Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 147 - The Terrible History of the Nauvoo Legion

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

Joe is Joined by the crew of the Brigham Young Money Podcast as they regale him with the story of militant mormonism. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad free and is totally supporter driven we use that money to pay our bills buy research materials that make this show possible and support charities like the curtis red crescent the flint water fund and the halo trust consider joining the legion of the old

crow today and now back to the show all right well let's do our introduction uh welcome to verily there's the affliction, a Mormon history podcast. That's right. These are your normal hosts of Lions Led by Donkeys. Actually, this is just a normal thing that we do. The three of us normal guys just hanging out. And of course, this is the guy that you know and love and have always loved. Kyle, here to speak to you.

Brother Kyle. Brother Kyle. Excuse me. Speaking of brother, brother, Greg, I want to introduce yourself to our normal listeners here. Yes, I am brother Greg. I am Bishop of the Avenues Ward in Salt Lake City. It is a pleasure to be here today, brothers and sisters. Thank you so much. Aloha. My heart is full. And I am Elder Jordan, and I'm here to speak to you about the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how it kind of took a militaristic

turn in the 19th century. So that's fun. Really quickly, ladies and gentlemen are you ready to accept white jesus as your personal lord and savior i i know i know i sure am but also we've got a visitor in our ward today and of course that visitor and guest is joe kasabian hello joe hey thanks for having me i'm a long time listener first time guests uh i don't know what to introduce myself as except i'm a long-time listener first-time guests uh i don't know what to introduce myself as except i'm assuming apostate um i i feel you're just i don't know fucking anything you're what's called you're what you are what we call an investigator around these parts i don't like yeah i i love obviously uh everyone these are the hosts of brigham Young Money, a show that I have guested on. I'm a huge fan of.

How long ago was I in your show? It feels like forever ago. It was a year ago. Was it really? No, it wasn't. I was in Hawaii. It was like two months ago. I don't know. Are you not in Hawaii anymore? No, I still am, but I haven't been here a year yet.

We started talking pretty much immediately that we have to talk about something to do with like militancy within the Mormon church or whatever it is they're calling themselves now. And I quickly dawned on me that I would never be able to script out a show with you guys as guests that would make any fucking sense. Uh, I'm like, it would be like me, um, doing literally any of the scripts I've ever done. And on the other side, it was like a veteran of the event I was talking about. Well, that's assuming what we're going to talk about is going to make any fucking sense either so yeah and it's a lot and there might be some insider terms if you just don't understand anything please raise

your hand or something i don't know all of us have been like grown up around like the mormon church and everything so indoctrinated yeah we have yes white jesus into our hearts i gotta say i don't know fucking anything about the Mormon Church. The only thing that I really know about it is it's like uniquely American. It's a uniquely American religion, not called Scientology. It's literally

the most American religion. Yeah, outside of, I mean, Scientology, the amount of comparisons between the two is is pretty stark but also uh q anon and and the mormon church have a lot of overlap but specifically when it comes to uh um hawaii and the church have a really interesting um connection and also like the pacific islands but specifically one of the funny parts about that is like any white dude who

serves his mission in like the pacific islands will come back from his mission wearing like a lava lava and be, and just like a white shirt and tie. And then like when he bears his testimony or gives his talk, when he comes back from his, his mission overseas, he'll say like Aloha, like expecting the audience to say it back at him. It's like, there's so many weird little pieces of Mormon culture that like, as we'll go through this,

a lot of this is part of the Mormon lore, but only it's incredibly and skillfully cherry picked of what you're going to hear. Because so many of these things that Jordan is going to walk us through today. I'm normally the daddy of is going to walk us through today. I mean, I'm, I'm normally the, the daddy of our podcasts, um, and, and taking us through, but this is Jordan's, this couldn't be more in Jordan's niche. And, um, as we'll go through, um, we're going to learn some things that have made it through to Mormon culture. Um, and a lot of the things that have

made it through to the, to the modern Mormon culture have really fucked up roots uh and this is going to be painful for the three of us but hopefully enlightening for everyone else so uh yeah buckle up it's it's fun so we'll start off like with the origins because what we're mainly going to be focused on is like the navoo legion which is like a militia that the that the mormon church started in their city in Nauvoo, Illinois and it carried over into Utah when they settled the plains. Famous non-problematic issue of church-based militias.

And how? And this is how we got the hashtag Brigham did nothing wrong. Oh my God, do not associate us with that, please. No, no. Brigham did nothing wrong oh my god do not associate us with that please no no brigham did a lot wrong and oh so so so much just for the record so many things wrong so so many yes so we won't get really into like how like the church's like origin stories or anything like that you can find it out on your own by looking up any sort of like 19 year old with a terrified

look in his eye wearing a button- up white shirt with a name tag. They're everywhere. You'll find them. They'll tell you all about it. We're not going to focus on that. Or by praying to the Mormon God. I hear that's a good way of figuring this stuff out as well. Or that too.

So of course is Allah. Sorry. Continue. Inshallah. Soon our caliphate will spread to Salt Lake City. We will get there. So the Church of Christ, which was like the original name of the Mormon church, started in April 6, 1830 in western New York, in Palmyra, New York. And right smack dab in the burned over region of the Great Awakening.

So this was the reason the region where you were having all sorts of fun religions that's where the adventists come from the miller rights the shakers and the fox sisters all of those like had like some sort of like element of mysticism mixed with like full-scale christianity which is kind of like what the early church was too was a lot of people who love seer stones. They love like, they love like a divining rods, things like that. Like half of the early church was just people who like also thought that they could see the future of New York was just like a state carnival of

like different religions. Thank you. Erie canal. Wasn't the Fox sisters, this, the, the, the seance women who like said they could communicate with ghosts by

like popping their joints and shit yep yes they were the ones who actually like like like like invented spiritualism so thank you that's the same region region that mormonism started but somehow the fox sisters didn't have quite the following of the Mormon church, which is kind of a shame. It'd be way more fun to grow up in that. But, oh, well. So in 1831, Joseph Smith moved his operation to Kirtland, Ohio, which is on the other side of the state to Ohio, just on the northeastern side. So they pretty much just crossed Pennsylvania and just started up shop there. And in that same time, too, he like started up shop there and in that same time too we also set up outposts in missouri as well and what he proclaimed to be the zion in

jackson county missouri where he said the garden of eden was because when i think of the garden even of eden i think the jet of the kansas city metropolitan area i mean i've driven through there and it was like yes man this is definitely i don't know man i've had some kansas city ribs that were a spiritual experience he was on to something man i didn't think the garden of eden would be so fucking humid that was my thought exactly because i drove through november's like this sucks definitely feels like a place where you just toil. So they set up shop in Missouri and Ohio.

Early on, there was a real change in the culture and philosophy of the church. When it first began, it was a very sort of pacifist sort of approach to belief. And in those first couple of years from 1830 to 1832, there was a massive shift over into way more militant teaching. over into way more militant teaching and that's because in 1832 joseph smith was attacked by mobs who either one were just in like weird religions moving in which i kind of get a little bit and two because joseph had a hard time keeping away from women and specifically really young women oh yeah well this is so a recurring theme and as we like you know uh compare what we are going to learn here today through the past and like what is believed by current mormons something that's really interesting and i don't know if these two guys feel the same way or like what they heard growing up but like this this attack of joseph smith is incredibly infamous and i was never told as to why he was targeted.

It really was just kind of like these people hated Mormons. And like that was the whole thing. Yeah, that was exactly it. Like it's like the same thing that like Bush would say after like 9-11 when he was referring to Al Qaeda of like they hated our way of life. They hated our freedom. They hated the way of life they hated our freedom they hated the way that and it yeah it's all the same like gaslighting bullshit tactics with joseph smith when he was in in missouri and basically they hated us because we had the truth the true gospel

and that's exactly why they attacked us but here's the fun part about that attack though a lot of the people who carried it out were members of the church um they just didn't like that joseph was getting really close to their knees and so they brought the surge along who was supposed to give him the old snip snip and uh the surgeon chickened out so joseph was allowed to continue his ways be your own people man yeah don't you hate when you hire a doctor to castrate someone to get cold feet at the last moment i know that's a problem i have just all the time hashtag relatable damn american medical system interesting because of the hawaii mormon connection that this to a much lesser extent because like you know nobody was lynched uh we get a lot of

weird cults from the mainland that move out this way um i assume so they can you know launder their money uh in a place that isn't like oklahoma or whatever because it has a beach uh but like recently a white woman uh in her, I believe she rented a place like Maui or something. And she proclaimed herself to be the reincarnation of Pele, which is the footballer. No, it's an indigenous Hawaiian god. Oh, OK. That makes more sense. And it became a big problem when, you know, Howley came through and started calling themselves a Hawaiian goddess. you know howley came through and started calling themselves a hawaiian goddess so uh they fire bombed their like garbage can and like threatened to like bust out their windows and shit of the of

this like legit compound that they're renting uh and the like the maui police department was like you should probably leave which like you know yeah 12 kind of hilarious they're like we're not gonna help you you should get the fuck out of here and so they did uh i believe they came from colorado or something but yeah yeah oh my god yeah after the mob attacks joseph kind of changed his tune a little bit from like love one another to um don't cross me sometimes yeah yeah but I think it's important to also mention. So like, uh, Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered and, um, this is part of the big, the big lore of, of this event. Um, they, they left the door open during his tar and feathering and, um, a baby that was in this house, um, got hypothermia, I guess, but it was exposed to the conditions that killed this baby. So

that's incredibly important for this foundational belief that the mormons have is that like this mob they came in they killed a baby and they tarred and feathered joseph smith all because he has the true knowledge of christ yeah they had to get rid of baby because you can't have any fucking witnesses oh also specifically that too but uh specifically around the hawaii thing uh the church has something uh in um haleiwe like next to byu hawaii um called the polynesian cultural center that's a fun thing well um yeah i would look into that if you're if you're looking for something fun i think that's on my island you said it's in uh where would you say it was at? In Haleiwe. Isn't that like where BYU Hawaii is?

I'm unfamiliar with BYU Hawaii. North Shore. Okay, yeah. You should keep it that way. Yeah, yeah. You and the honor code would not get along, Joe. So, did you just say slavery for the Polynesian Cultural Center? Well, I mean.

Oh, it's in Laie. I think Haleiwe is a different area over there. But Laie. Don't they kind of force Mormon students to work there for free? That's just slavery with extra steps. They do pull in a lot of Mormons

from the Pacific Islands who go to BYU Hawaii and then a lot of them do work at the Polynesian Cultural Center. And then a lot of them do work at the Polynesian Cultural Center, which is a bunch of white people who go there and eat poi and watch them do fire dances and climb palm trees barehanded

and barefooted. So, oh, so it's like a human zoo. It's more like that. Yeah, way better. Anyway, this is not going to be the last reference to slavery in this episode. So as one wants from 19th century America. better. Anyway, this is not going to be the last reference to slavery in this episode. So

as one wants from 19th century America. So out of all this horrible, horrible attacks on Joseph Smith came Doctrine and Covenants 98. First off, I have to explain what Doctrine and Covenants is. That's the time that God speaks directly to Joseph Smith and he just translates it onto a page, which somehow also magically matches what he personally believes in a lot of cases and also kind of tapered off a lot after he died. It's weird. And God said, I will get all of your scribbles furiously new loans in your name and you

will give me money. You totally said that. Oh, you're not far off. Yes like the the dnc the doctrine and covenants is also like an extension of the book of mormon like yeah it's like a third book it's like the third chapter of the trilogy yeah yeah nowadays like the only thing that goes in like doctrine and covenants is when like the church has to retcon old policies yeah when they're like

okay polygamy's done everybody because the federal government really doesn't like it yeah and then like the 1970s like okay everyone black people are human now because of the Department of Education's about ready to decertify BYU if you have a 1970s backpedal there for a second

yes yeah to decertify byu if you have a 1970s backpedal there for a second yes holy fuck um yeah uh behind the times we'll maybe get to that or if like you know hey maybe you don't have to denounce your child if your child is gay oh that'll be the next one when they like say like hey everyone because your parents are gay you can still be mormon it's okay now it's just like it's like bradley cooper in the hangover when he's calling his friends and he's just like uh yeah listen uh sorry but uh we fucked up the part of justice civil rights divisions up our ass so we have to do something now jesus you don't under any circumstances gotta hand it to them absolutely not i mean okay so feathering i'm i'm suddenly a huge fan of that

can we yeah i'm i'm very pro tar and feathering people new patreon goal maybe bring it back for some people i'm'm not saying for everyone, but I mean, we didn't say names. It's not actionable. It's fine. Um, anyway, so now I have to read old English because that's how Joseph Smith thinks God speaks.

