Item Detail
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28169
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1
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0
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English
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None Can Deliver : Imagining Lamanites and Feeling Mormon, 1837-1847
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Journal of Mormon History
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July 2017
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43
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3
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Champaign, IL
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University of Illinois Press; Mormon History Association
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22-45
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In the years between the 1837 publication of Parley P. Pratt's influential A Voice of Warning and Instruction to All Peoples and the beginning of migration to Utah in 1846, stories about Lamanites in the millennium were a vital part of early Mormons' emotional lives. The emotions evoked by these stories amplified, stifled, and worked alongside scriptures to exert power in Mormons' personal lives and politics. For early Mormons, sharing their feelings about Lamanites allowed them to articulate their hopes for the future, their love for their new religion, and their increasing hostility toward the federal government that did not protect them from mob violence. Feelings about Lamanites pushed Mormons toward each other, helping to forge a new sense that they were distinct from Protestants. These feelings also reinforced boundaries between Mormons and white Protestants by exposing Mormons to the accusation that they were allying with Indians to plot violence against the United States. However important early Mormons' feelings about Lamanites were, though, they did not amount to an uncomplicated sympathy for or identification with American Indians. [From the text]