Mormon migration

11 Key excerpts on "Mormon migration"

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  A Nation of Peoples

  A Sourcebook on America's Multicultural Heritage

  • Elliott Robert Barkan(Author)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • Greenwood

    (Publisher)

  MIGRATION, SETTLEMENT, AND THE PROCESS OF ADJUSTMENT Tens of thousands of individuals forged an emergent Mormon ethnic identity in the nineteenth century by conversion to the beliefs and practices of their ' 'restored'' gospel, by their subsequent experience of migration and community MORMONS 413 building on the American frontier, and by developing new ideals, institutions, and group sentiments, which they then passed on intact from one generation to another in the face of extraordinary opposition. The ecclesial-theological claims of Joseph Smith may have been ridiculed along with the credulity of his followers, but in the sectarian hurly-burly of antebellum American culture, the new religious movement would have been grudgingly tolerated but for one key doctrine, what Mormons called ' 'the gath- ering." Mormons in the nineteenth century believed in the imminent Second Coming of Christ and the establishment of a millennial kingdom of righteous- ness on earth through the joint efforts of divine powers and the labors of the "Saints." Joseph Smith revealed that the true believers in Christ and his gospel must prepare for these events by gathering out from "Babylon" and settling as religious communities of anticipation within a prophetically designated, sancti- fied territory called "Zion." It was the exclusionist, geopolitical practices of the nineteenth-century Mor- mons that proved intolerable to their neighbors and to local and federal govern- ments. For in their attempts to create a distinctive territorial enclave, Mormons encountered the "relentless pressures of American imperialism," which, as D. W. Meinig observed, denied absolutely ' 'the creation or formal recognition of any kind of ethnic territorial units" within the American state. But that was precisely the aim of the Mormon gathering: the creation of economically and socially self-sufficient, self-governing religious communities.

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  Mormonism: The Basics

  • John Charles Duffy, David J Howlett, David Howlett(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  new in religion. Hence, for example, in the early 1800s hundreds of thousands of Americans joined the Methodists, a young Protestant movement whose members formed tight-knit fellowships supporting one another in the pursuit of holy lives. A variety of smaller, unconventional religious movements flourished in the United States during this period as well. Some predicted the imminent end of the world. Some sought to recover the pure, original Christianity of Jesus. Some created experiments in communal living. Some claimed special powers of healing or communication with spirits. Some produced new scriptures. Some embraced unusual sexual norms, ranging from celibacy to free love.

  Mormonism offered its own variation on all of these trends in religious innovation. By 1860, tens of thousands of people had chosen a Mormon variation as their preferred religion. Most of these converts were white Americans, but ambitious Mormon missionaries were already working to carry the new religion around the globe: to Britain, Europe, Palestine, South Africa, India, Australia, the Pacific islands, and South America.

  Mormon communities grew rapidly during the movement’s first three decades; but they did so under severe stress, caused by repeated migrations, internal struggles, and violent conflict with neighbors. When the first Mormons set out to create holy communities, they did so by “gathering” – relocating together to form their own settlements and cities. During the 1830s, Mormons established several communities in Ohio and Missouri. The most important of these, symbolically at least, was located at Independence, Missouri. Joseph Smith Jr. announced a revelation declaring Independence to be the “center place” where Mormons would build Zion, an ideal city from which Jesus would rule when he returned to earth. Part of what would make Zion an ideal city was that its inhabitants would live the “law of consecration,” a communitarian system in which they would pool and then redistribute their property to ensure that everyone had enough. In Zion, there would be no poor. Thousands of Mormons migrated to Missouri with plans to implement the law of consecration.

