In "The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South," (Oxford University Press, 2011), author Patrick Q. Mason discovers a unique irony to the persistent abuse, violent and otherwise, that Mormons faced in the southern United States the last quarter of the 19th century. It is that the shared animosity toward the LDS Church between the U.S. government and the deep South helped restore southern allegiance to the federal government.
As Mason explains, that wasn't always the case. A score of years earlier, the South, headed for a Civil War, had sympathized with the exiled Saints' grudge against the feds and secular government in general. The cause of the South's animosity was the Mormons' admittance that polygamy was practiced and its subsequent defense of a practice that appalled the rest of the nation. Add Reconstruction, and cultural mores that included tolerance -- and even acceptance -- of vigilantism if it was deemed to uphold decency and respect for womanhood, and the result was persecution, sometimes deadly, of missionaries in the Southern States Mission.
Examples of violence in "The Mormon Menace" include the murder of Elder Joseph Standing, shot to death by mobsters who assaulted Standing and his companion, future LDS apostle Rudger Clawson, in Varnell, Ga., on July 21, 1879. It's possible Standing might have avoided being killed had he not grabbed a rifle from one of his guards. That led to subsequent gunfire. In any event, no one was convicted of the murder, a common result that deserves more explanation.
As evil as it is to murder, rob, vandalize and drive persons forcibly from their homes, the Southern mobsters, Mason writes, saw themselves as a local law enforcement that needed to protect communities when other government entities, not bound to enforcing moral law, failed to offer protection. The Southern code of womanhood, which saw them as a weaker sex to be protected, was outraged by the LDS practice of polygamy, which was depicted nationwide -- except in LDS periodicals -- as virtual forced sexual slavery for women and teenage girls. While newspapers in larger Southern cities and more sophisticated communities might decry violence against Mormons, they loathed the LDS Church as much as the mobsters did. This is important to understand because so few Mormons today are aware of how unpopular the church was in the last two-fifths of the 19th century. The LDS Church was an easy target for media and pols to whip into a frenzy of righteous indignation. The church also suffered a string of legislative and court losses in regards to polygamy that eventually forced it to abandon the practice, "officially" in 1890, and effectively 15 years later.
Another major violent attack against the Mormons was the Cane Creek Massacre in Cane Creek, Tenn. On Aug. 10, 1884. At a church service at the home of a church member, a mob attacked the services. Two elders and two members were killed; one member of the mob was killed. The Cane Creek killings didn't even lead to a trial, and not long after the massacre, the remaining Mormons, as well as non-LDS sympathizers, were hounded from the area. Mason adds that post-massacre danger was so high that Mormon general authority, B.H. Roberts, recruited to bring back the bodies of slain missionaries, John Gibbs and William Berry, entered Cane Creek disguised as a hobo.
In other words, the violence that stemmed from this religious persecution did not lead to remorse or a cooling of passions. The code behind it -- whether theological, protecting women, or both -- only served to animate the mobs. Protestant ministers, particularly in rural parishes, as well as small newspapers, overtly egged the mobsters on.
There is another irony to the LDS Church's efforts in the South that led to more danger to for missionaries. The most dangerous areas for LDS missionaries were rural, backwoods areas and small towns; however, those areas were also where the missionaries had the most success. Larger towns and southern cities were more tolerant of the missionaries but mostly ignored their message. The missionaries literally had to enter the danger zone to baptize.
Whipping, expulsions, vandalism, threats were preferred forms of intimidation. Summer, with its heat, logged the highest amounts of violence and abuse; winter the lowest. Mason notes that the summer, winter variance also occurred with vigilante violence on blacks. Also, times of economic distress that reached the South also saw increases in violence.
Mason points out that the persecution did not stop the growth of the LDS Church in the South. This frustrated other sects, particularly protestant evangelicals. What the mobs failed to understand is that the violence suffered by missionaries and members helped solidify a persecution narrative that the Utah LDS Church had been building for generations, since its members were expelled from Missouri, and Illinois. Those killed in Southern missions were hailed as martyrs alongside Joseph Smith and even Jesus Christ. The Saints were assured that a just God would harshly punish those who avoided earthly consequences. The church-owned Deseret News published reports from returned missionaries. Those who had suffered persecution were provided far more news space than those returned missionaries who had more tranquil missions.
In short, Mason explains another irony: that the persecution suffered in the South by the LDS Church, far from harming the church, instead strengthened it and prepared it for a 20th century in which it would grow into a multi-million-member, powerful, non-polygamous institution.
According to Mason, there were three strategies to combat Mormonism used by Southerners opposed to the church's influence. The first was vigilante violence. The second was fierce condemnation from other churches' pulpits. A few southern pastors wrote best-selling, very hyperbolic tomes against Mormonism. The third tactic, used mostly by more sophisticated southerners, was to rely on legislation, both state and national, that would prevent LDS influence.
Gibson is the Standard-Examiner's Opinion Editor. He can be reached at dgibson@standard.net. A longer version of this review was published in Currents, a Standard's digital-only section.
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