So, and now verily I say unto you concerning the laws of the land, it is my will that my people should observe to do all things whatsoever I command them. And again, this is the law I give unto my ancients, and they should not go out unto battle against any nation, kindred, tongue, or people, save I, the Lord commanded them. And so the great news there is that a man with a direct line to God can control and dictate war for all the people who follow him. So no problems there there's never never been anything like that in history that's ever came to bite anyone the ass joseph smith uh al baghdad has has some fat lines going on there

yeah and again that's part of uh doctrine and covenants which again like greg said as part of the trilogy this is kind of the empire strikes back to the book of mormons a new a new hope does that make the pearl of great price like the new trilogy the pearl of great price is definitely returning the jedi but we'll get there eventually maybe i just i really like the parts in the pearl of great price with george rbx i mean that makes as much sense as what's actually the motherfucker had multiple wives dude that's right okay so we move on to there too and

we get to this period of the church called Zion's Camp which is like the first militaristic endeavor the church goes on in 1833 Mormon settlements in Missouri were coming under attack at pretty alarming rates all the Mormon settlers in Jackson and Missouri were forced to flee to neighboring Clay County.

And I have a quote here from D. Michael Quinn, who, you know, you have a really good Mormon historian when they've been excommunicated from the church. Yeah, that's how you can tell they actually studied. Yeah, that means they get really close to home. It's like you got to go. This also makes them easily discreditable by the church because anyone who leaves the church is just seen as like a angry bitter person who can't uh let go

or leave the church alone so yeah especially like d michael quinn because he's a mormon historian so he can't find a job anywhere because he's been blackballed everywhere no i'm not joking about that like arizona state tried to hire him they uh, and it got vetoed by the board because they might lose donations. Literally the Mormon, Norman Finkelstein. Honestly, not a far off. It really is, dude. I mean, how, how niche is a job that you're a Mormon historian that can absolutely not work anywhere Mormons are.

It's tough. It's a tough space to be in. It's tough. anywhere Mormons are. It's tough. It's a tough space to be in. It's tough. But anyway,

so D. Michael Quinn writes, in Jackson County during July 1833, mobs destroyed the Mormon newspaper, the home of the editor, William W. Phelps, and burned nearly all copies of the newly printed

Book of Commandments, which is now the Doctrine and Covenants, the first collection of Smith's Revelations, then the mob tarred and feathered Bishop Edward Partridge

and other Mormon men for not agreeing to leave the county immediately. The Missouri Mormons gave no resistance to these attacks, brandished no weapons and did not speak of any revenge. And then following up on that in October, they also attacked like isolated homes of Mormons inside Missouri, outside of the general town in Jackson County. So things were not going well. general town in Jackson County. So things were not going well. At that point too,

they started to lobby the governor at the time, trying to get rid and render aid and return property to them. Because like, you know, a bunch of guys like seize your house or burn it down. Like you kind of like, kind of got to call the cops at that point. I mean, even just for the insurance money,

you got to do that. I mean like, Hey, these guys on horseback just decided to like burn down my house and printing press can you guys like do something about that is there any overarching cause as to why like were they targeted because of their faith or was there other reasons uh mainly it was because of their faith like they didn't really cause any sort of any sort of like violence to begin with like that would change but early on there really wasn't a whole lot it's just like weird people moving in and because it's the 1830s in missouri yeah and joseph smith was seen as like

a con artist also like so they they thought he was i mean imagine why there's pretty well like they had he and his he and his uh brothers i think um there's some like soy podcast that did like a pretty good series about the history of joseph smith i can't remember which one it was but last podcast on the left oh oh yeah i actually listened to that yeah so they actually had a good like series about joseph smith um but they talk a lot about like the history of why people were so distrusting of them in the beginning i mean there was like a pretty um disproportionate response to like someone who was probably at worst at the time like hitting on their young daughters and um you know stealing like money from people doing like fraud of some

kind um but this quickly escalates as jordan's, what if, instead of becoming a carpenter, Jesus had a multi-level marketing scheme? We're going to get to that. Jesus, you can't do it. It's so close. Really kind of the history of Joseph Smith is that basically everywhere he went,

he did a whole lot of fucking around. Yeah. And then came the finding out part. Yeah. Yeah. This is, yeah, this is whole lot of fucking around yeah and then came the finding out part yeah yeah this is yeah this is a lot of like you have to use trash future rules for this too like think of your dumbest idea then go dumber i honestly think i think of joseph smith as being like the fucking logan paul of like this century just like being like an annoying asshole that like no one wanted around he's he's L Ron Hubbard yeah but the only thing I can think about is he's

L Ron Hubbard like he came up with all this lore that's true and would have been he would have been like a Vine star also I think I mean L Ron Hubbard started his own fucking Navy Joseph Smith started his own army well yeah the novel legion is definitely like a Sea Org like with dog uniforms

say what you will about the Sea Org. With dog uniforms. Say what you will about the Sea Org. They got drip. They got drip. I don't know. Joseph Smith was rocking some killer epaulets. That's all I can say. Oh, God. After that, too, they lobbied the governor of Missouri.

The governor of Missouri says, all right, we're going to return your property under guard, all that. We'll do to return your property under guard. All that. We'll do that. But delays keep happening. Delays keep happening. And the saints are just sitting in Clay County. Like, what are we doing here?

It's like, come on, return our property. So Joseph, in December 1833, receives revelation that he is to redeem Zion. So in order to do that, he's got to raise an army. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Tell me, Jordan, what revelation did he receive about that? Doctrine and Covenants 103. The redemption of your brethren who have been scattered on the land of Zion and in avenging of mine enemies was commanded in revelation to gather an army a hundred and strength of my house to go up with you unto the land of Zion. And whoso is not willing to lay down his life for my sake is not my disciple.

It really escalated quickly. Look, I don't mean to like shit on anybody's religion here. I don't know if anybody here is a practicing Mormon. But if my God is going to command me to build an army, a hundred people, that's not even a fucking company. What kind of weak ass shit is this, God? Give me a division. Joe, Joe, Joe. They got to 200.

Okay. God's Legion is an over-strength infantry company. Just a little side note, though, too. just a little side note though too like every time i hear jordan reading these scriptures it just gives me like ptsd from being a kid and like having to wake my ass up at 6 30 in the morning so we could go and have like book of mormon study around the breakfast table every morning which i'd rather wake up early in the morning and do fucking mormon pt bro i would have rather like ran fucking gassers and done like like hundreds of burpees than here verily verily under the it's brutal you have to lay down your life for me oh great joseph smith well i did do rotc at byu for a while so technically

i did oh my oh man like i don't i mean i don't know about these guys uh like i know we all have family that's still practicing um mormon like we have uh you know close friends that are too and even like friends especially can like look at this stuff and talk about how ridiculous it is um and that's that's kind of like a changing tide within the church and we can talk about that at the end but um yeah anyway continue it doesn't get you like excommunicated anymore no it's good no i don't think so i mean no that's just like being trans or gay part but anyway oh yeah you can talk shit you just can't live your life pretty much pretty well said um so in may of 1834 joseph smith had gathered up 200 strong to lead his army to oh hot to missouri from ohio a 900 mile journey so you know we're gonna have some fun right boy we're gonna go redeem zion right we're gonna go do it we're gonna go stop them

we're gonna go return it we going to show those ruffians who's boss, right? One of these new crusaders is like, wait, how long are we marching? Man, fuck this. I'm becoming Jewish. I want you guys to guess what they actually did. Walked about 25

miles and started looting shit. No, no. they made the full journey that's impressive then they did nothing when they got there wait wait wait sorry sorry I misread that they contracted cholera when they got there oh it's your enlistment bonus in the crusading army

you get to shit yourself to death. Oregon trail ass religion. Literally though. So this armed force that was good marching on the power of God, uh, March 900 miles fought. No one, 14 of them died from cholera.

God never tell me not to shit the water supply. And then just marched back. So they're like fucking Abe Simpson at the restaurant. But across the entire United States. Oh my God. Have you ever driven across the United States oh man it's fucking awful could you imagine marching i've never driven long ways but like this is 1834 there weren't roads and fuck that i would shoot myself with the musket i hope they would issued me there's also some

great stories about how like joseph smith's dog was a huge asshole doing this whole thing too like he just brought his like bulldog with him too and there's actually like a funny film like the church produces about two or like one of them's just like as like one of the guys lingering just like i fucking hate this this is bullshit and it's like that's me i would be that guy you know he went like full nero and promoted that motherfucker to major or something like i would just judge it i'd be walking through the plains just like begging that a rattlesnake would bite me i would be harassing every snake that i saw why won't you bite me you pussy just going along the banks of the mississippi just rustling every bush in the hopes like an upper head just bites me please

bite me my flesh is delicious and i'm full of cholera so a lot of like a lot of people were just like young dumb and full of cholera okay sorry continue so everyone pretty much just like hated joseph sm Smith at the end of it too. But this was the sign of like his new leadership. We walked 1800 miles to do nothing but ship my guts on and bury my buddies shallowly because he was discom. He was decomposing too fast.

It's like the ultimate war reenactor simulation of like Napoleon's marching to Russia. Except for it's like a bunch of guys from Ohio marching to Missouri in summertime. As someone from Michigan, I support more men marching away from Ohio. Oh, they'd be marching away from Ohio soon enough.

This is Ohio guys marching to Moscow. Except for it's Moscow, Idaho. Jesus. Just Mormon street fight radio. Just marching to Moscow. I love it. Okay, so where were we? Ah, yes.

So, after this march was over and all that, Joseph Smith would use this as the basis loyal, loyal circle at this point. This is where the 12 apostles comes from, like a new leadership format for the church to be like the upper echelon leadership. And also the first quorum of the 70. Almost all of them were picked directly from people who are on Zion's camp because of of like you guys walked 1800 miles for me you'll probably do anything at this point if you're still around so bad y'all are fucking you're in stupid collected my biggest group of dumb asses i could find none of them have cholera i know

okay so after all this like you can kind of see how like military service to the church became like the Sea Org of Mormonism. Just like you served, you're in. Congratulations. leader. He doesn't seem like he has a good grasp on logistics or supply or any sort of leadership skills whatsoever. Not really good general material, right? No, I would argue he is one of the worst ones we've talked about on the show. Not the

worst because he only killed 14 people. Anyway, in 1840, he named himself a general. Perfect. I also did that. Is it recognized? I don't know, but named himself a general perfect i also did that is it recognized i don't know but i'm a general oh we'll get to that i just want to thank you for your service you could only truly thank thee for my service would you catch cholera so going back to kirtland ohio um He's back in town, all that fun stuff. Kind of mad because the whole Zion's camp thing didn't quite go as planned.

Nice. Anyway, in November 1836, he and 11 general authorities signed with 59 other Mormons in sending out like a warning to a non-Mormon just as the peace to, quote, depart forthwith out of Kirtland. in justice the peace to quote depart forthwith out of kirtland so they're kind of turning a little more militant and actually starting to feel like they uh they feel like they can do some stuff now they got some gravitas so is it justice of the peace back then like actual law enforcement like what it like it's pretty much a judge oh all right we're a whole lot of lawyers so it's like you're not a lawyer but you're wise so here you go wear this please oh so back in the day a justice of the peace would get routed out of his town by a mormon militia now you just marry idiots who show up drunk to your courthouse yes

perfect i'm sure a lot of that happened in kirtland as well so no worries there um so eventually the mormons would be forced to leave kirtland like we talked about and in 1838 they would move to northwest missouri due to pissing off the neighbors inside the community terrifying their neighbors oh and fleecing almost everyone in the church with a fake bank wait there's a fake bank now? Oh, yes. Dude, I told you. It's just an absolute scam. So he really is Jesus Boat and MLM. Yeah. You really need to understand that Joseph Smith is like the Michael Jordan of grifters.

