone that had incredible integrity. The latterday saints did a number of things they shouldnt have done that kind of poked at the local citizens. I hope that comes across its not just onesided. If you had been Church Leader during that time of conflict what would you have done differently . Its really interesting. As i reflected on this ive thought of the latterday saints. They believe in the bible and they also believe in different books of scripture. They believe that god was speaking in this time period and its interesting to me that in what would be referred to as a revelation that the lord would say this. Think about what we have been talking about in the 30s. Let all my people who dwell on the regions be very faithful and humble before me and reveal not the things which i reveal to them until it is they should be revealed. Ts talk not of just humans. Carefully gathered together as much in one region as can be consistently but the feelings of the people. Behold. The idea of latterday saints i think if they did this but i may favor in their eyes that you may rest in peace and safety. If that counts it would have been followed to thinking more about the other to be a gathering not in haste and doing some of these things. Thats what we see in the last 50 years is that we are community and we work together. Its not them and us. Its looking for the Common Ground instead of a battleground. Nonessentials liberty but all things charity. I think that attitude you see later with maturity and so i always think of this. Another online viewer wanted clarification. Were there any saints killed during the extermination order rusty mark where their documented killings that took place after that order was issued . The order was 1838. You have the huntsville massacre but that is going on outside of this and it circulated everywhere. I think really the expert on this is the professor of byu. There were two deaths. There were other atrocities that went on in cases of property and all that but we are not talking about 2000 or 200 to score but really as far as death. I think that shows the idea was lets remove the problem but not look for an opportunity to shoot a dozen bullets. It was a culture conflict. S there was some violence at the time as they were leaving. There was less instances of that. There getting out of the state. There getting beyond the borders of this modernday mesopotamia between the mississippi and missouri river. I have one final question. Whats your Current Research project . Do you have a book coming out or is it something you would like to share with us . They are already at press but i have a book on latterday saints. I have another book on the latterday saints in the british mind that is coming out. I just finished one being publish by the University Nevada press thats called bright light in the deserts of latterday saints showing very small population latterday saints have helped to keep pandora in the box for the influence on the strip to a lot of different ways. Than im doing a massive two year project. I did saints by sea for a quarter century. I know for example in missouri theres 931 published sources of latterday saints in missouri. Im going statebystate doing published and unpublished. Im doing the interviews and doing short vignettes and documentary filming. Im doing Statistical Analysis. Maps, chronologies. Im excited eating and sleeping. I want to thank you again. Its great to have you here in person. We all use zoom and the online programs. Theres Something Different about having you in person again. I want to think our audience both here online. Ba i hope to have you back. Thank you so much. 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