Mormon Migration Research Paper
The Mormon Migration:
A Geographical Perspective on the Movement
Nathan Johnston
HIST 5301
Dr. Andrew Milson
October 1, 2014
Word Count: 2055 For more than fifty years following the inception of the Mormon Church, also known as the Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-day Saints, the members of the newly founded church faced a variety of hardships and conflicts constantly forcing migration westward from their founding location in New York. Along with this migration came a variety of problems for members of the church that forced them to confront issues in both physical and human geography. Despite these problems, the members of the church were able to establish communities and cultural identities in the states and cities …show more content…
they moved through during their trek towards the west. Examining the historiography of this migration helps us to understand the motivations for the group’s movement, the hardships they faced along the way, and the cultural identity they were able to create as a result of their journey and beliefs becoming intertwined. This review will focus mainly on the movements of the Mormon peoples once they reached the west, and the implications of that movement. In order to begin a study of the behaviors of the Mormon Church’s leaders and their choices of location, it is key to first under what motivated those preferences. In his 1978 article Mormon Perception and Settlement, Richard Jackson writes, “it is particularly essential in historical geography to understand how people viewed their environment if we are to understand the actions of the individual or group in question … The establishment of settlements in marginal and submarginal locations in the West, and the subsequent tenacity in maintaining them, are direct results of the environmental perception of the Mormon leaders.”1 By evaluating the writings of the group’s leaders, Jackson uncovers how the group perceived themselves and potential settlement areas. While the constant moving of the group due to conflict may be viewed as problematic, Jackson argues that this forced the members of the group to become very effective settlers which they attributed to divine assistance.2 While many locations the church was temporarily in, such as the Mississippi Valley and Ohio, were fertile, conflict and massacres forced the group to locate other regions. In those regions, however, the church did learn useful agricultural skills that they were able to use in their new land.
Thus, the church needed to escape retribution and find a place for permanent settlement. From 1845-1847 members of the church were sent west to survey the land. Ultimately, they found the climate in the Great Salt Lake Valley to be preferable. Jackson writes, “Brigham Young developed a view of the Great Basin which showed the areas to the north as too cold for settlement and areas to the south as suitable for even tropical crops.”3 The area was not without problems, however, and needed aid in irrigation in order to rectify the marginal land south of the Wasatch Oasis. Jackson argues:
In order to encourage those called to the south, the Mormon leaders either consciously or unconsciously transformed the history of the Mormon experience with the environment. These transformations were effective in motivating the people to go south, but they were also accepted as facts by authors writing histories of the Mormons and the West. The continued acceptance of these myths points out the importance of using the day-to-day journals of both the folk and elite when attempting to evaluate how past groups viewed their environment.4
By evaluating the role of duty and religion in the writings of the settlers, Jackson crafts his argument in order to show how perception of the environment changes over time in order to create a narrative of why the Mormons ultimately chose their current region of settlement.
In his 1977 article, “This Is the Place,” Richard Poulsen further shows the development of Mormon mythos insofar as it relates to Utah being the destined home of their settlement by evaluating the writings of groups leaders. Poulsen writes, “Brigham Young almost said ‘This is the place,’ but not quite. Whether or not Brigham Young actually made the statement, it is history to over three million Mormons. And more than mere history, it is part of a pioneer heritage, a part of the lore of Mormondom.”5 By glorifying the tale of Young following the murder of church founder Joseph Smith, Poulsen argues that the ordained nature of Utah as the home of the Mormon people becomes further entrenched into the Mormon faith. He writes, “Young undoubtedly meant that this is the place we have studied on maps and in travelers’ reports and have heard of from the mouths of explorers, the place we have finally reached.”6 Thus, Poulsen argues that the quote is not about ordination, but about discovery. The oral tales told through the masses of Mormons during the migration over vast amounts of land, however, created the myth that Mormons now believe.
Michael B. Toney, Carol McKewen Stinner, and Stephan Kan further prove the entrenchment of the myth discussed by Jackson and Paulsen, that the Mormon people believed Utah was ordained land for them to build Zion, in their 1983 work Mormon and Nonmormon Migration in and out of Utah. By evaluating census records from the 1960s and 1970s, the author’s look at migration in and out Utah based on religious and ethnic groups. They found “that Mormons make up a much higher proportion of Utah’s in-migrants than the proportion Mormon at areas of origin. Non-Mormons are much more likely to be planning to leave the state.”7 This proves two things. First, that Mormons are leaving areas of lower Mormon concentration to come to what their religion believes to be Zion. Second, that Non-Mormons frequently leave the state further entrenching Utah as a Mormon stronghold.