Yeah. So let me introduce you to the Kirtland Anti-Banking Society. Oh, yeah. Let's go. When Joseph Smith took over most of K oh of kirtland ohio he decided he really needed to start a bank well he tried to get start chartered by the state of ohio and they said like no you don't have the liquidity needed to do that and then joseph went like but i already bought the plates to print my own currency what am i supposed to do with this thing that banks do well in the 1830s you did fair enough true but here's how you fix that you call yourself an

anti-bank so you don't have to have a charter unreal dude that just sounds like a loan shark yeah i mean we prefer like a pillar of the community I can use titles too it works out great that sounds like a loan shark that has the power to cause inflation I do so how this bank

failed was that Joseph Smith was running it yeah did the bank also get cholera failed was that Joseph Smith was running it? Yeah. Did the bank also get cholera? That's why all the money was brown. If the money was brown, that's better than what the Curlin Anti-Bank had

because there was no money. Of course there fucking wasn't. It was just clumps of dirt. It's an anti-bank. You put your money in and they go, thank you. And then you just leave.

So it's the most con artist bullshit ever. So in banks those days too, you'd had to have a bill that marched every sort of like precious metal you had in the back. So $1 of currency

had to equal $1 of gold or silver or whatever, right? So what Joseph Smith did, it's like he just put like the precious metals on the top so you'd see him and then the rest underneath it was just like whatever you wanted it to be dirt sand rocks didn't matter it filled the box so joseph smith was an innovator because he invented the ponzi scheme hell yeah dude i filled this box full of bones of people that died on my march he listened he listened to the uh the nine-inch nails of trent resner's song it took the my empire of dirt very very literally oh nice so joseph tried to pretty much say like this is because like the bank treasurer was like like embezzling so much money from it but if you look at it hard enough you like realize

like you just didn't have anything and you just tried to be a big man didn't you like yeah the only way that that could be true that someone was embezzling is you're so fucking stupid someone you didn't realize that someone embezzled literally 100 of your money there's a lot of dirt trailing out of this box of gold weird why don't why do i have all these pockets full of fish tank rocks and not gold it was a big mistake to make andy dufresne my treasurer oh so yeah they had to leave Kirtland, Ohio. And so they moved to Missouri for a little bit. Things went south there as well, too, because the governor of Missouri. Well, there were more clashes because more Mormons moved into Missouri.

And apparently that like if you already had conflict with Mormons in the area, adding more Mormons does not fix that conflict. Does that truly solve any problem? No, not at all. So there were some clashes in Missouri and everything like that. And Governor Lillian Boggs implemented an extermination order against the Mormons. Holy shit. Extermination order against the mormons holy shit extermination order yeah like straight on like uh they have to go one way or another yeah so this is an incredibly

like important piece to uh current mormon lore and like how they see themselves both um and and also how very importantly how they see uh governments and uh like government authority because um and they see themselves as being uh refugees and like very strongly oppressed because of this one event which i mean to be fair there was an actual extermination order out on them just casually doing a genocide in missouri yeah yep yep it happens but um really though is there anything more american than casual genocide no no i mean even the mormons would kind of partake in that quite a bit and we'll get get to that later. That's where they learned the only person that could stop a bad person doing a genocide is us doing a genocide. Pretty.

Yeah, that sounds a lot like a lot of oaths. I saw like Mormons taking at that point. So with that extermination order in place, like and also being forced from Ohio and missouri it would have a pretty profound effect on on mormons there too and so in the settlement of far west missouri formed a new militia movement called the daughters of israel or better known as the danites so if the novel like we talked about this before joe like how the navu legion kind of sound like the Republican guard. Yeah. How everybody was a general. Yeah. Well,

these guys are your fucking Fedayeen. Outstanding. Like these guys are the real like ride or die guys. What would you consider like a Mormon Fedayeen? Like what is like a stereotypical Mormon look like? And what would the Fedayeen look like? Cause like, uh, long beards,

like seven pistols on him. Also just probably has like eight or nine murders on him at least. Yeah. These guys did not mess around. Like, I'm not kidding you. Like the Nauvoo Legion

kind of like at its beginning was just kind of a joke. Like it's just like a bunch of like old guys being mustered. We have now moved on to Mormon Isis. Oh, yeah. Outstanding. like it's just like a bunch of like so wait we guys we've now moved on to mormon isis oh yeah outstanding we'll just call it at this point i keep making jokes that end up being real and i don't know how to take that well here's the pledge that the danites had to take of course

there's a pledge i from this day declare myself the avenger of the blood of those innocent men and the innocent cause of Zion. So, you know, just like a real sort of like, I don't know. I kind of like the church. I make friends on Sunday. No, this is like real. Like, I wipe my blood on your like pant leg after I scalp you sort of level of like the dedication. It's bad.

It's not good. If you ever find yourself in the church where you're starting to take a host like this you need to leave now i'm gonna say if you're ever in a religion that demands a blood oath of you you need to just like just mosey on down the dusty trail like just get the fuck out yeah there might be a militant cult oh yeah um we have a uh we recently did an episode about a group of guys right now who formed an online identity, basically valorizing this entire these specific people and the blood oath and blood atonement part of like this religion that continues to grow over the next few minutes of Jordan teaching us. Yes. So their first purpose was to drive the apostates from their territory. grow over the next few minutes of Jordan teaching us. Yes.

So their first purpose was to drive the apostates from their territory. And this included Oliver Cowdery, who helped translate the Book of Mormon because it was him and Joseph Smith who were putting their head in the hat and just like reading it. And yeah, so both of them did that, too. And also the Whitmer family who were all witnesses to the book of Mormon. Like you're just shattering your own, like your own like foundation myth by like driving these guys out of your camp, which is weird. Yeah.

It's so weird because you'll see all these people like, like as like the formation of the church and then eventually either get driven out or forced out by like the church themselves. They got too close to the grift uh that and also because like they probably got screwed other life savings in the anti-bank ah yeah yeah yeah and for some reason that that has an effect on people you know that would make me pretty upset but then again if i was going to invest in something called the anti-bank something called the anti-bank i don't know what i'm expecting yeah well i mean in the 1830s you didn't really have much options for banks anyway just pretty much like whatever was there yeah i

would rather stuff my life savings down the underwear that i haven't washed in six months or whatever i don't know the 1800s are disgusting awful time okay so the first action the danites was the sacking and burning of the towns of millport and gallantin in missouri where they burned the post office and the county treasurer's office and also just like looted a bunch of houses too here's where we get to the looting finally by the troops because these guys had horses as opposed to just walking finally that kind of helps a little bit better some mobility in this military formation about time and for like the next couple years there would be some pitch battles between like missouri militia and the danites and mormons in general and culminating with the massacre at hans mill where 200 missouri militia just killed 17 mormons jesus

like yeah it was a lot no one really talks about this except for like mormons too because like well like u.s history at that point is like incredibly bloody anyway so it's like it's hard to like make differentiation differentiations between all of that so later on in 1842 a danite or in porter rockwell would shoot governor boggs in his home wounding him in the neck and leaving him for dead. Wait, the Mormon trying to kill the governor. Uh, and the guy that was just mentioned, uh,

was one of Joseph Smith's closest, uh, people in his aura and notably his bodyguard too. Do I have that right? Jordan? Oh yeah. You got that right. Order Rockwell is,

um, yeah, he'd be a big deal of the Mormonism for the time to come. Like he'd be like the U S marshal of Utah. He would be an army scout. He would imagine like applying for the job of, of the provost marshal of Utah or whatever. Like what's your job experience.

I did a lot of political assassinations on that. It was Brigham young doing the hiring. So I'm sure it was just like Orrin, you want to do it? Sure. Tom Cruise on behalf of Scientology going and shooting Gavin Newsom in his room, dude.

There's a lot of beliefs that Joe Smith actually ordered that hit too. Yeah, of course. Porter Rockwell's not going to go shoot a governor off of his own free will. It's like, yeah, he might do it if you saw him in course like porter rockwell's not gonna go shoot a governor off of his own free will it's like yeah he might do it if you like saw him in a bar but he's not gonna go like to his house and shoot him unless like joseph's like take care of it yeah gotcha boss one fun fact though for porter rockwell is that he has the most metal nickname in the history of of mormonism his nickname was old port and also

the destroying angel of mormondom okay i have to admit that fucking rocks yeah he was a hard ass but it fucking rocks yeah imagine like walking into somewhere and like someone asks you what's your name you know like i'm the destroying angel of Mormondom how do you react to that he also thought he had like Samson like power so he never shaved or cut his hair yeah he's got a real like Charles Manson vibe if you take a look at

it he's definitely someone you are on your team even though yeah this guy has absolutely insane at this point yeah Google a picture right now I'm dead serious. Well, what was his name? Oren Porter Rockwell. You just do Porter Rockwell. You'll pull him up. That's like what he

normally went by. Wikipedia has enlisted his American bodyguard. Dude, he looks like you. He's a Red Dead Redemption character. Just straight up, dude. Yeah, he looked, you know, I have to admit, maybe it's because I'm Armenian. I expected his hair to grow as upright as mine does whenever I grow my hair out.

But it looks like this is a man who cared deeply for his looks, even though he never cut his hair. This man used fucking, I don't know, dry conditioner or some shit. His hair is too smooth in this picture. Like this dude is the real life version of judge Holden and blood Meridian. Yeah. That's actually not far off. It probably did use as many N words too.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Oh, definitely. Also a fun fact. He also founded the first distillery in Utah. So,

Oh, I didn't know there's a lot of lick. Yeah. He, that's why there's a lot of liquor named after him, like Porter's Fires because he just brought alcohol to Utah. With the fucking proof of 000.1.

Oh, no. This was when the Mormons could drink. It was later when they decided that they couldn't anymore. Yeah, they didn't really stop drinking until the 20th century because it hurt Heber J. Grant's tummy. Yeah, so they couldn't anymore. Yeah. They didn't really stop drinking to like the 20th century because I heard Heber J. Grant's tummy.

Yeah. So, uh, they could drink here, make a drink. They were drinking a lot at this point. It makes a lot more sense. Yeah.

Anyway, for a lot of fun, I decided to like put in like the church history response from the actual like Mormon churches website, just to see what they say about historical events too. Here's what they have to say about the Danites. It's fun. In addition, Mormon vigilantes, including many Danites, raided two towns believed to be the centers of anti-Mormon activity, burning homes and stealing goods.

While anti-Mormon vigilantes targeted and sometimes killed non-combatant Latter-day Saints, Danites primarily confiscated or destroyed property they feared could be used by their opponents. Historians generally concur that Joseph Smith approved of the Danites, but he probably wasn't briefed on all their plans and likely did not sanction the full range of their activities. The Danites existed for only five months from June through October 1838. Just right in the sweet spot of approving of some of the things they do, but ambiguously leaving out what the things that he didn't approve of were.

I noted they used the word confiscate. That is just known as looting. Yeah, I'm confiscating this jewelry box because it might be loaded into a cannon for grapeshot. Who's to say? As you walk away with eight bracelets

and a fucking clock for a necklace. What are you doing with that grandfather clock? Could be a weapon. Who knows? It could comically drop from a building onto our troops. They could push it off from the church tower and hurt someone. All right. So I have little tidbits of this too

because i always like went back to see what the church said about certain things and be like well it's like that meme like yes there was slavery but yeah so the mormons are moving to illinois all the mormons of region had finally moved to a town called commerce and which they quickly named a navoo which they believed believed was a Hebrew word for beautiful place. I don't know for sure. It sounds like something that they would think meant something, but actually means nothing. Kind of like the state name for Idaho. I'm going to assume that Joseph Smith wasn't actually fluent in Hebrew.

