The Mormon church is the most successful (in endurance,
number
of members, and wealth) of the many religious separatist and utopian communities
from the 19th century. Hill Cumorah, in
Upstate New York, is one of the holiest sites in all
of Mormondom to which most Latter-day Saints make a "pilgrimage" (some times
several times). This is where Joseph Smith was shown by the
angel Moroni -- who 14 centuries early had written
down the history of the New World wars between the Nephites (who lost) and the
Lamanites (the Indians of North America today) who slaughtered 230,000 Nephites
-- to dig up the gold plates, which he translated from Reform Egyptian to become
The Book of Mormon. On the summit of this several
hundred-foot drumlin is a U.S. flag and a large statute of the
angel Moroni. Since 1937, each summer for seven
nights in July, more than 100,000 Saints and a few curious assemble on the slope
below this statute for "The Cumorah Pageant: America's
Witness for Christ." For two hours, the audience is shown a dramatic
reenactment of The Book of Mormon.
Where are
Mormon religious sites in
New York and Ohio?With the murder of its founder, Joseph Smith, in 1844, Brigham Young led about 40 percent of Mormons (known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) to Salt Lake, UT. Smith's wife and children and their followers stayed in Nauvoo, IL, where they formed the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Members of either the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) or the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) (note the different spellings!) -- the RLDS does not use the Mormon label -- are commonly nicknamed "Mormons" by non-Mormons or Gentiles. This latter group is little known by outsiders. It is now called the Community of Christ with 250,000 followers and is headquartered in Independence, Missouri. Read more about the Mormons, their past and present views; and Mormon welfare practices. Mormons believe in having a year's supply of food and water in their homes. Self-reliance stores offer supplies for this purpose.
Polygamy. Another group of Mormons, who call themselves officially The True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days, follow the original teachings of Joseph Smith, including polygamy. [Although the LDS has rejected plural marriages, polygamy is still associated with Mormons in Utah -- as expressed in a beer label!] These "antique" Mormons, as they call themselves casually, live in and around Manti, in southern Utah. Karen Morin and Jeanne Kay Guelke write in their article, Strategies of Representation, Relationship, and Resistance: British Women Travelers and Mormon Plural Wives, ca. 1870-1890, Annals, Vol. 88, No. 3 (1998), pp. 436-462, that anti-Mormon writers viewed polygamy as one of the greatest social ills affecting the U.S. in the 19th century, ranking as significant as slavery or the situation of Native Americans. Utah Territory met the requirement for statehood within a few years of initial settlement, yet the "polygamy question" kept them out by Congressional votes until 1896. Utah gave women the vote in 1870, but it was taken away from them by the federal Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1882. This Act allowed the federal government to prosecute Mormons not only for engaging in polygamy but also for "unlawful" cohabitation." In addition, the "right to vote, hold office and sit on juries in the Territory of Utah be confined to hose who neither practice nor uphold polygamy." The federal government actively prosecuted polygamists during the 1880s. Federal lawyers initiated a series of legal actions which were intended to bankrupt the Mormon church, which the Supreme Court supported on 19 May 1890. Now the federal government could seize church property legally! Many Mormon leaders left their wives and families to fend for themselves and hid out in the mountains or fled to Mexico or Canada. "So many Mormon men were brought to trial and imprisoned that Mormon culture almost collapsed." [Jan Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land. Chicago; University of Illinois Press, 2000, p. 306]
Finally, in 1890 God revealed to the third Church President that polygamy should not be continued and President Woodruff made a Manifesto to that affect in response to federal pressure and to preserve Church property and institutions from further attacks. Despite their public statements to the contrary, for the next two decades Mormons were advised by their leaders to continue their practice of plural marriages. Top leaders secretly performed numerous polygamist marriages. Had plural marriages continued, Mormons would probably have become like the Amish, a small group apart from the larger society in Utah depend on what they could do there.
More than 30,000 Mormon Fundamentalists (or FLDS) polygamists live in Canada, Mexico, and in the American West. Some estimate as many as 100,000 polygamists. Joseph Smith. the founder of the Mormon church, married at least 33 women, and probably 48 -- he was very secretive about his practice in the beginning. The youngest of his wives was just 14 years old when Joseph explained to her that God had commanded that she marry him or face eternal damnation. When Joseph Smith was murdered in Nauvoo, IL, most (95 percent) of the Mormons did not know that their prophet had married more than one wife and that he believed that plural marriage to be one of the most crucial keys to gaining entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. His revelation of plural marriage was only made many years after he had received instruction from God. In his lifetime, Smith received 135 revelations that were canonized in The Doctrine and Covenants. In Section 132 of The Doctrine and Covenants, Smith revealed his 1843 revelation about plural marriage. Brigham Young, on the other hand, had only one revelation: how to organize the wagon train for their migration to Utah.
The anti-polygamists and
polygamists were split over the successor the Saints. Brigham Young,
who represented the polygamists, convinced most of
the Mormons to move to
Utah.
Brigham Young had at least 20 wives,
perhaps as many as 57 wives, and he sired an estimated 57 children. "Plural
marriage" was abandoned by the main Mormon church in 1890,
when the president of the church declared that Mormons should follow the laws of
the federal government, which prohibited polygamy. Utah Territory was formally
established on 9 September 1850, with Brigham appointed governor. The Saints
wanted to name the territory Deseret, meaning
honeybee, from the The Book of Mormon. Deseret
represents hard work and welfare of the collective. Today, the name and symbol
of Deseret appears on the official seal of Utah,
state highway signs, and the
second-largest newspaper in Utah owned by the LDS Church, Deseret News.
Brigham Young institutionalized racism within the LDS. Under his leadership, Utah became a slave territory and supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. Blacks were banned from the priesthood and inter-racial marriages were prohibited. Only in 1978 did the President of the Church have a revelation that the LDS was open to all races!
Colorado City, on the Colorado-Utah line, is populated (9,000) almost exclusively with Mormon polygamists (FLDS), consisting of three sects -- the largest being the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Saints which owns most of the land in the town. They continue to believe that Section 132 of The Doctrine and Covenants requires the practice of plural marriages to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Read about them. Read about the latest developments among the FLDS (9 Sept. 2006).
Optional read: Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
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