The concentrated immigration of Mormons to Utah, and emigration of non-Mormons from Utah, leads D. W. Meinig, in his 1965 article, The Mormon Culture Region, as to conclude that the group is “easily mapped and described … The implication is not that Mormons, as persons, are necessarily more religious than others but that, as a group, they constitute a highly self-conscious subculture whose chief bond is religion and one which has long established its mark upon the life and landscape of a particular area.”8 From a human geography perspective, “Mormon society tended toward uniformity, stability, cohesiveness, and a self-conscious circumscription of its attitudes and activities, the Gentile society of such towns was heterogeneous, mobile, volatile … In time, some convergence of these two would be quite apparent; yet they remain today recognizably distinct wherever they exist side by side.”9 Expounding upon the arguments presented by Toney et al and Jackson, Meinig explains that from a variety of motivating factors the Mormons have become even more deeply entrenched into Utah. Additionally, they have also branched into other areas of the western seaboard. As a result, Meinig concludes “The Mormon region will long endure as a major pattern within the American West” and its distinct features will allow it to be discernable from its non-Mormon neighbors.10
In contrast to much of the historiography dealing with Mormons, the aptly named Richard Sherlock investigates causes other than conflict for Mormon migration. In his 1977 article, Mormon Migration and Settlement after 1875, Sherlock writes, “Though the importance of the polygamy crisis itself is now downplayed … The theme of conflict remains largely dominant. This exclusive focus on the often dramatic struggle between Saint and Gentile serves to obscure the much slower process of the later stages of Mormon migration and settlement of the West.”11 The author argues that expansion into places such as Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, and Canada were not driven by conflict as much of the early expansion of the Church was, but instead driven by an expansion of population and need for resources. Quoting Brigham Young, Sherlock points out “as Zion is constantly growing so must we extend our settlements.”12 This serves as a turning point the development of the historiography.
Marshall Bowen supplements this line of historical argumentation in his 1977 article, Migration To and From A Northern Wyoming Mormon Community 1900 to 1925. Rather than being driven by conflict, Bowen argues immigrants to the town of Cowley, Wyoming went in search of land and job opportunities. Bowen writes, “focusing on Cowley, Wyoming, which lost more than one-third of its original settlers within twenty-fiver years … is a reminder that some Mormon colonization ventures did not live up to their founders’ expectations.”13 Thus, rather than conflict with outside groups, Bowen argues, “specific experiences that the settlers had before moving to Cowley largely determined their success in Cowley and, If they failed there, where they would next locate.”14 Like Jackson, Bowen illustrates that the occupations of many Mormons at the time were based in agriculture, and their ability to stay in Cowley was dependent on the access to resources to be successful farmers.
Marrying Sherlock’s thesis of non-conflict based migration to prior conflict-based arguments, in their 1994 article, The Mormon Settlement of Southeastern Idaho, Lawrence G. Coates et al argue that while migration to Idaho was not rooted in conflict, their leaving the state was. Due to expanding populations and the need for more land, the authors write, “this investigation of Mormon communities in southeastern Idaho challenges the prevailing view that Brigham Young and his colleagues left Nauvoo with the Salt Lake Valley firmly in mind.”15 Their motivation to leave Idaho, however, the authors argue was conflict based. They write, “the U.S. marshal from Blackfoot hounded polygamists, arrested them, and sent them to prison by using anti-Mormon juries.”16 Thus, the line between conflict and non-conflict based Mormon migration is much blurry than prior historiography seemed to indicate.
In his 1945 article, The Mormon Migration to Texas, C. Stanley Banks argues internal conflict, rather than outside factors, were what lead members of the church to come to Texas. After the death of Smith and the assumption of power by Young, Lyman Wight and two other members of the Quorum of Twelve, the governing body for the Church, “refus[ed] to acknowledge the leadership of Brigham Young, the group … had no further connection with the main body of the Saints, who followed Young to Salt Lake City.”17 Prior to Smith’s death, a group was sent to explore gaining land in Texas, convince Texas to view them as their own nation, and ally themselves with Texas in the fight against Mexico. It was this land that was discussed with the Texas Republic that Wight and his companions moved onto in the state.18 Banks argues that this group had particular hardship in terms of conflict with outside forces and disease, and was never able to find permanent settlement in Texas.19
Following in the line of Jackson’s encouragement to view primary documents and writings, most of the authors rely heavily on the personal writings of the Church’s leaders, elites, and common people. In doing so, they are able to interrogate the beliefs and understandings of those people in order to evaluate their motivations for behavior. In addition to writings, some authors evaluate census data in order to understand the movement of the people at a quantifiable level. The authors generally advance similar arguments. On balance, they agree that migration occurred for societal reasons such as conflict, better access to agricultural resources, or a combination of the two. The exception to this was Sherlock who argued that conflict should not be the soul focus. His argument still falls in line with the others, however, when he attempts to show that many people were moving to be with the other members of their church and family.
In conclusion, the Mormon Church has faced a variety of hardships since their creation. Between conflicts with other religious groups and Native Americans, the people’s lives were filled with turmoil until the founding of the permanent settlement in Utah. While the myth within the church is that the land was ordained for them, the physical geography had great impacts on their choice of location for the purposes of the agriculture their society pursued. Additionally, through the convergence of human geography leading to additional conflict, secondary migrations occurred in order to promote the prosperity of the church. Thus, though the first century of the Mormon Church’s existence was tumultuous, through the utilization of both the physical geography and their connections as a religious group the church was able to create a sustainable foundation for continued growth and prosperity.
