In the year 1833 there had gathered
in Missouri, at Independence and adjacent territory, fifteen hundred Latter Day
Saints. They were mostly eastern people and strongly opposed to slavery. They
were enthusiasts, believing that God had called them to represent
"primitive Christianity." They planned the erection of a temple. Five
hundred houses were built. Then the unexpected, but possibly inevitable,
happened owing to misunderstanding, intolerance, religious prejudice, and
political confusion. These American citizens were driven from Jackson county
and fifteen hundred of them brutally banished, leaving behind the flame of
their burning homes.
And now comes the coincidental
part of my story. In 1841 several thousand Latter Day Saints had gathered at Nauvoo,
Illinois, where they hoped to accomplish in part what they had attempted in
Jackson county. The foundation for a big city was laid, the first municipal
university in Illinois established, and a welcome to the rich and the poor
extended to come and usher in the Golden Age and prepare the way for the Prince
of Peace.
Of course it all may have been
tragically visionary. We are not concerned with this aspect of the story.
A general conference of the Church
was held April 6, 1841, at which time Joseph Smith delivered a message (which
later was printed in the Times and Seasons, Volume 2, p. 424 of the year
1841, and the Doctrine and Covenants, edition of 1845) containing the
following reference to Jackson county:
Therefore, for this cause have I
accepted the offerings of those whom I commanded to build up a city and a house
unto my name in Jackson county, Missouri, and were hindered by their enemies,
saith the Lord your God; and I will answer judgment, wrath and indignation,
wailing and anguish, and gnashing of teeth, upon their heads, unto the third
and fourth generation, so long as they repent not, and hate me, saith the Lord
your God."
Students of Missouri's history
know the rest. In Switzler's History of Missouri, we read the tragic
story of "Order No. 11" on pages 424 ff. On the 25th of August, 1863,
Brigadier-General Ewing issued his famous or notorious "Order No.
11." All persons living in Jackson, Cass and Bates counties were
"ordered to remove from their present places of residence within fifteen
days from the date hereof."
Switzler makes this comment:
"As might reasonably have been expected, the publication of so
extraordinary an order from a military commander occasioned the wildest excitement
and alarm among the people whom it was intended most directly to affect . . .
the enforcement of the Order depopulated the farming territory of the three
counties. Many and sad, therefore, were the scenes of wretchedness which it
occasioned."
Ibid.:
"Mr. Bingham says he was in Kansas City when the Order was being enforced,
and affirms from painful personal observation that the sufferings of its
unfortunate victims, in many instances, were such as should have elicited
sympathy even from hearts of stone. Barefooted and bareheaded women and
children, stripped of every article of clothing except a scant covering for their
bodies, were exposed to the heat of an August sun and compelled to struggle
through the dust on foot. . . . Dense columns of smoke arising in every
direction marked the conflagration of dwellings. . . ."
"'Oder No. 11'," writes
Mr. Switzler, "invokes the judgment of history." (R. W. Farrell,
"Joseph
Smith's Prophecy and Order Number 11," Missouri Historical Review
20, no. 2 [January 1926]: 335-37)
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