| 420 houses would be set on fire, and all consumed, leaving hundreds of women and little children thus destitute and naked. wandering bare-footed and nearly naked, in the darkness of the night and dead of winter, in the fields and open prairies, without any covering but the heavens, or any bed but the earth; and their condition so terrible that they might be followed by their blood, which flowed from their lacerated and bleeding feet. Females in this heart rending condition, gave birth to children, in the open air, and exposed to the inclemencies [inclemency's] of the winter. The consequences were that many sickened and many died. And if we ask, why all this abuse? the answer must be, because the people had not transgressed the laws; if they had, their persecutors would have punished them by the laws: but they had not done it, and for this cause they must suffer all the cruelties which the most inhuman barbarity could invent. The lands which your memorialist and his brethren had purchased from the general government, and on which large improvements were made, were thus taken possession of by our persecutors, and the same are held by them till this day, and we are forbid the privilege of enjoying them or any benefit arising from them, I mean the lands in Jackson County.
After wandering about for a length of time, those that were thus unlawfully deprived of their earthly all and cruelly driven from their homes, got into Clay county in said state of Missouri; and again began to get homes; but in a short time, the same scenes began to be acted in Clay, as had been in Jackson county, and the people were again driven, and got into Caldwell or what was afterwards Caldwell county, and into Davies county, or a large majority of them, and here again purchased lands from the general government.
To give your honourable [honorable] body a correct idea of how those who had been thus driven and stripped of their all, were enabled again to purchase, it is only necessary to say, that there was a constant emigration into the country of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; many of those had money, and they loaned part of what they had to those who had none, and enabled them to purchase homes. The land soon began to rise in value, and the first purchasers were enabled to sell part of what they had purchased for enough to pay for the whole, and save themselves a home: some more and some less. There were few, if any who did not in this way get homes, but were privileged only a very short time to enjoy them. We were followed into Caldwell and Davies counties, by the same relentless spirit, and by the same persecutors who had desolated our people in Jackson county, under the command of Major General Lucas, of Independence, Jackson county seat of the first mob, and the place where the first company was formed for our destruction. He was joined on his way hither by many of other counties, and invaded our towns and settlements, laid all waste and drove us into exile.
Lilburn W. Boggs, who was Lieutenant Governer [Governor] of the state, when the persecution first commeuced [commenced], and one of the principal actors in the persecution, was now (l838) Governor of the state, and used his executive influence to have us all massacred or driven into exile; again taking all we had, and holds it till this day; and all this because we were not lawless and disobedient. For if the laws had given them a sufficient guarantee against the evils complained of by the existence of our religious society among them, then would they have had recourse to the laws. If we had been transgressors of law, our houses would not have been rifled, our women ravished, our farms desolated, and our goods and chattels destroyed; our men killed, our wives and children driven into the the prairies, and made to suffer the indignities that the most brutal barbarity could inflict, but would only have had to suffer that which the laws would inflict, which were founded in justice, framed in righteousness and administered in humanity. But scourged by this banditti, without the forms of law, and according to their own declaration, in violation of all law, or the principles of humanity, we were doomed to suffer all kinds of cruelty which barbarity or inhumanity could invent. And they have gravely told the world that they deem it almost superfluous to say that their cause was justified, as well by the law of nature as by the law of self defence [defense]. Now, in the name of all humanity, what law of nature justified, or law of self defence [defense] required the infliction of such shameless cruelties? In so saying they show most assuredly but very little respect to the intelligence of humanity of American citizens, and in the eyes of the civilized world have cast a shade, and a dark one too, on the character of the sons of a noble ancestry, for they have virtually said that Americans look upon such cruelties as the acts of virtue and the fatherly chastisements of humanity.
During the whole progress of those scenes of cruelty, from the beginning, we petitioned the authorities of Missouri for protection and redress. In the name of American citizens, we appealed to their patriotism, to their justice, to their humanity, and to their sacred honors; but they were deaf to our entreaties, and lent a listless ear to our petitions. All attempts at
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