Safe assumption. He definitely wasn't fluent in ancient Egyptian ancient egyptian despite his best efforts so there's a funny story about that actually what he translated the pearl of great price because what happened was while he was in navoo a mummy salesman came through the town yes in the 1800s there were mummy salesmen because we just like looted every like Egyptian tomb we could find back then. We use them for kindling. They did that. So this guy brings in like some mummies and some funeral parchment and Joseph Smith's like, Oh,

it's the lost story of Moses because like L Ron Hubbard, like Joseph Smith could find stories that just like make it out of nothing. And so like he did this fake, he did this translations of what became the Pearl of Great Price out of ancient, out of hieroglyphics, essentially. And so Martin Harris decided to take the translations over to, I think it was the University of Illinois at Champlain. So he goes to like their antiquities departments, like, Hey, my friend translated this. Can you tell me if he's right? And according to the church, I swear to God, like to the church,

they said like the professor was, Oh wow, this is so accurate. Where did you get this? And then like Martin Harris, who was the name of the guy, is like an angel helped. And then like the guy's like, I cannot allow you to leave with this. I have to tear it up here. I cannot say that this is accurate now because an angel said it. When in actuality, the professor was like, I never said that. What the fuck?

No, it was a different historian. He goes to school in Canada. you wouldn't know him exactly it was like the most like it was the most like marine todd thing ever to just like knock me off my stool and like i did it because i'm actually fluent in ancient egyptian and yeah it's a dumb story. Absolutely. Tough scene. Tough scene. So anyway, back to where we were. Commerce, Illinois, renamed Nauvoo, Hebrew for beautiful place. Done with that.

In 1840, John C. Bennett, a high ranking member of the church and first mayor of Nauvoo, would be dispatched to Springfield to negotiate with the state government to pass a charter of the city, including recognizing adopting a new militia. After working with the legislature, including Abraham Lincoln, yay, go Abe, the charters for both the city and the militia were approved. So now we get to the fun Nauvoo Legion. Here we go. So organizational legion began from the top down. Also took all the terms from like roman history i have

no idea why i'm thinking it's just because joseph smith was like a history weeb so yeah he's like he's someone that's very clearly gets into history but like only watches like the history channel who yeah that's it he like that sounds about right really embraced nicholas cage's character and national treasure he just made that his personality every 50 year old single dad who says he's he's he's kind of into world war ii yeah honestly nicholas cage with him like perfect casting for joseph smith he is crazy enough and they got like similar like bone structure in their face. Yeah, kind of got the like slooping nose.

You look like birds. Also, Joe, I don't really appreciate you stereotyping me. You're not 50 years old. You still got time. You could start a history podcast. By just watching the history channel. Yeah, I mean, that's all I do.

It's fine. I don't actually study anything. That's it. We're changing formats. So the novel Legion with one cohort of Calvary and one of infantry, besides the Legion remain priest cohort. That's great. Yeah. I know.

Like I said, history, we, but that's like the greatest, like, yeah, I read Josephus. What's up?

I am the dictator of Utah. Uh, uh, Hey Brigham, could you call me Imperator, please? Oh, my God. I am the Kaiser of BYU. Okay, so the size of the Legion remained pretty steady, like 2,500 to 3,000. Kind of the highest it got was like 5,000 at any given time, which is kind of incredible. It doesn't sound that impressive for like a fighting force until you realize like the standing US army at the time was like 8,000. Yeah, it was virtually nothing. The standing

federalized US military was almost nothing until post, until around World War I. Pretty much like we had no standing military until then like all of it was volunteers and militia for the most part so still may not be the best thing for like a religion to have like a militia of 5 000 people and be like the largest fighting force in the state of illinois at any given time it can't possibly lead to bad things jordan uh we will get to that oh no so joseph smith like i said before named himself a general but not just any general he named he gave himself the rank of lieutenant general in which there hadn't been any since george washington in the united states at all yes that yeah that is the most like just reaching for the sky rank i've ever heard in my life too

it's like i'm a militia general in the middle of illinois i'm a militant general there is deep love for the founding fathers in the mormon religion like there's like famously like a lot of mormon paintings that like oh there's also lore that like some of the founding fathers uh accepted the gospel after like in the afterlife right in in the temple that's that's very much a thing yeah it was like that was what like wilford woodruff had like said like all the founding fathers came to him as like yes do our temple work sir so we can be in heaven that's right that's that's right i forgot the mormon church can do posthumous baptismals can't they yep baptism for the dead that's the thing that doesn't sound i mean like i i know like consent probably isn't a big thing here but like you can't like baptize someone against their will yes you can't come on you

can if they're there's also really bad record keeping because like anne frank's been baptized like 57 times hitler's been done like 14 times stalin's got like three times oh my god dude she's been baptized more than like the additions than like the amount of times her journal's been printed does the church like do they baptize communists? Like is there like a strict anti-communist? Oh no, they need to be redeemed most of all because they were misled on earth. They're so anti-Semitic they have to baptize a dead Jewish

girl fucking three dozen times to make sure. Jewish organizations that have like begged the church multiple times, please stop baptizing Holocaust victims. Oh my gosh. And it keeps happening that's like my new favorite horrible fact please stop just please we've told you guys so many times we're begging you i know like but they

would need redemption too it's like no they don't no they don't just leave it it's fine you can't baptize i'm assuming hundreds thousands of holocaust victims but also like yeah we're gonna baptize hitler four times too it's all good man hitler and averbron needed their temple work done okay hitler already did a lot of really good temple work. It was just with a handgun. I'm so glad this is on your feed. I'm so glad this is on your. God bless you,

Joe. I love you so much. Oh, I am more proud of that joke than any joke. I've ever set on this show before you know what it is you just needed the Mormons to bring out the best in you it takes a lot to shake

like my childhood Mormon core and that boy that one in my toes across the dominational layup oh okay well let's go to I got that one in my toes. Fuck, man. Across the dominational layup. Slam. Okay, well, let's get to the best thing possible,

which is billets for military units, because that's a very fun thing to talk about. Anyway, very top-heavy organization. They love staffing the top levels of it, too. So in addition to being lieutenant general, he was also president of the court martial because he just loved like accepting like military terms.

Of course. Also, he's like, I think Joseph Smith made himself like lieutenant general because he thought it would make him immune from any sort of like court martial possible

because you can't court martial me. I'm a higher rank than all of you. That's so funny. Five star general was a thing. He absolutely would have made himself one. Oh, he'd make himself six. He'd go on with the Persian rank.

Oh, man. It's like when Michael Jordan was a player coach in space camp. It's a baller move, dude. With the same record. The Nauvoo Legion is the Washington Wizards of American Militias. I'm just so washed. So he would also have two aid to camps, as cavalry colonels a guard of 12 all of which were infantry captains and the drill officer that was a dragoon captain you know just kidding it all the yeah they didn't

have that many like men to like have to rank this many colonels and all that so i don't know what they're doing 5 000 people at most they they're they're measuring like one general per company oh man uh they would have one major general john c bennett who was pretty much like the xo like they had a bunch of major generals like pretty much the entire quorum of the 12 apostles were all made major generals for some reason but nice yeah but you had to have like one xo at a time an an executive officer. So John C. Bennett, who was a physician and also, like I said, was the first mayor in Nauvoo. He would have an adjutant, a surgeon, a bugler, a quartermaster, a paymaster, a commissary, a chaplain, and all of whom would be like infantry colonels, a sergeant major, a chief musician who would be a light infantry captain. I don't know why a militia needs a chief musician, but then again, Mormonism loves music for some reason, at all levels.

Yep. So this is all just for him. Yeah. Yeah. So he personally has a band guy. Yeah, dude. He just constantly plays his favorite song whenever he enters a room and only

him. He's just fancy. Dude, he's a fancy live fancy i mean like i i like i'm jealous uh new pay if i hit if my patreon grows that high i'm i'm getting a band guy dude i don't go anywhere but i'll have one yeah if you're i mean honestly if you're gonna if you're in the 1800s and you're going to make a religion and all of this, this is the way to do it. He laid out the perfect outline where you are just like

you have like 20 girlfriends. You have a band guy that just follows you everywhere. You have like an army of dipshits that'll walk 2,000 miles and die just to go set up camp next to a river. It's awesome.'s this is perfect

joseph's like the purveyor of dude's rock yeah oh for more reasons than you think anyway moving on john c bannett would eventually be excommunicated from the church because that man loved to get down that's the only way you can really put that um he told women around the city that he could induce abortions on them if he got them pregnant and and also was really big on the concept of spiritual wife taking wait he fucks ghosts uh please don't make it be that stupid it kind of is this is pretty much where polygamy comes from okay so his big problem he probably didn't get excommunicated for the spiritual wife taking but because he discussed saying that joseph smith like doing it yep so like it's less that you said that you did it it's more that you said that you did it. It's more that you said I did it. Yeah, don't be a snitch. Like Emma's really mad at me now.

Way to go, man. His wife. This was our secret. You also had two Brigadier Generals, Don Carlos Smith, who's Joseph's brother, soon died of malaria. Forget about him, whatever. Blah, boom.

This white man from New York, his name is Don Carlos. Sorry, continue. And also Wilson Law, This white man from New York. His name is Don Carlos. Sorry. Continue. And dies of malaria. And also Wilson Law, who would later replace Bennett as major general after he got fucked out of the army. Perfect. Literally. Literally fucked his way out of the army.

The only man ever to do that. Well, since Don't Ask, Don't Tell tell i suppose yeah there it is um wilson law would be the other brigadier general and then later replace bennett as major general he would be excommunicated in 1844 along with his brother and they would both form a newspaper called the navoo expositor which then like pretty much just talked about how joseph smith was like a traitor to the country who formed like a council of 50 to eventually overthrow the country that was all true oh so yeah Joseph was really big on this concept called theocratic democracy I do not like the sound of that it's not good no which doesn't really sound very very democratic to me but Iran has elections. It'll be fine. That's pretty much like where it goes from.

And so they formed this newspaper and do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Oh yeah. They had 13 major generals in any given time because of course they did.

You can, you can never lose a war if you have so many generals planning sex. Exactly. Like just like the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, except for just like in Illinois. The first human wave attack committed by only generals because there's so many. Actually, I'm fine with that.

Actually, that's not a bad idea. I encourage it just for training. That part might have to get cut out. I did not say anything. I already read. Okay. Okay. In June,

1844, Joseph Smith placed Nauvoo under martial law in response to turmoil that erupted from that newspaper I was talking about. He also ordered the destruction of the printing press that was manned by the law brothers who were former generals in his army so dumb I know like all former generals that go on to write a shitty book and

despite all of this the reason they were arrested was because of the destruction of the printing press not the martial law thing not like trying to subvert democracy or anything the printing press. Not the martial law thing, not like trying to subvert democracy or anything. The printing press. Listen, guys, democracy dies in darkness. Sure does.

They were only talking about the destruction of property. That sounds also incredibly American. You can kill as many people as you want, but if you break that fucking window, I swear to God. Anyway, Joe and Hiram were then taken to Carthage jail in Carthage,

Illinois, where they were supposed to be under the guard of the Carthage grays. But the moment that any sort of, uh, any sort of action happened, they all left. And then Joseph and Hiram died in a gun battle. So how'd they get a gun in prison?

Uh, friends snuck it in and they just. So how'd they get a gun in prison? Friends snuck it in and they just, they had like a pepper box gun. Like one of those like early six shooters. Just jamming an entire old timey revolver up your own ass. Yeah. You really. Like it's the watch in Pulp Fiction.