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  Making of the American West

  People and Perspectives

  • Benjamin H. Johnson(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • ABC-CLIO

    (Publisher)

  Mormon Settlement Jessie L. Embry 6 any Americans associate the West with rugged individualism, wild open spaces, cowboys, and Indians. The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat- ter-day Saints (Mormon or Latter-day Saint) differed. Brigham Young, M “the American Moses,” envisioned communities and cooperation (Arrington 1985). His influence extended throughout the intermountain West, Califor- nia, and even into Canada and Mexico. How did the Mormon experience differ from that of the rest of the settle- ment of the West? It does not take long to recognize some major differences. Mormons came west for religious reasons; many others came because of economics. Mormons carefully laid out towns; other settlers built homes on their property or near mines. Mormons struggled for statehood to escape federal control over the Utah territory. Most territories (except New Mexico and Arizona, which had their own unique features) became states sooner. This chapter will explore some of the most significant differences: organized migration, established communities, cooperation, polygamy, and political and economic control. These factors set Mormons apart not only from the rest of the West but also from the rest of the United States at least until Utah’s statehood in 1896. But even afterward, what some called “the American- ization of Utah” did not happen all at once. The period between 1890 and 1930 can be understood as a transitional one for Mormonism, and many unique characteristics remain in the twenty-first century (Larsen 1971; Alex- ander 1986). Mormon Background Founder Joseph Smith, Jr., never saw the Mormon settlements in the West, but he had an impact on every aspect of their development. A visionary young man, Smith organized a church in New York State in 1830 and 118 M A K I N G O F T H E A M E R I C A N W E S T P E R S P E C T I V E S I N A M E R I C A N S O C I A L H I S T O R Y orchestrated his followers’ moves to the Mississippi River.

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  Mormons in American Politics

  From Persecution to Power

  • Luke Perry, Christopher Cronin(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  Public opinion toward Mormons shifted from opposition to neutrality during the subsequent statehood period. 80 “Mormonism itself underwent a period of rapid transformation from a remote, disreputable sect to a more assimilated regional religion.” 81 This led to shifts in the Mormon faith. The requirement of Mormons to move to Zion was suspended at the end of the nineteenth cen- tury. The impulse to gather as one lessened. Zion was always an expansive con- cept in the eyes of Joseph Smith, who “dreamed of an array of cities, initially in the United States and then in all of the Americas, extending Zion to the rest of the world.” 82 Mormon leaders encouraged new converts to develop the Church in their home areas. Mormonism spread to Latin America in the 1970s, Asia in the 1980s, and Africa in the 1990s. 83 By 1994, the Mormon Church was organ- ized in 149 nations and territories. 84 Over 2 million copies of the Book of Mormon are now published each year in over 50 languages. 85 Calling Mormonism an American religion is increasingly becoming a stereotype as more Mormons reside abroad than in the United States. MORMON SUBCULTURE American Mormons are a unique subculture based in Utah. Thomas O’Dea asserted in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups that Mormons constitute a clear example of the evolution of “a native and indigenously 40 Mormons in American Politics developed ethnic minority.” 86 “Common belief establishes trust and a sense of mutual responsibility. Mormons pride themselves on feeling at home with other church members anywhere in the world.” 87 Part of this is historical. Smith developed a sense of communal unity by creating complete cities. Mormons develop emotional and spiritual bonds by standing before fellow members of the congregation and expressing their deepest loves, longings, values, and experiences. The vast amount of time Mormons spend together is an important factor as well.

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  American Originals

  Homemade Varieties of Christianity

  • Paul K. Conkin(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • The University of North Carolina Press

    (Publisher)

  In the late winter of 1847 Young formed a pioneer camp of about 150 for the final advance beyond the mountains. These celebrated pioneers took the easiest possible route—through Fort Laramie, over the south pass, and then across what is now southwest Wyoming into the valley of the Great Salt Lake. They created a new trail (soon worn by Mormon travelers) from Council Bluffs to Laramie and then departed the Oregon Trail for their descent into the valley (on modern maps the whole is identified as the Mormon Trail). The advance party only entered the valley on July 21, too late to plant food crops. An ill Brigham Young arrived two days later. By July 24 the whole camp was on the site of what became Salt Lake City and had dedicated the land. In the exultation of the moment the saints renewed their covenant and rebaptized one another (such rebaptisms were later ended by the church). Even in this first, foreshortened summer the saints built a fort, named streams, explored several sites for villages, and began building small dams and irrigation canals, ensuring crops in 1848. Young and others helped plat the city (using some designs earlier drafted by Joseph Smith), with broad streets, large rectilinear blocks, and a choice location for the future temple. Small bands of Mormons came from California, including some of the Mormon Battalion joined by Mormons from Mississippi who had taken a ship to California. By the fall almost 1,500 had crossed in wagons from winter camp, making over 2,000 in the valley by the end of the year. But Young and many of the original pioneers hurried back east to lead the great migration in 1848.

