[CHAPTER VI]
OVERLAND WITH THE MORMONS

The story of the settlement and winning of Oregon is but a small portion of the whole history of the Oregon trail. The trail was not only the road to Oregon, but it was the chief road across the continent. Santa Fé dominated a southern route that was important in commerce and conquest, and that could be extended west to the Pacific. But the deep ravine of the Colorado River splits the United States into sections with little chance of intercourse below the fortieth parallel. To-day, in only two places south of Colorado do railroads bridge it; only one stage route of importance ever crossed it. The southern trail could not be compared in its traffic or significance with the great middle highway by South Pass which led by easy grades from the Missouri River and the Platte, not only to Oregon but to California and Great Salt Lake.

Of the waves of influence that drew population along the trail, the Oregon fever came first; but while it was still raging, there came the Mormon trek that is without any parallel in American history. Throughout the lifetime of the trails the American desert extended almost unbroken from the bend of the Missouri to California and Oregon. The Mormon settlement in Utah became at once the most considerable colony within this area, and by its own fertility emphasized the barren nature of the rest.

Of the Mormons, Joseph Smith was the prophet, but it would be fair to ascribe the parentage of the sect to that emotional upheaval of the twenties and thirties which broke down barriers of caste and politics, ruptured many of the ordinary Christian churches, and produced new revelations and new prophets by the score. Joseph Smith was merely one of these, more astute perhaps than the others, having much of the wisdom of leadership, as Mohammed had had before him, and able to direct and hold together the enthusiasm that any prophet might have been able to arouse. History teaches that it is easy to provoke religious enthusiasm, however improbable or fraudulent the guides or revelations may be; but that the founding of a church upon it is a task for greatest statesmanship.

The discovery of the golden plates and the magic spectacles, and the building upon them of a militant church has little part in the conquest of the frontier save as a motive force. It is difficult for the gentile mind to treat the Book of Mormon other than as a joke, and its perpetrator as a successful charlatan. Mormon apologists and their enemies have gone over the details of its production without establishing much sure evidence on either side. The theological teaching of the church seems to put less stress upon it than its supposed miraculous origin would dictate. It is, wrote Mark Twain, with his light-hearted penetration, "rather stupid and tiresome to read, but there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of morals is unobjectionable—it is 'smouched' from the New Testament and no credit given." Converts came slowly to the new prophet at the start, for he was but one of many teachers crying in the wilderness, and those who had known him best in his youth were least ready to see in him a custodian of divinity. Yet by the spring of 1830 it was possible to organize, in western New York, the body which Rigdon was later to christen the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." By the spring of 1831 headquarters had moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where proselyting had proved to be successful in both religion and finance.

Kirtland was but a temporary abode for the new sect. Revelations came in upon the prophet rapidly, pointing out the details of organization and administration, the duty of missionary activity among the Indians and gentiles, and the future home further to the west. Scouts were sent to the Indian Country at an early date, leaving behind at Kirtland the leaders to build their temple and gather in the converts who, by 1833 and 1834, had begun to appear in hopeful numbers. The frontier of this decade was equally willing to speculate in religion, agriculture, banking, or railways, while Smith and his intimates possessed the germ of leadership to take advantage of every chance. Until the panic of 1837 they flourished, apparently not always beyond reproach in financial affairs, but with few neighbors who had the right to throw the stone. Antagonism, already appearing against the church, was due partly to an essential intolerance among their frontier neighbors and partly to the whole-souled union between church and life which distinguished the Mormons from the other sects. Their political complexion was identical with their religion,—a combination which always has aroused resentment in America.

For a western home, the leaders fell upon a tract in Missouri, not far from Independence, close to the Indians whose conversion was a part of the Mormon duty. In the years when Oregon and Santa Fé were by-words along the Missouri, the Mormons were getting a precarious foothold near the commencement of the trails. The population around Independence was distinctly inhospitable, with the result that petty violence appeared, in which it is hard to place the blame. There was a calm assurance among the Saints that they and they alone were to inherit the earth. Their neighbors maintained that poultry and stock were unsafe in their vicinity because of this belief. The Mormons retaliated with charges of well-spoiling, incendiarism, and violence. In all the bickerings the sources of information are partisan and cloudy with prejudice, so that it is easier to see the disgraceful scuffle than to find the culprit. From the south side of the Missouri around Independence the Saints were finally driven across the river by armed mobs; a transaction in which the Missourians spoke of a sheriff's posse and maintaining the peace. North of the river the unsettled frontier was reached in a few miles, and there at Far West, in Caldwell County, they settled down at last, to build their tabernacle and found their Zion. In the summer of 1838 their corner-stone was laid.

Far West remained their goal in belief longer than in fact. Before 1838 ended they had been forced to agree to leave Missouri; yet they returned in secret to relay the corner-stone of the tabernacle and continued to dream of this as their future home. Up to the time of their expulsion from Missouri in 1838 they are not proved to have been guilty of any crime that could extenuate the gross intolerance which turned them out. As individuals they could live among Gentiles in peace. It seems to have been the collective soul of the church that was unbearable to the frontiersmen. The same intolerance which had facilitated their departure from Ohio and compelled it from Missouri, in a few more years drove them again on their migrations. The cohesion of the church in politics, economics, and religion explains the opposition which it cannot well excuse.