FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Question: Did Brigham Young give the Indian chief Arapeen spoils from the Mountain Meadows Massacre?
FAIR Answers—back to home page
Question: Did Brigham Young give the Indian chief Arapeen spoils from the Mountain Meadows Massacre?
Brigham Young had asked all Indian chieftains to help themselves to the U.S. army's cattle, not the spoils from the massacre
Noted one reviewer:
Bagley argues that after Chief Arapeen told him about the massacre, Young advised Arapeen to help himself to the booty (p. 170). Bagley, however, changes the actual sequence of events to make things appear as they are not. The Huntington diary shows that Young first asked Arapeen—just as Brigham Young had asked all other Indian chieftains—to help himself to the [U.S.] army's cattle. Then Arapeen tells him about "a" massacre. Nobody thereafter suggested to Arapeen that he help himself to the Fancher train booty. Brigham Young would never have done this because Arapeen's tribe was too far north in Utah. Bagley's explanation is akin to asking the mayor of Ogden to help himself to the coffers of Cedar City." [1]
Notes