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Causes and Consequences: Conflict in Jackson County

Bruce A. Van Orden

Zion! The New Jerusalem! Both the Book of Mormon (Ether 13:2-3; 3 Ne. 20:22) and Joseph Smith's revelations (D&C 28:9; 29:7-9; 35:24; 42:9, 35-36, 62; 45:65-71; 52:2-3, 42) fired the Latter-day Saints with a zeal to know the time and place for the establishment of Zion. Hardly anything excited early Mormons more than the prospect of building the New Jerusalem in Jackson County, Missouri, in preparation for the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. The original inhabitants of Jackson County, however, violently derailed Latter-day Saint expectations a mere two years after they first arrived in the county. What were the causes and consequences of this irreconcilable conflict between the Mormons and Gentiles in Jackson County?

The Latter-day Saints' contact with Jackson County began with the call of the "Lamanite missionaries." In September 1830 Joseph Smith called Oliver Cowdery to head a mission to the displaced Indian tribes (or "Lamanites," the Book of Mormon term) west of the Missouri state border. In the revelation announcing the call, Oliver was told, "No man knoweth where the city Zion shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter. Behold, I say unto you that it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites" (D&C 28:9). Additional revelations called Peter Whitmer, Jr., Parley P. Pratt, and Ziba Peterson to accompany Elder Cowdery on that mission (D&C 30:5-6; 32:1). En route the missionaries converted over 100 exuberant millenarian Christians in northeastern Ohio. One convert, Frederick G. Williams, accompanied the missionaries to western Missouri in early 1831. Hampered by United States Indian agents and local clergy, these elders did not bring any Lamanites into the Church, but they baptized a few Caucasians in Independence, the rough-hewn and sometimes disorderly seat of Jackson County at the westernmost outpost of civilization in Missouri and the head of the Santa Fe Trail. Independence was only 12 miles from the demarcation separating state and Indian lands.

Ever since the establishment of the Church in April 1830, the Prophet Joseph Smith had looked forward both to identifying and building Zion in America. In June 1831, the Lord revealed to him that the time had come to embark on a journey to western Missouri (D&C 52:3-5). Additionally, 13 pairs of missionary elders were commanded to go two by two to Missouri and to preach and build up branches along the way (D&C 52:7-10, 22-36; 56:5). When an entire congregation, the Colesville Branch, was evicted from farm lands in Thompson, Ohio, they, too, were commanded to relocate in Missouri (D&C 54:7-8).

Joseph Smith took with him a company of Church leaders to Missouri: Sidney Rigdon, his chief assistant and scribe; Edward Partridge, Church bishop; A. Sidney Gilbert, shopkeeper and Church agent; William W. Phelps, newly converted prominent printer and journalist from New York State; and wealthy members Martin Harris and Joseph Coe. In late July they arrived in Independence and were greeted by Oliver Cowdery and the other missionaries to the Lamanites, who had long awaited them. Their reunion was "a glorious [one] and moistened with many tears."