I've kept this revolver in my ass for so many years. It's hard to really describe how valorized the death of Joseph Smith is. There's been countless Mormon art pieces in every medium you could possibly come up with to depict what took place there. And, yeah, it's like one of the it's it's certainly a cornerstone it's it's i'm trying to i'm trying to think of a star wars reference to complete the the loop back but it's it's luke finding out you know darth vader is his father type of foundational it's like you can't it's like the crucifixion too yeah oh it really is it really is they wrote a song yeah they did well there's there's plenty of yeah it's christ too furious

no there's literally a song about like how like the church worships like joseph smith you called praise to the man it's like it's set to this it's set to the music of like scotland the brave yeah except it's all about how like joseph smith is a martyr i'm dead serious it couldn't even come up with their own fucking beat.

Oh, so many of the hymns are just reused, but rewritten with Mormon lyrics. I can't wait until they reuse WAP. That might happen, but when Glass Knight became Mormon, she looked at the hymn book and was like, you guys gotta actually write your own music. This sucks.

By the way, Glass Knight's Mormon. Yep, she is. Anyway, so Joseph Smith died. The church doesn't really know what to do with themselves because they had kind of like the same sort of succession process as say Islam did after Muhammad died.

A lot of them are like, well, should we follow Smith's bloodline and just make his son prophet? well should we follow smith's bloodline and just like make his son prophet or should we follow his top advisor and just follow brigham young sorry i am sunni mormon that would make you a brighamite yeah oh shit yep yeah uh shia uh mormon is like the reorganized church of jesus christ a letter in his days which now I think call themselves like the community of Christ. They're a lot cooler. They don't really like believe half the stuff like,

like mainstream Mormonism does. And yeah, like down when it comes right down to it, not half bad. Abridged Mormonism. Pretty much. Solid. Take the good stuff.

So Brigham Young kind of takes over the Nauvoo Legion, but at this point it's just pretty much like an organized mob. Like you don't have a charter anymore because you got forced out of your city. So sorry, bro. The vibe. Like take your mob and get out. So anyway, Joe, what do you do when you're down on your luck and in need of a lot of money and kind of on the verge of being homeless.

Start a Patreon. Close. You join the army. Also. Yes. So this is around the same time that the, the Mexican American war starts. Oh no.

We deploy. Oh yes. We deploy these people against Mexico. mexico didn't we uh yeah so general stephen kearney was recruiting for his army of the west and a very connected army officer by the name of thomas kane uh petitioned president uh president for like, hey, wouldn't it be cool if we went and recruited all these guys who essentially have their own army still, but not really doing much in Iowa now? Oh, no. Sure. And so here's how we got the Mormon Battalion, the only

organization in U.S. Army history to actually be based solely on a religious organization yeah hell yeah so there's something super interesting about like you know what i was taught growing up around the mormon battalion um specifically with how it ties into how polygamy influenced the church and how it was a part of the church. Like when I was really young, I was taught explicitly that the reason why polygamy was part of the church was because all of the men had to go away while serving in the Mormon battalion.

So there were all these women that just like didn't have any husbands. And so like the Lord commanded Brigham young in particular, who's left with all of these women because all the men went away that like you guys got to get married now because we need to because we need in order for the women to be taken care of you have to be married to them like institutional jodyism exactly so he he bought sheba the entire army yeah i mean it's just basic economics guys when you've got a surplus of pussy i mean so yeah like i like from i i distinctly remember being taught that and it wasn't until later when we found out oh wait joseph smith had other wives wait why why i thought

the reason for polygamy was because they all went all the men went to war oh so they retconned the story and created plot holes yep yeah they uh that was the spiritual wifery we talked about earlier with the former general john c bennett who uh like a lot like a big chunk of the church learned about joe smith having wives like 10 years ago like literally that recently that was not yeah yeah the church started putting out all these like essays too because people were just learning all their history from the internet and it's like uh you might need to get ahead of this now yeah anyway which is fun anyway so they formed the Mormon battalion like I said to Brigham Young gave a quote saying I wish them

to make a distinction between this action by the general government and our former oppressors in Missouri and Illinois. Suppose we were admitted into the Union as a state and the government did not call on us. We would feel ourselves neglected. Let Mormons be the first to set their feet on the soil of California. This is the first offer we have ever had from the government to benefit us. Captain Allen, you shall have your battalion if it has to be made up of our elders. Come, brethren, let us volunteer.

He sounds very sort of like... He just sounds so patriotic there, right? Yes, he does. So, like, are they leaving the entire command structure in place full of just dudes who call themselves general on the weekends? No, not necessarily. Like, this isn't necessarily the same sort of structure, is it? Because unlike Joseph Smith, Brigham Young is a way better leader.

Yeah. Like this man, this man was built for what happened, what they choose to do, and what happens next. To continue our Scientology metaphor there, too, if Joseph Smith is L. Ron Hubbard, Brigham Young is David Miskovich, to his core. Joseph was the dreamer, and Brigham Young is the

executioner. He's the doer. I don't like the sound of that. Oh, no, it gets worse. He's the CEO. Oh, no, it gets worse. He's the CEO. Oh, you said it. So Brigham knew he needed PR. He needed a desperate PR victory for the church anyway,

especially how they were pushed out of Nauvoo and Illinois. I mean, also Missouri and also Ohio. He's been pushed out of three states now. Like at this point, too, at the going rate, he's been pushed out of like 25% of the country at this point. Only like eight more and he's got himself a confederacy. That's right. Well, this is why we need the Mexican-American War so we can form so many more states to get kicked out of. So he knew he needed the PR victory. He also knew that volunteering his followers would give a copious

amount of funds needed to move the Saints westward because it's not like you're going to let them get their pay. Oh man, that's that's so much. That's so much better grip. Like, you know, I joined the military because I had nothing going for me. But like imagine getting a 5000 dudes

to join the military for you because you have nothing going for you. That's that's incredible. Oh, exactly. Also, like the Army today, too, that I so love myself, they didn't spend their uniform allowance on uniforms. How would you, dude? Been there.

Same. Very much the same. Instead, they took that $42 that they were given to every single one of those soldiers who enlisted and used it to buy wagons and teams to move the Saints westward to what would eventually become Utah. Also, they got a way better uniform allowance back then because I looked at that $42 in 1846 is equal to $1,400. Holy fuck. Man, my liver would feel that one. I'd be dead. You give me that like 1400 in korea dead yeah would you get 1400 to destroy yourself with you gotta like go to the next level beyond been drinking like i guess i'm picking up ivy drugs so they got they got a joe biden check

worth of uniform money no hell yes i do that. Yeah, except, no, no, no. They actually got it. Except they actually got the money. Yeah. Well, not technically. Brigham still got it. I mean, Brigham Young got a lot of COVID checks. Oh, my God. So you're saying is in order to get COVID relief,

I need to start my own church? Yep. That's the only way. So listen, if Tom Brady can get a PPP loan. Yeah, dude. much so listen if tom brady can get a ppp loan i mean technically we're an llc for tax reasons so yeah i'm gonna file that shit let's go so legionnaires did make up the bulk of the force though but like the command structure was nowhere near the same they were actually put under under actual army officers, like actual US army officers instead of the standard.

No, we're not going to let you guys lead yourself again. You'll probably shoot us. No. You'll invade, I don't know, Wyoming. There's nothing in Wyoming to invade. Especially not in 1840s. So they did the longest march in US militarys. So they did the longest march in U.S. military history. Again?

Again. We're seasoned for it. They did 1,800 miles. So they did the 1,200 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa, all the way to San Diego. Remix. We're not good at shooting, but goddamn, can we walk? Oh, and similarly to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii, they also set up a Mormon history outpost in San Diego.

So if you go to Old Town San Diego, you can go and see where the Mormon battalion march to and eat some Mexican food because that was apparently part of their journey, they claim. But hey, you know, good times. We stopped and got a Crunchwrap Supreme. They also saw No Combat, too. but hey you know good times we stopped we got a crunch wrap supreme they also saw no combat too so they just like marched

1200 miles they did run to like a small village of like Mexican like territorial soldiers who just like ran off no so they technically like captured Tucson but there was nothing there to capture.

Huge dub. Huge dub. And they got to celebrate and all the Saints moved to Utah based off of the money they got from that deployment. Because just like today, you get that deployment money and you buy that wagon. So go for it, man. Utah came with

24% interest. Thank goodness when they got to Utah, no one was there though, right, Jordan? deployment money and you buy that wagon so go for it man utah came with 24 interest thank goodness when they got to utah no one was there though right jordan oh yeah just this weird open space certainly certainly nothing bad happened next uh this is where it kind of turns oh boy like for the worst this is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of this oh yeah actually as a matter of fact so 1847 utah moves into the uh into the salt lake valley july 24th which is pioneer day here it's a holiday we get to take it off if we honor those sometimes so with that it was established as a territory in 1849 first off as a state of deseret because brigham young tried to claim everything. We're taking California.

We're taking Nevada. We're taking Arizona. We're taking Colorado. We're taking Idaho. We're taking Wyoming. All of it belongs to us. The state of Deseret was like half the size of Russia. It's just that he's just like, yeah, no, this is ours now.

And then the U.S. government kindly told Brigham Young, no, you're not taking the entire landmass of the continent we just conquered. Nice try though. And so they just gave them Utah. In 1850, it was established as a territory and the Nauvoo Legion was reestablished as a territorial militia.

We're back in business, baby. Oh boy. All these generals finally have jobs again. It's just a job program for idiots with big shoulder epaulets. Well, luckily once again, Brigham young was a way better leader than Joseph Smith was. So he made it much more decentralized to he like,

he let every County essentially run like their own detachment of the Nauvoo Legion. Like, okay, you're a major you're in charge of this County. Leave me alone. That's it. It seems like it could be a problem. We're going to get to that.

So first of all, like Kyle said, there was people already in Utah. As a matter of fact, quite a few of them because valleys are really nice to settle into, especially in like areas where it gets kind of snowy so you can actually like stay warm sometimes and of course because wherever like white settlers go there has to be violence that follows we get to the point where it gets really really rough uh first off we're going to talk about is the provo river massacre at fort utah the Provo River Massacre at Fort Utah. Oh, which, yeah, it's, it's not fun. In 1849, a youth,

a youth chief by the name of old Bishop attempted to confront some hunters who were tracking deer on the land at the Mormons. The tribe agreed would not be left. That would be left alone to the indigenous populations there. So like they said, pretty much like three miles out of like the Salt Lake Valley, we'll leave you alone. It's fine

so these guys go up there to kill a deer he runs into him like hey this isn't your land don't do this well they just straight up murder him okay and then take his body to the Provo River and then weigh it down with stones because what's better than

than just killing a guy but an extra fuck you on top of it guys I, I got an idea. We did this at the bank. No, no, no. You just stones and dirt. Let's do it.

It's fine. Just as heavy as gold, man. No one will know. So after this, because the Tibbinogas people like realized like, Hey, our friend is gone.

Then eventually he just floated up. It's like, oh, wonderful. So they got mad and they started shooting at cattle and stealing the Mormons corn because I would. You killed my buddy. Well, the Mormons weren't going to have any of that. So on January 31st, 1850, Isaac Higbee, who's the bishop of Fort Utah, met with Brigham Young and the church and militia leadership. Young wanted the Utah Valley since it's much more fertile than Salt Lake Valley because it actually had an honest freshwater lake as opposed to the gigantic salt lake that Salt Lake Valley has because you can't grow crops with that. Nope.

But with water in Utah Valley, you could. So, since he wanted that land, he put in an extermination campaign against the Timpanogos, ordering every man killed, but the women and children spared if they behaved. That sounds like weirdly familiar. Oh, they learned it from Missouri. From you, Dad.

I learned it from watching you. We were the baddies the whole time always were on february 8th the legion attacked the timpanogos camp which is led by chief big elk uh the legion attacked in armored sleds which i didn't realize that was a thing until i started researching this but apparently they just like threw like like metal plates on the front of sleds because like people who were coming through California would go through Utah Valley and trade with the Timonogos guns and ammo.

