To read more from Daniel, visit his blog: Sic Et Non
I continue to accumulate interesting specimen from media coverage of the current Netflix hit miniseries American Primeval.
Here is a critical response, roughly nine minutes in length, from a believing Latter-day Saint: A Thoughtful Faith: “A Bigoted Fantasy: Why American Primeval IS NOT History.” (You have to admit that the woman who shows up at approximately 1:08 seems to be a very careful, meticulous, and discerning scholar of history.)
A quibble: As the speaker himself indicates in a postscript, what he says about the relative roles of Indians and Latter-day Saints in the podcast is not quite accurate. He was relying upon the late Leonard Arrington, a preeminent Latter-day Saint historian and (among other things) a biographer of Brigham Young. But we know more about the tragedy at Mountain Meadows now than we did when Professor Arrington wrote his biography.
As I’ve already observed here, the best treatments of the Mountain Meadows Massacre now in print are
- Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, and Glen M. Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Oxford University Press, 2011)
- Richard E. Turley and Barbara Jones Brown,
- Janiece Johnson, Convicting the Mormons: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American Culture(The University of North Carolina Press, 2023)
But it’s time to go from serious history to, well, whatever it is that Hollywood and its devotees are serving up: The following two quotations come from a site called The Manual (“From Deadwood to Yellowstone: 8 movies and shows like American Primeval to binge next: These movies and shows will quench your thirst for more of the Wild West”). The first of them is about American Primeval itself. The second refers to the earlier Hulu hit miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven:
“American Primeval is the latest big Netflix series and it gives great insights into the ways the Mormon religion gained footing in Utah during the Mormon War throughout 1857 and 1858.”
Conventional historians have imagined that “the Mormon religion” had “gained footing in Utah” commencing with the arrival of the first pioneer company in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake during the summer of 1847 and with the subsequent founding, to the north and to the south, of cities and towns such as Salt Lake City (1847), Bountiful (1847), Ogden (1848), West Jordan (1848), Kaysville (1849), Provo (1849), Manti (1849), Tooele (1849), Parowan (1851), Brigham City (1851), Nephi (1851), Fillmore (1851), Cedar City (1851), Beaver (1856), Wellsville (1856), and Washington (1856). The Manual apparently thinks that “the Mormon religion gained footing in Utah” via military conquests in “the Mormon War throughout 1857 and 1858.” A subtle difference, perhaps, but undoubtedly very helpful for outsiders trying to understand the faith of their Latter-day Saint neighbors.
“Under the Banner of Heaven is set in Utah just like American Primeval. It examines the influence of the Mormon religion on a pair of murderers who take out a mother and her daughter in the name of the Church. While not a traditional Western, this miniseries is a thorough interpretation of what the people who go to the LDS Church are capable of when they use religion for evil instead of good.”
Hmmmm. Did the Lafferty brothers “go to the LDS Church”? Were Ron and Dan Lafferty members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in good standing? Are my Latter-day Saint neighbors likely to murder me any time soon? Inquiring minds want to know!
This presentation might help concerned citizens find answers to questions that trouble them about the potentially lethal presence of Latter-day Saints in their communities: “Was the Early Mormon Church Really a Violent Faith? | American Primeval”