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MORMONS IN MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

1838.

hand of God; but those who were threatened naturally enough concduded, that the Mormons might think themselves instruments in His hand, to work the change they foretold and desired. They believed also, with or without reason, that the saints, anticipating, like many other heirs, the income of their inheritance, helped themselves to what they needed of food and clothing; or, as the world called it, were arrant thieves.

The other offensive view was, the descent of the Indians from the Hebrews, taught by the Book of Mormon, and their ultimate restoration to their share in the inheritance of the faithful; from this view, the neighbors were easily led to infer a union of the saints and savages to desolate the frontier.

Looking with suspicion upon the new sect, and believing them to be already rogues and thieves, the inhabitants of Carroll and Davis counties were of course opposed to their possession of the chief political influence, such as they already possessed in Caldwell, and from the fear that they would acquire more, arose the first open quarrel. This took place in August, 1838, at an election in Davis county, where their right of suffrage was disputed.

The affray which ensued being exaggerated, and some severe cuts and bruises being converted into mortal wounds by the voice of rumor, a number of the Mormons of Caldwell county went to Diahmond, and after learning the facts, by force or persuasion induced a magistrate of Davis, known to be a leading opponent of theirs, to sign a promise not to molest them any more by word or deed. For this, Joe Smith and Lyman Wight were arrested and held to trial.

By this time the prejudices and fears of both parties were fully aroused; each anticipated violence from the other, and to prevent it each proceeded to violence. The Mormons of Caldwell, legally organized, turned out to preserve the peace; and the Anti-Mormons of Bavis, Carroll, and Livingston, acting upon the sacred principle of self-defense, armed and embodied themselves for the same commendable purpose.

Unhappily, in this case, as in many similar ones, the preservation of peace was ill-confided to men moved by mingled fear and hatred; and instead of it, the opposing forces produced plunder-ings, burnings, and bloodshed, which did not terminate until Gov. Boggs, on the 27th of October, authorized General Clark, with the full military power of the State, to exterminate or drive from Missouri, if he thought necessary, the unhappy followers of Joe