They were lock, stock, and ready to rock. It's like Mad Max Winter Edition. Pretty much. Just like Santa's got a brand new bag. Santa's got a motherfucking technical. Yeah, he technically would

be a technical now I think about that. Maybe it doesn't have wheels. I don't know. I'll allow it. I'll allow. Yeah, technically a technical. So the first day in conclusive, the the Timpanogos were pretty dug in didn't happen.

The following days, they pretty much just broke the camp and the timbanogas had to flee to just two detachments kind of went up one went up rock canyon which isn't pretty much near a canyon just in provo big elk led a bunch of like wounded people up that canyon the rest of them just fled towards spanish fork which is to the south yeah it's like literally right behind brigham young university. So it's quite the university is just built in the on Indian burial grounds, essentially.

Jesus Christ. Yeah. The Mormon, the Legion detachment that went up Rock Canyon found Big Elk's corpse, a couple of other dead and around 20 prisoners. They also found Big Elk's wife at the bottom of a large cliff face, which the Mormons from there to the present would call Squaw Peak in honor of her because they are fucking monsters.

Squaw Peak is where BYU students go to give each other over the pants handjobs. You can just drive up there and yeah. And it's literally still called Squaw Peak now. And they are just barely getting around to renaming it. Oh, are they actually renaming it it like it came up like this year i don't think provo has quite done it yet but it's probably gonna happen so it's i'm so fucking tired of cancel culture dude i had no idea this was why it was called squad peak i figured it was some shit like that and then i read through some of like the stuff you had written out. And I'm just like,

Jesus Christ, of course it is. You know, other than the fact that it's called that, like how many in the pants loads have been fired out there by college literally like it's, it's a makeout spot. It's like a high school college kid makeout spot.

And it's called squat peak. Yeah, God. It's like if Auschwitz became a fucking like a place just hang out and fuck your girlfriend. That's fucking terrible.

Yeah. If like Auschwitz hadn't been like turned into what it is, it's exactly, it's exactly, it's just like where a bunch of people

were massacred. Oh, God. Anyway, as the motto of your show goes, it gets worse. How does it get worse than dead woman jerk off point? It gets worse.

God damn it. Okay, bud. So at the end of the battle, about 102 Timpanogos were killed. It could be even more. They don't really know because honestly, they didn't really keep good body counts back then because they didn't give a fuck about these people.

Kind of is in line with pretty much everything else in the time period, especially against indigenous people. But what happens afterwards is even more egregious than anything else because just listen to this. A government physician by the name of Dr. James Blake and a couple of legionaries decapitated the dead and used their bodies for medical research.

Jesus, this is closer to Auschwitz than I thought. Yeah. Yeah. It gets worse. Oh, God damn it. The heads were displayed in front of the prisoners that were mostly women and children who would then be shipped off the Mormon households to be servants and slaves. Oh, fuck. Yep.

Yeah. and slaves oh fuck yeah yeah so i'm curious uh how many of of the people who threatened women and children with decapitated heads are now like i don't know canonized bishops of the church or whatever it's best not to think about it anyway here's what our fun church history blob has to say about this oh boy i can't wait nevertheless for the most part the saints had more amicable relations with indians than did settlers in other areas of the american west brigham young enjoyed friendships with several american indian leaders and taught his people to live peacefully with their indian neighbors whenever possible wait whenever possible that's interesting so this is the part where they say that they're like but he was no angel yeah about the people they fucking decapitated uh yeah i also liked that they had to throw in there he has some native american friends yes of course i

i have an indigenous friend defense anyway now we get to the fun utah war which is actually all it said yeah there's more about it too but like kind of talks about like all the atrocities but it's like um we were still nicer to the native americans than most people in the west so uh you know maybe temper your expectations a tad good congratulations guys we're the we're the fastest kids at fat camp. Even then, I don't know if that's true because I've read things in the American West. I have not heard of hanging

decapitated heads in front of your future slaves. They didn't even do that fucking wounded knee. That's some Game of Thrones shit. Although, since we're speaking about atrocities committed against like indigenous people, too, we can also talk about the Bear River Massacre, which is like the largest indigenous massacre in American history. But wait, I thought you had better relations. Oh, yeah.

This was 1862, though. So, you know, we didn't have to focus on that because the Civil War, it happened the same year as Sand Creek had a larger body count than Sand Creek, but the commander of this massacre actually got promoted general as opposed to Chivington who just got like court-martialed for it. A lot of the same circumstances behind it too, mainly because the Mormons wanted to happen. Yep. Also the scout for that art union army detail was Orin,

Orin Porter Rockwell. Again, he comes back. Oh, God damn it. I know. Okay, so the Utah War, the part where almost Civil War happens before the actual Civil War happens. In the 1850s, tensions between the U.S. government

and Brigham Young would boil over into near conflict and President Buchanan would take the most decisive action of his presidency, which god is not saying much no it is not no i'm glad he deployed troops somewhere though that's that's a plus he should have deployed it to richmond but oh well yeah um so there's a few causes behind this too. Jim Bridger getting forced out of his trading post by Mormons, especially by a guerrilla desperado lawyer, Danite by the name of Bill Hickman, who's another insane person who keeps popping up at little levels everywhere.

Just a regular everyday militant lawyer. Well, and like old Western sort of like a lawyer. I mean, like he's like, like Doc Holliday was a like doc hollyday was a dentist i mean it just it's weird yeah but back then dentistry was like yeah i have players blood doesn't scare me i enjoy the screams of people also brigham young was like really sort

of like antagonistic towards the federal government especially in speeches too so like he would have these massive things because they were going through a quote-unquote reformation there where brigham young just went around there and made a bunch of crazy speeches like this is where he starts talking about blood atonement a lot oh boy yeah it's fun i'll tell me if you don't know it is where if you cut someone if someone sins so severely that you have to drain their blood in order to actually like to essentially pay for those sins because even jesus's sacrifice will not cover that and so like i didn't realize that was a tenement of mormon belief for any point when did that go away um i'm going to assume more recently than i imagine i don't know if it has gone

oh there's still a lot of people who believe in it and there's a reason why utah held on to the firing squad for so long it's just kind of frowned upon now yeah it's very frowned upon anyway we'll get the fun things now because federal judges were a real problem in utah especially the ones that were that were appointed by buchanan let me introduce you to ww drummond who was named to the territorial supremeial Supreme Court by President Buchanan. Drummond hated the Mormons and they hated him just as much. Much of that hatred came from when he introduced his wife to Mormon social circles. The only problem is that wasn't his wife, but Ada Carroll, a prostitute he brought with him from Washington.

Perfect. Respect. In fact, she also used to sit on court cases and give her counsel on sentences, too. Hell yeah. I can only imagine just how Utah felt about that, too. It was just like, this lady just comes over and whispers to the judge,

like, oh yeah, guilty. Hang. Done. I now present my counsel, the sex worker I brought with me wait what did she say number one wife guy of all time uh threats towards drummond would come a lot especially by bill hickman who we just mentioned to to the point where here to move his court to current day carson city which was at the time uh part of the Utah Territory,

because despite the fact that they shrunk the territory down, it was still pretty much all of Nevada as well. Fun stuff. And eventually the threats got so bad that him and Ada would flee to San Francisco and then back east where they shared all sorts of horrific stories about the Mormons, especially about how they were going to come and destroy us all and overthrow the all and overthrow the government and such.

This isn't all on Buchanan either. Pierce and Fillmore were also bad at communicating with Mormons and appointing officials that were just openly antagonistic with the Mormons anyway. So at a certain point, it's just like, if you keep sending people that hate the people that are supposed to serve, the people that are supposed to serve, hate people they're supposed to serve hate you back. Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. Makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. Following the 1856 election and the stories of many federal officials like Drummond relaying their experiences in Utah, James Buchanan proclaimed the Utah Territory an open revolt and ordered Brigham Young replaced as territorial governor. Of course, Buchanan informed everyone of this except for Brigham Young replaced as territorial governor. Of course, Buchanan informed everyone of this except for Brigham Young. Brigham Young would not hear

about this until General Daniel Wells, who was the commander of the Legion at the time, informed him of the cancellation of the Overland Mail Contract on the 24th of July, 1857, the same day as the 10th anniversary celebration of the Saints moving into Salt Lake Valley. Good timing.

Great timing. General Albert Sidney Johnson would lead an expedition of 2,500 men from, I think, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Brigham Young Singh and Harmey being formed and coming to Utah declared martial law and mobilized the Nauvoo Legion to prepare for an invasion. Brigham ordered the Nauvoo Legion and the scouting parties in the field, including Colonel Robert Burton, to take the detachment of the Far East South Pass on the Continental Divide. Colonel Lot Smith was to command a company of guerrillas to harass the army wagon trains near the Green River, while Porter Rockwell and Bill Hickman and their Danites

would also harass portions of the forest that were straggling up in the rear. So they were just getting ready. We can already see that Brigham is a way better military commander than joseph smith ever was yeah joseph i can't see joe from what you've told me of joseph smith i cannot see him pulling this off no he would just tell him to stand down and then he gets killed yeah like if it was brigham young and like the position of joseph smith was in carthage

like i don't think he would have died like They would have probably just skipped town, but they would have skipped town with everyone alive. Or he'd have a better weapon shoved up his ass and waiting for him in prison. Anyway, I traveled through time and brought this AK-47. In the midst of all

the saber rattling between the Mormon church and the government comes the unluckiest bastards to ever travel the West and was the most significant action carried out by the Legion that's history. The Fansher Party was a wagon train of upper middle class Arkansans.

Arkansans? I can never say that right. I think you had it right. The Arkansans. Is that really? Yeah, either way. I guess. I don't know. I don't think I've ever even met anybody from Arkansas before. I've never. I don't think I have either. I don't think I have either. We'll look up the style guide later. In July of 1857, they were on their way to California because they were going to go prospect and all that fun stuff.

When they reached Salt Lake City in attempts for resupply before they headed through Southern Utah, what they found was a city locked down and ready for war and siege. through southern Utah, what they found was a city locked down and ready for war and siege. So procuring supplies really doesn't happen very easily when you're thinking you're going to be under siege by the U.S. government. So the Fanshawe Party decided to continue on and move southward even more. At the same time of their journey came news that a popular church apostle, Parley P. Pratt, had been murdered in Arkansas. So you're getting, you're starting to see it kind of come in here a little bit. Yep. Just a bunch of all the wagon trains were traveling. The novel legion of Southern Utah decided to get retribution for the fallen

apostle. Isaac C. Haight, a Mormon stake president angrily told the church meeting on September 6th that the Gentiles will not leave us alone. They have followed us and unhounded us. And now they are sending an army to exterminate us. So far as I am concerned,

I have been driven from my home for the last time. So they mean business. This does not bode well for a random group of people at the wrong place at the wrong time. No, it does not. On the 7th of September, the group of Paiute warriors that were in kind of collusion with the Mormons attacked the wagon train, forcing the Fancher Party to defend themselves by fortifying their train, literally circling the wagons.

Yeah. After four days of being cut off from water and their livestock, Major John D. Lee of the Naval Legion and the adopted son of Brigham Young approached the party under the white flag. He promised to lead the train to nearby Cedar City for their safety, but first they had to surrender all their weapons in order not to revoke another attack from the Paiutes. The Navajo Legion then walked the settlers with one guard per member of the party. Down the road, Major John Higbee screamed to the guards, halt, do your duty. Every soldier then turned and fired at the person they were guarding. Those that survived the volley were then killed by the Paiute warriors who emerged from behind cover and bludgeoned the survivors to death.

Oh, God. After that, there was a hasty burial of the 120 to 140 dead. Holy shit. Yeah, only those below the age of eight were spared. And since they did such a hasty job of burying everyone, most of the bodies were subject to scavengers and vultures due to the shoddy attempt. Eventually, the army would arrive and attempt to rebury what they found because they just found it scattered all over the valley. And the army then erected a monument that said, vengeance is mine, thus saith the Lord, I shall repay. Later down the road in 1861, when Brigham Young would visit the site,

he had the monument torn down. He responded to the inscription and said, it should be vengeance is mine. And I have taken a little. So yeah, I'm going to assume that the, the church does not have a whole lot to say on the mountain meadows, my massacre.