  In 1848 most Mormons in western Iowa moved to Utah in a series of camps, a migration that continued year after year for the next decade. Only in one case, that of several handcart companies that tried crossing in 1856, did the migration come close to disaster. A few Mormons decided not to go on to Utah in spite of admonitions from Young, and one Mormon missionary to the Indians, Alpheus Cutler, formed a small schismatic group (Culterites) in Iowa that still survives. In most cases the camps were disciplined and well organized, with better than normal relationships with the Indians. After 1848 an increasing proportion of the migrants were European immigrants, who came at the request of Young to the gathering place for all the saints. European converts had another role: as much as their resources permitted, they collected funds to help finance this huge migration.

  Back at Salt Lake City, the early residents were able to plant their irrigated grain crops in 1848, only to have the fields threatened by a cyclical grasshopper explosion (these are now called Mormon crickets). It seemed a miracle, an omen, when seagulls appeared and ate most of the “crickets,” another, often exaggerated part of the great Mormon epic. The grain harvest was still limited but the pioneers celebrated it by a festival in the fall. The massive arrival in 1848 led to the expansion of settlement throughout the larger valley and the formation of new towns. By 1849 the church had divided the settlements into stakes and wards. It also set up a permanent emigration fund to help both American and European members cross the plains. The dire poverty and short food supplies of 1848 yielded to some prosperity in 1849, as Mormons were in a perfect position to outfit those flocking to the new goldfields of California. Young Mormon men, some from the Mormon Battalion, remained in the minefields of California, sent a growing supply of gold to Salt Lake City, and provided the basis of a short-lived mint established there by Brigham Young.

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  The Mormon Trail

  Yesterday and Today

  • William Hill(Author)
  • 1996(Publication Date)
  • Utah State University Press

    (Publisher)

  P A R T I Early History 16 JOSEPH SMITH—Library of Congress Joseph Smith was the prophet and organizer of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon Church. When Joseph Smith was a young boy he had a religious vision. That vision and others ultimately led to the discovery and translation of the golden plates into the Book of Mormon. Within a short time he formed the Mormon Church. The early years of the Church brought increasing persecution of himself and of other Mormons. Moving from New York to Ohio, to Missouri, and then to Illinois, he was constantly trying to find a safe place for the “Saints.” In 1839, he moved the center of Mor-monism to Nauvoo, Illinois, but within a short time, persecution occurred even there. For Joseph Smith, finding a peaceful spot for the Mormons to live proved to be elusive. In 1844, Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith were killed by an angry mob. Number: 222 Orig: 38 x 42 Crop: Scale: 70% Final: 26.5 x 29 17 The Mormon Church, the Development of the Mormon Trail, and Mormon migrations: 1803–1869 Unlike the history of the Oregon, California, and Santa Fe Trails, the history and development of the Mormon Trail is a story of both the usage and improvement of previously identified routes and of the religious events that influenced the migration of Mormons west to Utah and the Great Basin. 1 8 0 3 President Thomas Jefferson purchased a vast tract of land west of the Mississippi River from the French government. This was the single largest peaceful expansion of the United States in its history. The lands included in the Louisiana Purchase contained most of the area through which the Mormons would later pass. However, the territory of Utah and the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, the future site of their new Zion, were not included in the purchase. They were located in Mexican territory. 1 8 0 4 – 1 8 0 6 The exploration of the newly purchased Louisiana Territory was con-ducted by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

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  All About Saints & Latter-Day Saint Movement

  • (Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • University Publications

    (Publisher)

