As they [the wagon train] hurried to get away, [newly appointed Santa Clara Indian Mission president Jacob] Hamblin and some twelve Indian chiefs on September first met with Brigham Young and his most trusted interpreter, 49-year-old Dimick B. Huntington, at Great Salt Lake. Taking part in this pow-wow were...leaders of desert bands along the Santa Clara and Virgin rivers.
Little was known of what they talked about until recently when it came to light that Huntington (apparently speaking for Young) told the chiefs that he "gave them all the cattle that had gone to California [by the south route]." The gift "made them open their eyes," he said. But "you have told us not to steal," the Indians replied. "So I have," Huntington said, "but now they have come to fight us & you for when they kill us they will kill you." The chiefs knew what cattle he was giving them. They belonged to the Baker-Fancher train. (Forgotten Kingdom, pp.167-168)
John D. Lee was a Mormon Indian missionary and the indians called him "Cry-baby".
Despite the involvement of high-ranking Mormon leaders — a trail of evidence leads to Brigham Young himself — only one man, John D. Lee, was ever tried for the mass murder.
The articals on the links below should help the non-mormon and mormon understand why the LDS church cannot put a cross on the Rock Cairn in Mountain Meadows and why the property should be placed under Federal Stewardship.
The bones lie on property owned by the Mormon church paid for, directly or indirectly, with funds stolen in the Massacre. All the plunder was tranfered to Brigham Young from the Cedar City Ward shorty after Massacre.
