Even 150 years ago, Mormons had quite the reputation for both fighting for ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_Battalion ) and fighting against ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_War ) the U.S. Army.
replies(2):
Interestingly, I've found a lot of parallels between early Islam and early Mormonism. Both of their leaders had similar tendencies and both were evicted from their original location where they claimed their new Zion. Though Mohammed was more successful in retaking Mecca whilst the Mormons were forced out of Missouri (1).
In no specific order:
- Prophet's with dubious histories prior to their revelation - Both given new revelations from an angel - Both claim a that the Christians or Jews had corrupted the original gospels - Focus on political power early on - Polygamy prominent among early leaders - No alcohol - Strong focus on certain forms of "purity"
tldr: 120 emigrants were traveling by wagon train towards California, passing through Utah. They set up camp south of Salt Lake in a meadow for the night and woke up to being surrounded by the Mormon militia, painted as Native Americans who then opened fire on them, killing 120 men, women, and children. Their goal was to frame Native Americans of the massacre.
Mormons did spare any child under the age of 8 because Mormon Doctrine states that children under 8 are innocent and they were taken and raised into Mormonism.
I can't say whether Smith had a "dubious" history, but I'm not inclined to take this view because people think it's ok to bigoted and dismissive of the Church of LDS, and I think it's unfair.
Also polygamy was part of pre-Islamic Arabia, whereas it was contrary to custom and law in the context in which the LDS Church developed. Comparison on this point is superficial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_alphabet
It was a phonetically correct alphabet for English.
In case you are unfamiliar, in many languages, the language is written exactly as it is spoken. For example, in Spanish and Italian, words are written exactly as they are pronounced. If you can read the word, you can pronounce it though you might not know the meaning.
Children in English-speaking places will usually have to study "spelling" where they learn how to correctly spell words.
Deseret alphabet was pronounced exactly as it was written which shows which spoken accents the speakers had.
On the empire topic, one might consider Utah. It was originally desired for the name to be Deseret and one of the two primary competing news organizations locally is called Deseret News[0]. In practice it's not really an empire (for all of the obvious reasons) but it's also kinda hard to ignore the influence that the church has on most of the population.
[0] https://www.deseret.com/ I didn't know this was the domain until now. There you go, I guess.
Years ago in Arizona I worked with a guy who was a descendant of John D. Lee who was the ringleader and later executed for his role in this attack. Lee's Ferry over the Colorado river is named for him also. So I looked into John D Lee a bit.
Here is his account:
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mountainmeadow...
The people in the wagon train were believed to have been those who had burned the Mormons out in Missouri, and although it seems revenge is a more likely motive then fear, there may have been an element of both. At any rate it wasn't just bushwhacking random wagon trains as many passed through the territory at the time.
I found Lee's account an interesting read and his grandson (or great grandson) looked very much like him.