  ________________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES ________________________ Chapter- 5 History of the Latter Day Saint Movement The Latter Day Saint movement is a religious movement within Christianity that arose during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century and that led to the set of doctrines, practices, and cultures called Mormonism and to the existence of numerous Latter Day Saint churches. Its history is characterized by intense controversy and persecution in reaction to some of the movement's doctrines and practices and their relationship to mainstream Christianity. The founder of the movement was Joseph Smith, Jr., who was raised in the Burned-over district of Upstate New York and reported seeing God, the Father, and Jesus Christ, as well as angels and other visions, eventually leading him to a restoration of Christian doctrine that, he said, was lost after the early Christian apostles were killed. In addition, several early leaders made marked doctrinal and leadership contributions to the movement, including Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Brigham Young. Modern-day revelation from God continues to be a principal belief of the Mormon faith. Movement's historical context The Latter Day Saint movement arose in the Palmyra/Manchester area of western New York, where its founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., was raised during a period of religious revival in the early 19th century called the Second Great Awakening. This awakening was a Christian response to the secularism of the Age of Enlightenment and extended throughout the United States, particularly the frontier areas of the west. A significant early event in this Second Great Awakening was a large camp meeting that took place in 1801 at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in which participants exhibited charismatic gifts such as glossolalia, prophecy, and heavenly visions.

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  The Burned-over District

  The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850

  • Whitney R. Cross(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Cornell University Press

    (Publisher)

  It seems conservative to estimate that of Mormons brought into the church from the Burned-over District at least three-fourths must have been gathered by returning itinerants between 1831 and the early fifties. Yankee groups in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New England itself responded similarly, but less intensively, and after 1850 a substantial portion of new members came from England and Scandinavia. Obviously, then, Mormonism should not be called a frontier religion in terms of the persons it appealed to, any more than it should in terms of its origin.

  To be sure the church existed generally on the frontier and kept moving westward with the tide of settlement. It also carried into the West a number of ideas characteristic of the Burned-over District. Its location was determined by the fact that the evangelistic-mindedness from which it developed in the beginning, and which constantly fed it with members, had little tolerance for such an unorthodox offspring, and drove the Saints by its persecution along their westering course. But neither the organization of the church, nor its personnel, nor its doctrines were frontier products. All belonged rather to that Yankee, rural, emotionalized, and rapidly maturing culture which characterized western New York so markedly in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

  1 Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet (New York, 1945), 1-5, 7-9.

  2 See maps I and II.

  3 Palmyra Herald and Canal Advertiser, July 17, 1822; Western Farmer (Palmyra), Summer, 1822, passim; Wayne Sentinel (Palmyra), Oct., Nov., 1823.

  4 Brodie, No Man Knows, 9-11.

  5 Rev. James H. Hotchkin, A History of the Purchase and Settlement of Western New York, and of the…Presbyterian Church in That Section (New York, 1848), contains outline histories of each church in the denomination west of Madison County. Tabulated geographically, it provides a reliable guide to revival cycles and locations.

  6 Western Farmer, Feb. 27, 1822; Palmyra Herald, Jan. 15, 1823.

  7 John H. Evans, Joseph Smith, An American Prophet (New York, 1945), 30-32; Brodie, No Man Knows, 10, 11, 55. Land values ran from twenty to thirty-five dollars an acre by 1833, Rochester Daily Advertiser,

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  Mormonism

  A Historical Encyclopedia

  • W. Paul Reeve, Ardis E. Parshall, W. Paul Reeve, Ardis E. Parshall(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • ABC-CLIO

    (Publisher)

  It forced Mormon leaders to consider how Semiannual conferences draw crowds of the Mormon faithful to Salt Lake City’s Temple Square. (Courtesy of the Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.) Expansion: 1941–Present | 59 a Church with strong American ties should deal with other cultures. Should the Mor- mon Church adjust to meet the needs of its new members, or should converts mod- ify their cultures to more closely conform to American Mormonism? According to historian Jan Shipps, „Notwithstanding the rosy picture of a world filled with Mor- mons which is projected by the Church News and the official Ensign [magazine], the power of the LDS gospel to sustain communities of Saints throughout the world without requiring them to adopt particularly American attitudes and stereotyped life styles has not yet been fully proven‰ (Shipps, „The Mormons‰ 766). Anecdotal examples demonstrate some of the concerns. White shirts and ties, the officially encouraged attire for American Mormon men, are not a standard dress for natives in Bolivia and are, in fact, an unnecessary expense. In some parts of Af- rica, organs are played only in brothels. Church lessons that depict a husband and wife kissing before they leave for work cause children in Japan to ask why they are biting each other. Even something as simple as telling a story about snow can be confusing for Mormons in the South Pacific. To deal with some of these concerns, Church magazines have focused more on doctrines and articles by General Authori- ties than on lifestyle. But there is still a feeling among some international members that Mormons outside North America have to go through an American socialization process before they are truly considered „no more strangers and foreigners, but fel- low citizens with the saints, and of the household of God‰ (Ephesians 2:19). Rapid growth and internationalization were not the only difficulties Mormonism faced in its most recent history.