I'm glad you asked that because they do. Oh, boy. Here's just a little tidbit from their little article on that. Two facts make the case even more difficult to fathom. First, nothing that any of the immigrants purposely did or said, even if all of it were true, came close to justifying their deaths. Second, and get ready for this. The large majority of perpetrators led decent nonviolent lives before and

after the massacre. This sounds like, like the grand jury's decision after a cop murder someone. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like group of lone wolves. It's we find that the Nauvoo Legion did not violate protocol.

Just a bad apple, guys. It wasn't even a bad apple, really. It's like a bunch of apples and each one of them has just like a tiny little rotten spot on the apple that just got cut out one day and then it was totally fine before and after that.

And isn't there some kind of I could be wrong, maybe I'm off. And isn't there some kind of... I could be wrong, maybe I'm off, but isn't there some kind of continued contention over a monument over this? There has been. I think the church have kind of settled up for the most part. Like, listen, it's fine.

We kind of acknowledge it happened now. Sorry about that. Yeah. Because there's a... Whoopsie, do the heart bad. There is a Fanshawe Party Association who does a lot of the organizing over this too about that yeah because like there's like there is a fancier party association who doesn't like the lot of like the uh like organizing over this too and kind of commemorates the massacre a lot

and for the longest time the church pretty much like ignored it but in like the last like couple decades if like okay listen we're sorry about that no we're not going to give you any reparations fuck off okay so the rest of the the Utah war was pretty uneventful. Colonel Lott Smith led raiding attacks on the U.S. Army that burned much of their wagon trains and forced the Army to bivouac near Fort Bridger in Wyoming where the troops called Camp Scott the

camp of death due to the cold because you just bivouac in the middle of the plains of Wyoming. It's going to be a bad time for you. Envoys from Buchanan reached Salt Lake City before the Army did. Colonel Thomas Payne, who was our good buddy from the Mormon Battalion, worked with Brigham Young to accept the new governor on the condition that

the Army did not enter Salt Lake. It was agreed upon. Governor Alfred Cummings and his wife finally arrived in Salt Lake, shook hands with Brigham Young, and the war never happened. The troops would actually form Camp Floyd 40 miles to the south of Salt Lake and stayed there until the outbreak of the Civil war where the fort was abandoned the two groups of soldiers would head northeast and southeast including general albert sydney johnson who

would be killed at shiloh because he was a traitor fuck holy shit so end it out here for us jordan give us the ending and then we'll talk about how things have been for us learning about this through our adolescence into now. Okay, so that was the last big thing that the Nauvoo Legion did. In 1870, Governor J. Wilson Schaeffer shelved the Legion, deemed all of its activities prohibited. In 1874, John D. Lee would be the only man arrested for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. He'd also be excommunicated from the church. His first trial was a hung jury after the prosecutors tried to paint the blame on Brigham Young, but he would then be tried again in 1876 where they painted him as the sole mastermind of

it all. He was found guilty and executed by firing squad. His final words were, I do not believe everything that is now being taught and practiced by Brigham Young. I do not care who hears it. It is my last word. I have been sacrificed in a cowardly, dastardly manner. Brigham Young would die five months later from excruciating bout of

cholera in the ruptured appendix. Cholera's back, baby! It came back for an encore in a big way too because i think that's probably not the perfect way for brigham young to go yeah legion was formally disbanded in 1887 and seven years later reformed as the utah national guard oh no where they where they proudly claimed the lineage of the navoo legion yep wait they they claim the lineage of the Nauvoo Legion. Yep. Wait. They claim the lineage of the Legion. So all of this happened so that Kyle and I could get

yelled at by Utah National Guardsmen this summer at BLM protests. This is how we tie it all in the BLM protests this summer. Oh, God. They're like, hey, hey, did you guys come from Arkansas? No.

The fascism runs deep. They were just living up to their heritage. Oh, my God. Yeah. How does the Utah National Guard fucking square this? I mean, I'm sure they don't. Super easily. Apparently. Super easily, actually, because most of

the military apparatus around the church like involves a novel legion in one way or another like the rotc building at byu is named after general daniel wells who was the commander of the navoo legion during the entirety of the utah war despite the fact that you're supposed to be commissioning as a united states officer and your building is named after a guy who damn near fought against the united states so but then again the same thing happens with all like the southern bases anyway so yeah the army has a blind spot for that i mean the ohio national guard shot a whole bunch of college kids and nobody seems to give a fuck yep yeah so i mean we kind of mentioned it, like, I think it was before we were recording, but talking about like the PR arm of the church and how effective they've been.

Not only like in official PR capacities, but really through like the internal mythos that's built, like when you go to church as like a Mormon youth. church as like a Mormon youth. And like, there are so many pieces of this that you just hear individual, um, like individual parts of what Jordan talked about today, like make it through like the extermination order is a good example. Um, no context. I mean, everything is devoid of context and I never knew any of this stuff until like incredibly recently. And I never knew a lot of like the behavior of, you know, people, uh, the Mormon settlers in the Valley when it comes to, um, the Native Americans who were living here. And I mean, there's a lot to be said about like just the general, um, view of like the American West in that time and how Native Americans were treated. But like, I think a lot of Mormon history like to think that they were people who think about

Mormon history think that they were like exempt from that behavior when like a lot of this is quite literally the opposite. I mean, for even a period in like the 1900s, uh, Utah was also famous for Indian schools. So like kids would, um, as like projects to try to assimilate native Americans into American culture. Um, kids were essentially taken from homes all over like the American West and sent to Indian boarding schools in Utah throughout, like, um, I think leading up to like the mid yet like 1950s. You know, there was one in particular, there was this army hospital in Northern Utah called the Bushnell Army Hospital. And it was basically just open to, it was built and used for wounded World War II soldiers. After World War II, that entire Army hospital was converted into the Intermountain Indian School.

And they had Navajo children, specifically from Arizona, who were taken from their homes and brought to this boarding school. And there's just like so much history of just fucked up shit that we've done. I mean, throughout this entire country but specifically in the state of utah and it was integral with the the mormon pioneers moving across the country and coming from a place where they had an extermination order and then essentially coming here and finding natives and exterminating them themselves it's just like it's an incredibly american story um yeah it just it fucking pains me i had to look it up really quick just to make sure i wasn't like telling any fibs about too but i'm on the utah national guard website and the top line on it's about us the

utah national guard draws its heritage from a militia called the navajo legion the navajo legion was organized by the church of jesus of Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois, under a special charter. It's on their front of their website. Yeah. I mentioned it before, but there's a group of Mormons called

the Deseret Nation, is what they call themselves. It's just an online identifier by the name of Desnat. They just do hashtag Desnat, and that's how they all find each other. So they all shit post and, um, and all that. And they've essentially built an identity around like this type of, um, what really is just like pretty basic Western chauvinism, but incredibly violent in the 1800s.

And it's been an equal reaction to more people in the church learning about some of the things that took place during this time period, because there are so many people who have had no idea and a gigantic majority of the church still doesn't know anything about this. The missionaries that go out and teach people about the church all throughout all corners of the world would never talk about this type of history. had i like we all had classes in elementary school growing up that was a specific utah or i guess it was middle school utah history class and i never learned any of you i i learned about the the mountain meadows massacre briefly but not really anything really in depth about it um incredibly cliff yeah but we had a year-long class called utah history and like

none of this stuff was really in there it's just like the pioneers yeah and it was like yeah the mountain meadows massacre was a thing that happened at the end yeah i can't i mean that would be to me like taking i don't know history of the catholic church from a catholic school yeah i mean but exactly when you have utah legislature who's like um disproportionately mormon writing essentially or approving the curriculums for schools and this is that's like curriculum of course this is what's going to happen so and and you also get like the release time from high schools to go to seminary for four years too so like is that okay so yeah yes like every high school every high school middle school public high school and middle school in utah has a seminary building

that's incredibly close um where students will like one period out of every day or every other day will go to seminary class seminary is like a very like a misleading phrase for that one too because it's mainly just like you go learn about the church for an hour and then you go to math now is this like required no um it's not necessarily socially socially yes like i am technically a seminary graduate from the church because i went for four years, even though, I mean, really for me, you guys made it all the way through. I got my, I got the thing. I don't know how I did. Cause I use that hour to just go get like pastries or whatever. Yeah. That was always, that was always the one where it's like, I didn't want to have to take two electives and like take,

uh, weightlifting. So I would just ditch seminary and go to the gym that sounds way better so like how old or what level of education i don't know um if you're college graduates or not or if that's even taught in college there i assume definitely not if you went to byu yeah like how old were you when you found this out? Or did you just stumble upon it, bored on the internet? I'm curious how this is found out. For me, that's exactly what it was. I stopped going to church in my mid-teens. I was 16 or 17. None of us went on a Mormon mission. My family is still incredibly active. And of course I would never learn this from them. So really it was like, and I, I went out pretty

easily of the church. Like a lot of people have very dramatic leaving stories. Generally, the deeper you were into the church, the harder it is for them to leave. And a lot of those people are the ones who deep, uh, who dive the deepest into this type of stuff. So it took me a while to really get into learning about some of this history. And it wasn't until just like I'm 28 now. It was like my, like, like when I was like 25 is when I first learned about this type of thing. Oh, wow. Yeah. I was a, I was a history student in college and all that too. And if you want to be Mormon, um, and stay Mormon studying history is probably not the best way to do it, especially in the state of Utah, because you learn some messed up things quickly it's just like what

yeah yeah what about you greg and that was yeah that was kind of for me i was turned off from mormonism at a pretty young age i kind of had to stay in it for like family things like i was kind of forced it was like hey if you want your driver's license you got to go to church kind of shit um so like i stayed in but like i stopped going to church at like 16 and i actually got kicked out of seminary one class you're at the gym the whole time because i'm like well well no like like there was a very definitive moment like my falling out where i was a i was a sophomore in high school and i was in seminary and i forgot the lesson i don't know we were talking like noah's arc or i don't know some bullshit and i was like i was

just simply asking questions because like the math was not having questions this this doesn't make sense to me can you explain this to me? Like I'm five. And the seminary teacher got like really fed up and was just like, you need to go. You're distracting class. And I was like, okay, bye. I'm never coming back.

How, like how prevalent is this? I don't know. Like, honestly, being on your show and you coming on my show is the most exposure to mormonism i've ever had um so like i have no idea how prevalent this is of like people in like obviously the the desnat weirdos yeah learning about this stuff and then being like this is good actually um how common is it for people to have your reaction when they're like, when you're just like, Holy shit, this is bad. It's probably more often that people like find that like, Holy shit,

this is bad because like they say like the main reason like Desnet actually started was because like all these white nationalists who identify as Mormon, like we're just getting ratioed on Twitter all the time. So, so they literally, I'm dead serious. Like we're just getting ratioed on Twitter all the time. So, so they literally, I'm dead serious. Like they literally, they were literally tired of, of like what they call progressive Mormons, like talking shit to them on Twitter and ratioing them on Twitter.

