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New Light on Old Difficulties:
the Historical Importance of the Missouri Affidavits

Kenneth W. Godfrey

While incarcerated in Liberty Jail, Joseph Smith "suggested" that the Saints gather up "a knowledge of all the facts, and sufferings and abuses put upon them by" the people of Missouri (D&C 123:1). The Mormon leader furthermore urged that property damage and definitions of character be listed as well as personal injuries. The names of the perpetrators were to be listed and a committee appointed to receive and compile the testaments. This committee was also charged with amassing all libelous publications, including those found in encyclopedias, magazines, and history books. Such documents, Joseph declared, would then be presented to the heads of governments "in [all] their dark and hellish hue" (v 6).

In the Prophet's mind, these acts represented a last effort "before" the Saints could "completely claim that promise which shall call him [Heavenly Father] forth from His hiding place" (D&C 123:6). This last statement replicates the Prophet's expectation that God would intervene and restore them once more on their Missouri land after the Saints had done all that they could do. With the compilation of the materials described above, the Zion of the last days and the establishment of the New Jerusalem would become more than a theological dream.

The collected petitions would then leave the "whole nation without excuse," which assuredly, Joseph Smith said, will cause the unveiling of the power of Deity's "mighty arm" (D&C 123:6). The accumulation of these materials became an imperative duty owed "to God,…wives and children," "widows," and orphans, as well as to those "murdered under its [Missouri's] iron hand." The atrocities committed against the Mormon people, the Prophet concluded, "are enough to make hell itself shudder," and the devil "palsy" (D&C 123:7, 9, 10).

From 1839-1845, almost a thousand Church members responded affirmatively to Joseph Smith's suggestion. Some wrote rather lengthy accounts of their experiences in Missouri, while others penned only a line or two, merely providing skeletal lists of their losses without editorial comment. In total, the Mormon Missouri affidavits number almost a thousand valuable pages of primary historical material. While often overlooked by historians of the Latter-day Saint ante-bellum Missouri period, their value is multi-faceted and of considerable importance. Stephen LeSuer, for instance, argues that these petitions "are in some respects more valuable than the lengthier reminiscences of the Saints because the petitions were written only a year or two after the expulsion, and thus are more accurate and specific in their details."