Ep 27 – Broadsword, Javelin, Bowie Knife, and a Bucket of Crazy
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On this episode, we take the historical timeline closer to the end of 1832. Everybody is focused on getting the printing press up and running in Independence Missouri, and they don't even realize that a viper lurks in the grass. We're introduced to a few new people that get their very own nicknames, and the bloody viper even gets his own long-awaited introduction. From April 14th, 1832 on, Mormon history will be forever changed.Website http://nakedmormonismpodcast.comTwitter @NakedMormonismFacebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Naked-Mormonism/370003839816311Patreon http://patreon.com/nakedmormonismOutro music Jason Comeau http://aloststateofmind.com/Links:BRODIE AWARD VOTING!!!!HURRY AND VOTE, POLLS CLOSE MIDNIGHT FEB 5!!!http://mainstreetplaza.com/2016/01/22/time-to-vote-for-the-2015-brodie-awards/comment-page-1/#comment-3167981Mary Rollins:http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/MLightner.htmlhttp://josephsmithspolygamy.org/history-2/plural-wives-overview/mary-elizabeth-rollins/Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (page 110)http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm/ref/collection/dialogue/id/27086Adam-God doctrine apologetics:http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_doctrine/Repudiated_concepts/Adam-God_theoryThinking Allowed Podcast, Con men in New York:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06wg7rpEntire Aaron Dewitt time capsule letter:"Logan, Utah  Jan. 31, 1875To Mrs. Elizabeth Durrant:My Dear Sister:    How to commence this letter I have promised you so long. I hardly know, but will say in the first place I have been deceived, led into error, imposed upon, deluded, beguiled into a false religion in my youth and spent the best part of my life in a wilderness, a desert, a land of sage and salt, away from all enlightenment and civilization, among the most degraded tribes of Indians on the Western hemisphere.  And what is still more worse, I have had to mingle with A BEASTLY, BLACKHEARTED, BLOODY PRIESTHOOD; a set of treacherous villains, as full of meanness as old Satan, and as thirsty for blood as a stinted leech. While these are facts, they are not half told; For hundreds have been killed for gold; Both men and women have been slain And robbed to add to Brigham’s gain. I will here mention a few of the most inhuman and cruel acts ever committed by any man-eating savage in the darkest ages, and which none but a corrupt priesthood could ever perpetrated.  All of these have been done in Utah since I came here by men claiming to hold THE HOLY PRIESTHOOD OF THE SON OF GOD, and sent by their great Prophet and leader to do these deeds of blood and plunder in the name of God Almighty.On the 12th day of September, 1857, two days after I arrived in this accursed land, 119 men, women and children were murdered while traveling to California, by a band of Mormons painted as Indians, and led by a Mormon high priest, a pious president of a stake of Zion, and a wise ward bishop.  After the emigrants had defended themselves against those wretches for three days beneath a burning sun in a sandy desert, WITHOUT A DROP OF WATER, they dressed two beautiful little girls in white and sent them to a spring nearby. But as they tripped along towards the sparkling stream they met the bullets of those merciless Mormons and fell dead into the water they were trying to secure to save their own lives and quench the parched throats of their beloved parents.  Finally John D. Lee, a Mormon bishop, who had just been anointed A KING AND PRIEST TO GOD, and who had eighteen wives given to him for being so great and good, sent a flag of truce to the poor, parched up, bleeding emigrants and promised them protection if they would give up their arms and go back to the nearest town.  This they gladly agreed to; but mark the next act of this sanctified saint.  They had not gone a half mile from their camp, when this great deliverer gave the command to his men to fire, and every man was shot down and every woman screamed and ran.  The terrible, sorrowful scene that ensued no tongue can tell.  Every woman was caught and ravished, murdered, robbed of her jewelry, stripped naked and left unburied on the burning sand.  In a few days nothing was left of all those beautiful forms but the bleaching bones the prairie wolf could not devour.  Then every child those bloodhounds thought could tell the tale of their infernal villainy was beheaded or cut to pieces, and scattered quivering with its bleeding friends.  