So the Desna is created as a fucking bat signal to give each other backup when they needed, like when they needed their reinforcements to show up and like toss them a like or a retweet. That's literally how it started. So, I mean, people are like, you'd be hard pressed to find like active Mormons who would defend this type of thing, but there's always like, there's always justifications built in when it comes to like, you know, people like the gospel is true. People make mistakes, like people do bad things, but the gospel itself is true. So regardless of like what, you know, how this has impacted my view on the church as a whole,

all this is for someone who can continually remain active and think this is incredibly bad. All it does is to them is say like, people do make mistakes and people do bad things, but the gospel itself is true. So there's nothing really like this that can get to people in my opinion, which is also under like a bigger umbrella. Cause one of the things that the church loves to say, and it's like their greatest kind of like PR slogan is God works in

mysterious ways. i fucking hate that and if and and then and it's also under the guise of faith where like you are a bad mormon if you question this and you and you don't have faith in god and his mysterious ways so it's kind of like this gigantic bandaid that just covers all wounds. Gotcha. Yeah, it really is. And it's also like it's it's really tough that like they can you know, it's always it's always built in. And those defenses are built in where there's always a reaction to it. And when you when it's all based on faith or believing in the church, like nothing like this will ever turn them away. And a lot of

like more modern apostles and prophets really steer away from talking about this, this era of the church. Like there's always this, this focus on pioneer spirit and like, you know, we're here for each other. I mean, really, it's just like, they want to do socialism or communism, but like their way or whatever. And there's like social safety, like there's the bishop's storehouse. Like if you need food or whatever, like every ward has like a storehouse of food. So like there's like good, good social, like safety net type things that are built into this type of thing, but like, um, you know, like it, yeah, it's, it's, it's just really, uh, it's really confusing how people can just continually buy into it and just ignore this type of history. But like, like I said, like the more that,

that these, as time goes on, these church leaders don't really talk about this time in history because there's nothing good to say about it. And they, they talk about like the pioneer spirit of persevering or whatever, but the more they bring attention to this era, the more like the more dirty the shirt looks really. So the more they can just focus it on like a sense of community and like loving one another, however, they mean that. And like, you know, just having faith faith it's really basic the way they talk about certain things now but it's really to mask it from like what

the true history is and the true history of like how the church came to be and how the state came to be is incredibly ugly yeah despite like Brigham Young being like the person who probably saved the church from destruction after joseph smith died they never talk about it outside like the naming of the

university that's it yeah wow like if you watch like general conference which is like the big like global broadcast they do twice a year they don't talk about about um brigham young anymore and they've like encouraged people to move their testimonies even away from Joseph Smith because they don't want to be seen as the Joseph Smith church. They don't want to be seen as the church that worships Joseph Smith.

And they don't want to be... They're trying to turn everything towards Christ as much as they can. They think Mormon is like a slur now, essentially. They're really just the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I heard they completely moved away from calling themselves that at all which i mean i don't know if that's ever i don't know if that was ever the official title or whatever but it never was but like it was like

it's kind of just like this slang it was incredibly harmless slang like everyone but it's really just a book of mormon yeah like yeah it's calling it's Like, yeah. It's a branding exercise to refocus attention, in my opinion, away from like things that are really damning about like the church's history. So yeah, it's. Yeah,

man, it's, it's really tough stuff to like learn about this type of thing. I mean, it's hard. It's hard to like, it's hard. I don't know about these guys.

It's hard to square like a lot of this stuff with the people I still have in my life that are like my close family and friends who are still, you know, in this, I mean slower. I mean, I really don't have very many close friends at this point who are into it, but like my brother, who's like one of my best friends is, and it's like, I don't know. I almost prefer, I don't know if they know about this type of thing. Um, my dad was a political science major, so I assume he does know a lot

of these things, but you know, something else that's a bit that's baked into the cake here is that they think part of like, um, stuff that you're taught when you're growing up is like the more attention, the more opposition the church faces, like the more you'll be rewarded essentially for being faithful and like, and like maintaining your testimony. Like that's just more of a test for you. Oh yeah. It's a test. That's, that's a huge thing. And there's this thing that's like, you know, if the things they say about the church were true, if all of these critiques were true, then the church would have collapsed because their cornerstone is the book of Mormon. And if the book of Mormon weren't true,

then the church would collapse. So any, so clearly like the church would have collapsed already if the book of Mormon weren't true, because there's been scholars, there's been the historians that have written about the book of Mormon and trashed it, but somehow the church remains. So clearly it must be true. There's like stuff like that built in like the mere existence of the church is proof that it's real because of like how many people have bought in it's just it's it's incredibly tough but this is uh this is what we're dealing with here in our legislature almost all of them belong to this so yeah my uh my normal co-host when the army doesn't steal him nick was raised in Catholicism and,

uh, you know, he left, I mean, you don't really leave the Catholic church. You stopped going to church, but, uh, yeah,

he stopped going as soon as he could. And he still has family that goes. And he says like a lot of the same stuff is like, I have no idea how my family can, you know, knowing everything that we know, um, about, you know, the child abuse epidemics and all the other fucked up things that Catholic church list is thousands of years long.

Um, it's, he's like, I, I, I don't know how the fuck they, they do that, you know? Yeah. I mean, at a certain point it just becomes like second nature to a lot of people and it's far more i mean it's scary to question such foundational beliefs when you've brought your entire life around it like at this point um with what my like speaking very personally and open here like i i would i don't really want my parents at their age to like have like a faith crisis that shakes them as a person. Like whether or not they understand the gravity of like what we learn today or like anything else that the church has done that I would deem very bad. Like whether or not they acknowledge that that's real, I don't think really makes much of a material difference in the way that they live their lives. But, you know, I don't want them to have like a big faith crisis where they think like,

oh God, like what if I spent my entire life like building around this very core foundation and I've like built everything based on this. And that's a really scary feeling for a lot of people to have. So a lot of people are easy, like built everything based on this. And that's, that's a really scary feeling for a lot of people to have. So a lot of people are easy, like can easily tune that out. And I don't necessarily want my loved ones to go through that because I honestly don't think it makes much of a difference when they're not like in a position of power to influence people's lives. And a lot of like, you know, the American brand of racism apparently um isn't really i mean other than uh like the modern racism isn't like super in your face it's more like um the mormon like mormons

are famously really nice people and uh like the regular mormon person like the mormons next door or whatever like in in other states um i think in positions of power, that's where like the actual, um, undergirding like darkness of the religion can like seep through and cause actual problems, but normal Mormon people are generally really nice. And so like the Mormon church has an incredibly racist past. And I don't think we mentioned it, but Brigham Young in particular and his, uh, would have instituted slavery if he had gotten his way in the state of deseret well yeah yeah like chattel slavery yes there was a there was a great great tweet by like burgess owens who was like our republican q anon congressman now here too who for black history

month like mentioned like this is the first black man who came into the salt lake valley and he served valiantly and all that too and it was like there was like you forgot to mention he was a slave to literally a slave so like your average mormon doesn't know this history and like you know they their brand of internalized racism is very um very mild in comparison to anything like that or the church's history itself so i mean you know what it reminds me of is that remember when we were at the the protest and like the big sign that went viral was welcome to utah the nicest racism you'll ever yeah you'll ever see it It's exactly that. And so like, and I say all this to really say, like, I mean, I don't think that the behavior of the church in the 1800s really

reflects your average Mormon person that you'd encounter. They likely don't know any of this anyway. And if there are anything like how we grew up, that's just like your way of life. And that's just how you were raised. And you that's those are your friends. You go to you like you see them at school. You see them on Sundays. Those are that's just like your group. It's your neighborhood. It's it's all of that. But like, I mean, it's it's it's leaving the Mormon church. I had to get a lawyer to get my name removed from the records of the church. Like that's, it's like a, it's a very, yeah. Um, it's like an intense, intense thing to get out of. It's, it's, it's like, it's so much different than just, um, like how Catholic, how Catholicism is for, for a lot of people. Uh, but it's a very uniquely American religion in how, in, in its history. It's, um, yeah. It seems like, you know, we, we keep pointing out it's a very uniquely American religion in how in its history it's um yeah it seems like yeah we we

keep pointing out it's uniquely American and like it seems to be like the um I don't know like the the id or something of what a lot of Americans want America to be but if you just like substituted out Mormonism for you know evangelicalism or whatever because you have the historical revisionism, the obvious revulsion of confronting your past, all of those things that we've been

talking about for almost three years now. No, it was states' rights and we should put up giant monuments and name buildings after disgusting people don't look too and don't look too far into it though yeah um and if you try to confront those things uh you know obviously we're cultural marxists or or whatever or we're engaging in cancel culture when we're just trying to confront our own histories um and like that

that seems like utah seems like the most distilled part of america i've ever heard yeah yeah religion we brought up mlms multiple like uh multiple times and it's it's the absolute capital of this in this country of multi-level marketing schemes it's it was it's like it's it's crafted to an art in this in this state. And it's just like, yeah, Mormons are what evangelicals think they are like they it's it's absurd. And that's, you know, and they're unquestioning loyalties. What like what we saw, whether it's marching 2000 miles for nothing or just, you know, massacring people who are just traveling through the state. That unquestioning loyalty leads them to be really good CIA agents like

Evan McMullin. So the basic instinct you saw from like the beginnings of Mormonism is like the basic instincts you see today, too. It's all based off of like sex fear and greed like from the very beginning and it's always been that way and it's still that way today too because that's the reason why utah leads the nation in plastic surgery and and also multi-level marketing too and porn addiction i can't drink caffeine but i can get my fucked up nose fixed exactly it's a very repressed culture well i i don't know if you've seen real housewives of salt lake city but like they're some of those women are not repressed at this point they're living their best lives and i would like to keep it that way so we've been going for like two hours yeah um i don't know how long yeah i don't know how long

we were supposed to go but but I have no idea. I felt like I have a cap, but Nate's going to hate us. He, you know, he's been dealing with me for almost three years. This is not the worst thing he's ever had to deal with. And honestly,

this is probably like one of my favorite episodes I've done in a very long time, if not ever one, I didn't have to research it. And two, this has been fucking hilarious hilarious i got to learn about something i know absolutely nothing about i hope you know people are in the same boat as me um but this is the part of the show even though this to me this entire episode has been a plug for your show because this has been fucking hilarious i promise i promise we don't talk about this stuff that much.

Like, this is the first time we've done, like, a deep dive into Mormon militia, I think. Right? I don't think we've mentioned this before. You come here for the war crimes. You go there for the Mormonism. So, like, you can use this point to, like, say what your show is, what it's called, plug it. This is the P. This is the plug zone. The P zone.

The P zone. Kyle, take it away. Okay. Well, let's see. What's our Twitter handle? Okay. It's BYMoneyPod, Brigham Young Money Podcast. If you search it there, you'll find us on Twitter.

And our handles are in the in the bio um yeah we we generally talk about more contemporary stuff we also talk about like sports as well because at the intersection of of politics and sports in this in this state in particular is hilarious and depressing if you look at our nba players instagram comments it's a fucking disaster um so we talk about a lot of different things um and yeah i mean i don't know what else do you what else you guys want to say well now that since i got like a taste of the blood of research now i might start doing more historical things for utah too i have always wanted right now real yeah it really is exactly like i i'm like really now i'm gonna leave things up to jordan a bit more

to carry our episodes because you did a fantastic job today it was amazing yeah i'm gonna start like the next episode i want to do if we're going to do a historical one is going to be on the myth that there is there's actually like whales in the great salt lake that some sort of like australian scientists supposedly like dumped in there you have a ton of i don't think it's true but just offload all the fucking whales there i thought that was true i thought they did bring some whales from like california on a train and they put them in the great salt lake and they just fucking died that's what i have to make a point like no we said we're gonna put whales here they didn't realize just how salty the water was they thought it's like the ocean that whales could live in here

first of all the great salt lake is like 10 feet deep even though it's fucking jack so fuck we high centered the whale dude yeah shout out to shocks for our episode on slc punk where they actually talk about that exact thing oh that's really fuck i haven't seen a movie in a long time yeah we just did an episode about slc punk so search brigham young money on any podcast so you guys are just getting more and more in tuned into the bethea podcast universe and it's yeah pretty much like i went on hell of a way to die like we had shocks on we've had you on like i'm just trying to like essentially just like shoehorn myself in the trash future at this point it's fine

only recently did I get Nate on my own podcast but if I had to listen to me for at minimum an hour a week I wouldn't want to do it either but thank you so much guys for doing this listen to their fucking

show it's hilarious and you know this is normally we have like a quippy remark I'd like until next time don't massacre wagon trains God be with you enjoy your cholera

my god enjoy your cholera choose the left yeah be careful with that temple work out there Oh, my God. Enjoy your cholera. Choose the left. Yeah. Yeah. Be careful with that temple work out there. I guess.