10510

Journal Article

English

Arrington, Leonard J., Cornwall, Rebecca Foster

Perpetuation of a Myth : Mormon Danites in Five Western Novels, 1840-1890

BYU Studies

Spring 1983

23

1983

147-65

"In Caldwell County, Missouri, during the spring and summer of 1838, there had been instances of vandalism, theft, and terrorism against Mormon settlements. Mormons, fearing a repeat of the occurrences in Jackson and Clay counties, from which they had been driven by force and political maneuver in 1833 and 1836, were determined not to lose their properties again. Therefore, over the period of eight to sixteen weeks, a small group of Mormon men met in private homes to plan defensive tactics against "gentiles" and dissenting Mormons. The initial targets of these Brothers of Gideon, as they called themselves, were Mormon "dissenters"--several leaders who, by violating economic or moral codes, had given "aid and comfort" to the enemy, anti-Mormon mobs. A more general purpose for the band then emerged--direct retaliation against the anti-Mormon terrorists. After recruiting additional members, the band included as many as three hundred of the estimated two thousand Mormon men in Missouri. Many Danites, as they came to be called, were simultaneously members of the Mormon wing of the state militia, a fact which confused the identities and purposes of the two groups. One Danite member even claimed that their plunder was deposited in the cooperative storehouses maintained by Mormon bishops. Sampson Avard, founder of the Danites, was arrested for these illegal activities and brought to a preliminary hearing of charges in November 1838. There he claimed to have been following orders from the Mormon First Presidency). Although witnesses sympathetic to the Mormons denied this, other witnesses were hostile, and the First Presidency spent the winter in jail waiting for trials which never came. By testifying against the Church leaders, Avard escaped conviction." [Publisher's abstract]

http://byustudies.byu.edu/showTitle.aspx?title=80

Danites
Literature, Mormon image in
Myths

12

15

A Foreign Kingdom : Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852-1890
Amasa Mason Lyman, Mormon Apostle and Apostate : A Study in Dedication
Defending Zion : George Q. Cannon and the California Mormon Newspaper Wars of 1856-1857
Joseph Smith : Rough Stone Rolling
Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History
Leonard James Arrington (1917-1999) : A Bibliography
Mormon Polygamy : A Bibliography, 1977-92
Mormons at the Missouri, 1846-52 : 'And Should We Die'
The Brief History and Perpetually Exciting Future of Mormon Literary Studies
The Last Months of Mormonism in Missouri : The Albert Perry Rockwood Journal
The Viper on the Hearth : Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy
Western History Association Prize Recipient, 1984 : Leonard J. Arrington

'Divinely Tall and Most Divinely Fair' : Josephine Donna Smith--'Ina Coolbrith'
A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints (Commonly Called Mormons)
From Satyr to Saint : American Attitudes Toward the Mormons, 1860-1960
Intolerable Zion : The Image of Mormonism in Nineteenth Century American Literature
Mormon Conceptions of Individual Rights and Political Obligation
Saints, Sinners, and Scribes : A Look at the Mormons in Fiction
Sheaves, Bucklers, and the State : Mormon Leaders Respond to the Dilemmas of War
The Changing Image of Mormonism
The Danite Band of 1838
The Missouri and Illinois Mormons in Ante-Bellum Fiction
The Mormon Church and the Spanish-American War : An End to Selective Pacifism
The Mormons in Fiction
The Prophet of the Nineteenth Century
The Story of the Latter-day Saints
War, Conscription, Conscience and Mormonism