Lori Elaine Taylor, Telling Stories about Mormons and Indians
Ph.D. dissertation, American Studies. State University of New York at Buffalo, 2000.
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the State University of New York at Buffalo in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Supervised by John C. Mohawk, Associate Professor of American Studies.
Copyright (c) by Lori Elaine Taylor 2000.
Available text linked below.
Dedication: for Thad, to figure it out
Abstract
Mormons claim to know some intimate truths about the spiritual destinies of American Indians. The claims or the knowledge have led Mormons throughout their history to tell particular kinds of stories about Indians in early Mormon history (1820s to 1850s). In these stories history and doctrine intertwine to make sacred history. This work considers the stories told in scripture as well as in popular and scholarly histories, the silences left in and around those stories, and other stories that might be told in other ways.
In separate chapters that move from early representations to contemporary oral traditions and connections, the author considers questions relating to stories of Mormons and Indians. How does sacred history relate to authority and control, a priori disbelief in Western enquiry, and memory and forgetting? How have stories told in popular Mormon histories been constructed and developed over time? How extensive were contacts between Mormons and Indians from New York to Missouri and Illinois, before many Mormons followed Brigham Young across the Plains to become Latter-day Saints? What meanings can be made of alternate stories of Mormon and Indian contacts, such as a story that claims Joseph Smith learned from followers of Seneca prophet Handsome Lake some of the ideas he incorporated into the new religion he established? What kinds of fictions and forgeries can be created to tell stories of Mormons and Indians in ways different to conventional history? How do people outside of large Mormon institutions (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) continue to reinterpret and create anew connections between Mormons and Indians through collections of archaeology and anthropology and through doctrines of new religious groups?
Multiple interpretations of the relationships of Mormons and Indians lead to multiple stories, all situated within their own knowable contexts. Having looked at some among these stories, the author explores their meaning and significance for Mormons and for Indians in their current relationships.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: Re/Dismembering Mormon Sacred History
- Controlling certainty in sacred history.
- Debating Mormon historiography.
- Asserting authority over history.
- Situating Mormon history.
- Western disbelief as a lesson for sacred history.
- Countering scientistic disbelief.
- Writing belief in Mormon history.
- Memory and forgetting in sacred history.
- Shape of silences.
- Membering Mormon history.
- A storied story.
- Controlling certainty in sacred history.
- Chapter 1: Forging Lamanites: Mormon Doctrines on Indians and Race
- Some aspects of Mormon doctrines of Indians.
- Determining Lamanites.
- Managing difference.
- Speaking for Lamanites.
- Doctrines of race manifested in action.
- Cycles of peak and retreat in the nineteenth century.
- Cycles of peak and retreat in the twentieth century.
- Consequences of dominant representations.
- Changing Mormon doctrines of Indians.
- Some aspects of Mormon doctrines of Indians.
- Chapter 2: Remembering the First Mission: Reaching Out to the Lamanites
- Relics and traces of the first mission.
- Creating the story of the first mission to the Indians.
- Earliest versions of the story.
- Assumptions shape the frame.
- Telling the story in shorthand.
- Another look at the story.
- Catteraugus.
- Wyandot.
- Shawnee.
- Delaware.
- Why these Indians?
- Why this story?
- Chapter 3: Alliances and Removals: Finding a Home among the Indians
- Establishing common ground.
- Hopeful beginnings (1830-1834).
- Looking back to New York (1835-1839).
- Grand plans (1838).
- A new scene in Nauvoo (1839-1840).
- Joseph Smith, a magnet (1841-1844).
- Outsiders fear an alliance.
- Social and political expediencies.
- Wisconsin Pineries (1841-1844).
- James Emmett’s company (1844-1846).
- The new exploring expedition (1845).
- Preparing to leave Nauvoo (1845).
- Crossing Iowa (1846).
- A Resting Place for a Season (1846).
- Tense Relations (1846-1847).
- Elder Nigeajasha (1846-1848).
- George Miller’s company (1846-1847).
- Tension finally breaks the camp (1847-1848).
- Alpheus Cutler’s Mission to the Indians (1847-1852).
- On Joseph’s Orders.
- Afterword.
- Lamanites, Brighamites, and Josephites.
- Establishing common ground.
- Chapter 4: Joseph Smith in Iroquois Country: a Mormon Creation Story
- The Mormon Creation Story.
- Handsome Lake, Joseph Smith, and the Word.
- Sacred counter-history.
- Joseph Smith and the Iroquois.
- Joseph Smith in New York.
- Breaking down Indian-white relations.
- Iroquois and settlers in the early nineteenth century.
- Joseph Smith and Red Jacket in Palmyra.
- Considering the claims.
- The Mormon Creation Story.
- Chapter 5: Asking Uncomfortable Questions, Telling Untidy Stories
- Imagining history in fictions.
- Spectacular fictions.
- Fakes and forgeries.
- Imagining new histories.
- Testing disciplinary limits.
- Telling new Mormon histories.
- Limits to imaginings.
- Imagining history in fictions.
- Chapter 6: Forget Indians, Forget History, Forget Dangerous Memories
- How dangerous memories are made and told.
- Who speaks?
- Authority, doctrines, and rumors.
- Recollecting the chosen people.
- Legitimizing Archaeology.
- Collecting hearsay.
- Connecting with Indians.
- Reaching out to Indians with Mormon doctrine.
- Connecting with Indians by blood and friendship.
- Remaking the religious connections.
- Telling Dangerous Memories.
- How dangerous memories are made and told.
- Afterthoughts
- Bibliography and References