Right—and Wrong—About the Darkest Chapter in Mormon Zion History Sept 11 1857 Massacre Part 4

Right—and Wrong—About the Darkest Chapter in Mormon Zion History Sept 11 1857 Massacre Part 1 The events of the 1857–58 Utah War (or Mormon War), part 1
https://rumble.com/v6qj8i2-the-events-of-the-185758-utah-war-or-mormon-war-185758-utah-war-or-mormon-w.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

Right—and Wrong—About the Darkest Chapter in Mormon Zion History Sept 11 1857 Massacre Part 2
https://rumble.com/v6qjas0-rightand-wrongabout-the-darkest-chapter-in-mormon-zion-history-sept-11-1857.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

Right—and Wrong—About the Darkest Chapter in Mormon Zion History Sept 11 1857 Massacre Part 3
https://rumble.com/v6qjca8-rightand-wrongabout-the-darkest-chapter-in-mormon-zion-history-sept-11-1857.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

Right—and Wrong—About the Darkest Chapter in Mormon Zion History Sept 11 1857 Massacre Part 4
https://rumble.com/v6qjdq8-rightand-wrongabout-the-darkest-chapter-in-mormon-zion-history-sept-11-1857.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

Right—and Wrong—About the Darkest Chapter in Mormon Zion History Sept 11 1857 Massacre Part 5
https://rumble.com/v6qjex6-rightand-wrongabout-the-darkest-chapter-in-mormon-zion-history-sept-11-1857.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

Right—and Wrong—About the Darkest Chapter in Mormon Zion History Sept 11 1857 Massacre Part 6
https://rumble.com/v6qjgdi-rightand-wrongabout-the-darkest-chapter-in-mormon-zion-history-sept-11-1857.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
We have consistently proven ourselves to be … a very violent, territorial species,” is Berg’s philosophical takeaway,

per press material shared by the streamer. “An exploration of that inherent ability to become very violent is at the heart of American Primeval.”

And sure enough, everyone in the show is surrounded by murder, rape, and all manner of abuse. There is a lot of story in here—maybe too much—all loosely set during the events of the 1857–58 Utah War (or Mormon War), a conflict between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the federal government.

many individual moments of violence in the show, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, a fictionalized version of which sets the major events of the plot in motion and which accounts for many of the casualties historians assign to the Utah War, gets toned down in comparison to the historical record.

In real life, the Baker–Fancher wagon train, about 40 separate families mostly originating in Arkansas and headed to California, spent five days after the beginning of the September 1857 attack that led to the massacre with their wagons drawn into a defensive position, pinned down by a group of Mormon militiamen and Paiute people, and suffering from lack of water, food, and ammunition.

The massacre itself occurred on Sept. 11, after a small group of the Mormons approached the wagon train bearing a white flag and offered the emigrants safe escort away from the Native American attackers if they would leave behind their belongings as appeasement.
The travelers took them up on this offer and began walking, and then their escorts turned on them, killing them all, except 17 children ages 6 and under whose testimony, the attackers thought, wouldn’t be believed.

These children were placed in Mormon homes, and only reunited with their relatives a few years later, after the U.S. Army undertook a search to find them.

That massacre and its aftermath would make a good subject for a longer treatment, but making that project would be a dicey choice, given the politics around the history, and also nobody would want to watch the result because it would be too awful.

(The 2007 movie September Dawn, with Jon Voight, tried this, but was awful for different reasons, while in the 2022 miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven, the massacre is a B plot in the finale.) Berg and Smith try to solve the problem by diluting the massacre’s violence and spreading it around, across plot lines, until it seems to be everywhere. In their version, instead of being drawn out over days of siege, the attack comes quickly, out of the blue, with one female emigrant cut off in the middle of small talk by an arrow to the forehead.

Yes, we see many people dying, and it’s intense—but because we’re following the point of view of Sara, who escapes, we don’t spend that much time in the scene itself. And you don’t see all those older-than-6 emigrant kids get killed. (You do see one die. The Mormon who kills the little boy immediately rips off his hood and throws up.) In the show the Mormon attackers let a group of women live, and give them to their Native American collaborators as captives; historically, no women were allowed to escape the violence

Smith gives some clues as to why the show softens the massacre: “We wanted to make sure that we also showed both sides of the attack. It was driven by the Nauvoo Legion, by the Mormon militia, factually, but we have to understand that they perceived [the emigrants] as a threat.” To that end, Smith has Coates’ Brigham Young speak actual words drawn from the historical record.
Headlines about the horrific anti-Mormon violence that drove the church members west float across the screen, and the script throws in many negative encounters between the Latter-day Saints and other white settlers, who needle the Saints about polygamy and threaten them with murder. Smith also adds a small party of Mormon emigrants to the Baker–Fancher train, including the married Pratt couple, who are sympathetic, point-of-view characters, “good eggs” whose separation during the massacre and subsequent reunion story drives a lot of the plot. (This being American Primeval, it doesn’t end well.)