Then those pure-souled priests plunged their hands into the gory clotted blood of their victims, and with outstretched arms toward heaven, EXPRESSED THEIR GRATITUDE TO GOD for so great a favor; to Him who doeth all things well; but who will undoubtedly, when they meet Him, hear His laugh re-echo through the caverns of the damned, saying, “I told you I would laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear cometh.” All the property of those murdered men and women was gathered together the value of one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, besides thirty-five thousand dollars in gold, and sent to their old master-murderer Brigham.  And this is how he sits in his office, wags his big toe, and makes his means, and then boasts that he is THE GREATEST FINANCIER ON EARTH, and owns nothing but what the Lord has given him.Another and similar case is that of the murdered Morrisites, a religious body of simple-minded souls, who had met together for devotional exercise in a small valley on the banks of the Weber River in the summer of 1862, when a corps of the Nauvoo Legion, led by cowardly Captain Burton, who is now on a mission preaching the Gospel of Mercy to you dark benighted Britons, and inviting you to the home of the free and the land of the brave, but he is not gallant enough to come home himself.  He is the dastardly dog who crawled on his belly, like his ancient progenitor which tempted Mother Eve, until he was near enough to fire a cannon and blow down the house where those poor souls had met.  Then, after they had surrendered, and given up their few fire arms, the poltroon shot and killed Joseph Morris, Mr. Banks, and two women, one with a beautiful baby nursing at her breast, took the rest of the camp prisoners, put them in the penitentiary, and finally fined them one hundred dollars each, just because they did not believe in the rascality of Brigham Young, and do as they were told. What bloody deeds, what sin and striveWhat sacrifice of human life,What deeds of plunder have been done,To raise a gory throne for Young.I will next mention the most perfidious act coupled with the foulest murder ever committed since the world began.  IT WAS IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, when three of the Salt Lake City police were sent by the great Seer and Revelator of all the world, to see Dr. Robinson and ask him to set a broken limb for a poor man who, they said was writhing in agony.  The Doctor had just retired to bed, but at his murderers’ entreaties, he dressed himself, and in a few moments was on his errand of mercy.  He had not gone far when one of the villains, who walked behind, struck him on the head with a meat chopper he had stolen for the purpose, and cleft open his skull. The others fired their pistols immediately, and blowing out their victim’s brains, fled. But my soul sickens at these dreadful deeds, or I would tell you of the brutal murder of Yates, the killing McNiel, the assassination of Borman, the shooting of Brassfield, the slaughter of the Akins party, the emasculation of Jones, and finally the butchering of him and his poor old mother.  I would also mention the dead man in the meat market, the three men in the barn, the murder near the Warm Springs, the shooting of Pike in the streets of Salt Lake City in broad daylight, the murder of the Potters and Parishes, of Rhodes and Roberts, and HUNDREDS OF OTHERS WHO HAVE BEEN MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD, and robbed to satisfy the avaricious cravings of as foul a man and as false a Prophet as ever disgraced this sin-stained earth. These horrible deeds have all been committed in our holy Zion, and not one of the perpetrators ever brought to justice.  In fact, there has been no justice in the land.  A few years ago a man’s life was not worth a cent who durst utter such words as there is evil in the land, or sin among the Priesthood.  “You do as you are told!” has been the Gospel preached in this priest-ridden place for the last quarter of a century. In the fall of 1857, I heard our Prophet in a congregation of three thousands souls, tell his bishops they were to “counsel” the brethren to do as they were told; and, said he “if they don’t do it, lay righteousness to the line and judgment to the plummet.  If  you don’t know what that is, come to me and I will tell you!” He then threw back his head and with a revolting grin, DREW HIS FINGER ACROSS HIS THROAT, a sign the anointed ones well understood.  And yet, the old bilk, with his smooth slang will make his innocent dupes believe he is free from guilt, and that he is THE LIGHT, THE TRUTH, AND THE WAY, and that he has a place prepared for them, where the waters are flowing placidly – a land of milk and honey.  But the waters are stained with blood, and the milk is turned towhey,And the honey has lost its sweetness, the people seem to say;And dupes are getting scarcer, and obedience is dead,And all the old man’s judgments and plummets, too, have fled.THE HAND-CART EXPEDITION Then there was the hand-cart company that crossed the plains in 1856.  