| 324 It is true that the saints in general were unalterably opposed to human bondage or slavery in any form, but we have seen no evidence that they ever interfered with existing legal conditions in Missouri or elsewhere. It is possible that individual members of the church spoke hastily or unwisely regarding existing evils. It would have been strange indeed if they did not. If so, however, such unwise interference was never approved by the church or her authorities.
To tell of all the outrages committed and the sufferings entailed upon the saints during that summer and autumn would be impossible, but we will here quote a few testimonies in connection with the indignities mentioned in the foregoing appeal to Governor Dunklin. Though an agreement was entered into, as appears in the petition quoted above, providing that certain parties should leave by January 1, 1834, and the remainder by April 1, 1834; and that the mob in said agreement had pledged "themselves to use all their influence to prevent any violence being used so long as a compliance with the foregoing terms is observed by the parties concerned," yet without waiting for the time to expire, the mob began hostilities in October; and the very men whose names were signed to the agreement participated in the outrages.
Here we will allow Parley P. Pratt, an eyewitness and a victim of these unhallowed persecutions, to tell the tale. The following is from "Persecution of the Saints," pages 31-52:-
"It was believed by many of the Mormons that the leaders of the mob would not suffer so barefaced a violation of the agreement before the time therein set forth; but Thursday night, the 31st of October, gave them abundant proof that no pledge, verbal or written, was longer to be regarded, for on that night between forty and fifty, many of whom were armed with guns, proceeded against a branch of the church, about eight miles west of town, and unroofed and partly demolished ten dwelling houses; and in the midst of the shrieks and screams of women and children, whipped and beat, in a savage manner, several of the men; and with their
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