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  One Side By Himself

  • Ronald Barney(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Utah State University Press

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 9 A Story Makes a People: The Exodus to Zion, 1847 I n the popular image of Mormonism, the removal of the Saints from the Midwest to the valleys of the Great Basin, beginning in 1847, remains one of the defining events of the religion. The previous pivot points of Latter-day Saint history to 1847 had been witnessed or experienced by only a minority of church members. The trek to Zion in the mountains over the next half-century by tens of thousands of Saints of high and low station alike, Americans and Europeans, provided a common context that welds the seams of disparate entities into a people. “Although [Mormonism is] called ‘the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints’ and may very well be in theological definition a church,” argues reli- gious historian Martin Marty, “I perceive it more as a people. . . . What’s interesting about the Mormons is that they are from a mixed ethnic stock not much different from the rest of the majority and yet they are a distinct people. A story makes a people.” 1 The “story” provided by the western exodus from Nauvoo was the catalyst for people-making for most of those who struggled through the wilderness expedition. Because the vanguard expedition of 1847 is one of the best documented epics of Mormon history, with most of the fine published accounts accessible, and because Barney’s account is reminiscent rather than contemporary, I have chosen not to retell the story from Barney’s perspective, though his reflection from hindsight is, overall, a significant viewpoint. 2 The events of April–October 1847 constitute nearly one-fourth of Barney’s first autobiogra- phy, giving some indication of its importance to him. Though unknown at this time, his role in the trek became to him the meridian of his life. The vanguard trek set him apart in the laudable posture of one of the “original pioneers” of modern Israel.

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  "Liberty to the Downtrodden"

  Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer

  • Matthew J. Grow(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Yale University Press

    (Publisher)

  In the 1830s, Mormon attempts to establish settlements in Missouri had failed twice when suspicious Missourians forced them from the state. The main Latter-day Saint community in Kirtland, Ohio, disintegrated in the late 1830s from internal conflict and external pressures. For 48 Meeting the Mormons a time in the early 1840s, the Mormons found peace in their burgeoning city of Nauvoo, Illinois. However, just as in Missouri and Ohio, perceptions of Mormon practices—including the mixing of church and state, bloc voting, and rumors of secret rituals and plural wives—created conflict with older settlers. The mob murder of Smith and his brother Hyrum in 1844, and the subsequent expulsion of the Saints from Nauvoo in early 1846, forced the Saints to seek refuge in the Far West. By December 1846, almost twelve thousand Mormons had left Nauvoo and were strung out in makeshift communities on the plains of Iowa and Nebraska, with a slight majority in the vicinity of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Winter Quar-ters, Nebraska. The Mormon refugee camps—lacking adequate supplies, sub-ject to epidemic disease, and plagued by fears of future persecution—presented a humanitarian crisis that piqued Kane’s sensibilities.² Accordingly, he formed a scheme that mixed personal ambition and humanitarian sentiment. Kane’s selection of the defense of the religious liberty of the Mormons as an appropri-ate object of reform grew out of both his anti-evangelicalism and the antebel-lum Democratic Party’s pluralistic vision and emphasis on liberty. Travel to the Mormon camps also allowed Kane to act the part of a romantic hero, who took decisive action and underwent danger on behalf of the oppressed. After the conference in Philadelphia, Kane approached Little and declared his intention of accompanying the Saints to California.

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