The details of their distress caps the climax of all horrors.  Could I portray that terrible journey and the sufferings of those poor souls, your very heart would bleed.  Three ounces of flour per day was all they had to eat.  Upon this scanty fare they dragged their carts with 100 pounds of luggage over the worst kind of road, and more than five hundred miles through snow, fording rivers whose currents are of the swiftest kind, and their waters always cold.  Then at night, when those poor, wet, shivering souls came into camp they had no wood to make a fire.  At times a few small willows could be obtained, just enough to bake their scanty cake.  It did not take them long to eat their supper, for a mouthful each was all they had.  So hungry were they, that some gnawed the flesh off their own arms, ate roasted hide, or fed upon their shoes.  One-fourth of all who started, DIED OF STARVATION ON THE WAY. From five to fifteen died every night for over 300 miles of the road.  So weak and weary were these living skeletons that they could scarcely bury their dead.  Every night a pit would be dug just large enough to place the dead in, and a shallow covering of dirt thrown over them.  Those that dug the grave one night expected to be placed in theirs the next.  Many a one prayed that his spirit might leave his frame of bones for a berth among the blessed. Why did they start in this way? do you inquire.  Because this false prophet had told them that it was the Lord’s plan of emigration, and the only way to secure salvation. They believing him to be a true prophet, had faith in all he said, and started on their journey, 1,400 miles, as late in the season as August.  As they traveled on Westward toward the Zion of their hopes, songs could be heard from every cart and prayers from every camp.  But before they got five hundred miles on their weary pilgrimage, THE SNOWS BEGAN TO FALL, the wintry winds to blow, and the keen frost and piercing cold set in.  Then their suffering commenced in earnest.  Still they trudged along day after day, full of faith in God and holy priesthood, and day after day endured greater pain.  Finally their limbs began to freeze, and pieces fell from their worn-out bodies. They became dispirited and pined away and died, as I have already told you.So sad and sickening is this Gospel plan, As taught by Brigham, to poor fallen man, That every time I mention his ill name, It sends a shudder quivering through my frame. I also tremble for the deeds he’s done;For life destroyed, for blood he caused to run; For victims frozen on the plains, through him, While starving, suffering, falling limb from limb.Dear Sister, in this sad letter I have told you the truth, AS IT IS IN JESUS CHRIST, and as I expect to meet at the final bar of retribution.  All these deeds and a thousand others equal to them in baseness and brutality, have all been committed under the cloak of religion.  But I must tell you more of them at another time. I will now tell you the reason why we could not leave this blood-stained land, I mean ten or twelve years ago.  In the first place, we were a thousand miles from the nearest town East, eight hundred miles to the nearest settlement West, and God only knows how far to any place north and south.  On all this vast tract of land, NO WHITE MAN DWELT, no civilization was known, none but the red men roamed the dreary solitudes.  To travel such a space required considerable food, a good wagon and team, in fact, everything necessary for a three month’s pilgrimage.  Nor was it safe for a few men to go together, unless they were well-armed.  Again, every Bishop knew your business AND WAS ALWAYS ON THE LOOKOUT.  If you started, they would send men to drive off your stock, and thus you would be compelled to return.  Then, if you did not behave and act the hypocrite, the bishop would send the Danites to use you up, send you across lots to that bright brimstone home we read about.  Thus you see it was almost impossible to get away.  But now we have a railroad across the plains and settlements every little way and civilization is coming to Zion.  If the Lord won’t come the law will, and if Jesus is not approaching, justice is.  Then all who want can leave.  But now the priests want us to go, and we wish to stay.Burst off every fetter, remove this Priestly yoke. And never rest contented, till every link is broke. For every man in Utah and woman shall be free. And shouts shall echo through the land for God and Liberty! Hoping to meet you soon on earth life and finally beyond the confines of time measured out to mortal man.I am affectionately,Your Brother,AARON DEWITT