While editing and updating Leland Gentry’s uperb 1965 PhD dissertation on the Mormon War in Missouri, I kept Gentry’s text largely intact but included addenda at the end of each chapter. In these, I considered: the background of the phrase “nits make lice” in indian massacres, showing demonization of minorities in Jacksonian america; whether Joseph …
Occasion: Mormon War
SL10264: The Big Fan: Joseph Smith and the Danites in Missouri
In 1838 Missouri, certain Mormons organized in a secret paramilitary organization called the Danites, led by Sampson Avard, who later left the Church. Many Mormons then disavowed the Danite movement, portraying it as lies concocted by Avard. When Leland Gentry wrote his groundbreaking 1965 thesis about the 1838 Mormon War, however, he reported that irrefutable …