Bibliography
Banks, C. Stanley. "The Mormon Migration into Texas." The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Vol. 49, No. 2 (Oct., 1945): 233-244.
Belk, Russell. "Moving Possessions: An Analysis Based on Personal Documents from the 1847-1869 Mormon Migration." Journal of Consumer Research. Vol. 19, No. 3 (Dec., 1992): 339-361.
Bowen, Marshall.
"Migration To and From A Northern Wyoming Mormon Community 1900 to 1925." Pioneer America. Vol. 9, No. 2 (Dec. 1977): 208-227.
Coates, Lawrence, Peter Boag, Ronald Hatzenbuehler, and Merwin Swanson. "The Mormon Settlement of Southeastern Idaho, 1845-1900." Journal of Mormon History. Vol. 20, No. 2 (Fall 1994): 45-62.
Jackson, Richard. "Mormon Perception and Settlement." Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 68, No. 3 (1978): 317-34.
Meinig, D. W. "The Mormon Culture Region: Strategies and Patterns in the Geography of the American West, 1847-1964." Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Vol. 55, No. 2 (Jun 1965): 191-220.
Meinig, Donald W. The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Vol. 2: Continental America, 1800-1867. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
Poulsen, Richard, ""This Is the Place": Myth and Mormondom," Western Folklore, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Jul, 1977): 246-252.
Sherlock, Richard. "Mormon Migration and Settlement after 1875." Journal of Mormon History. Vol. 2 (1975): 53-68.
Tony, Michael, McKewen Stinner, Carol, and Kan, Stephan, "Mormon and Nonmormon Migration in and out of Utah," Review of Religious Research, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Dec. 1983):
114-126.
A Geographical Perspective on the Movement
Nathan Johnston
HIST 5301
Dr. Andrew Milson
October 1, 2014
Word Count: 2055 For more than fifty years following the inception of the Mormon Church, also known as the Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-day Saints, the members of the newly founded church faced a variety of hardships and conflicts constantly forcing migration westward from their founding location in New York. Along with this migration came a variety of problems for members of the church that forced them to confront issues in both physical and human geography. Despite these problems, the members of the church were able to establish communities and cultural identities in the states and cities …show more content…
they moved through during their trek towards the west. Examining the historiography of this migration helps us to understand the motivations for the group’s movement, the hardships they faced along the way, and the cultural identity they were able to create as a result of their journey and beliefs becoming intertwined. This review will focus mainly on the movements of the Mormon peoples once they reached the west, and the implications of that movement. In order to begin a study of the behaviors of the Mormon Church’s leaders and their choices of location, it is key to first under what motivated those preferences. In his 1978 article Mormon Perception and Settlement, Richard Jackson writes, “it is particularly essential in historical geography to understand how people viewed their environment if we are to understand the actions of the individual or group in question … The establishment of settlements in marginal and submarginal locations in the West, and the subsequent tenacity in maintaining them, are direct results of the environmental perception of the Mormon leaders.”1 By evaluating the writings of the group’s leaders, Jackson uncovers how the group perceived themselves and potential settlement areas. While the constant moving of the group due to conflict may be viewed as problematic, Jackson argues that this forced the members of the group to become very effective settlers which they attributed to divine assistance.2 While many locations the church was temporarily in, such as the Mississippi Valley and Ohio, were fertile, conflict and massacres forced the group to locate other regions. In those regions, however, the church did learn useful agricultural skills that they were able to use in their new land.
Thus, the church needed to escape retribution and find a place for permanent settlement. From 1845-1847 members of the church were sent west to survey the land. Ultimately, they found the climate in the Great Salt Lake Valley to be preferable. Jackson writes, “Brigham Young developed a view of the Great Basin which showed the areas to the north as too cold for settlement and areas to the south as suitable for even tropical crops.”3 The area was not without problems, however, and needed aid in irrigation in order to rectify the marginal land south of the Wasatch Oasis. Jackson argues:
In order to encourage those called to the south, the Mormon leaders either consciously or unconsciously transformed the history of the Mormon experience with the environment. These transformations were effective in motivating the people to go south, but they were also accepted as facts by authors writing histories of the Mormons and the West. The continued acceptance of these myths points out the importance of using the day-to-day journals of both the folk and elite when attempting to evaluate how past groups viewed their environment.4
By evaluating the role of duty and religion in the writings of the settlers, Jackson crafts his argument in order to show how perception of the environment changes over time in order to create a narrative of why the Mormons ultimately chose their current region of settlement.
In his 1977 article, “This Is the Place,” Richard Poulsen further shows the development of Mormon mythos insofar as it relates to Utah being the destined home of their settlement by evaluating the writings of groups leaders. Poulsen writes, “Brigham Young almost said ‘This is the place,’ but not quite. Whether or not Brigham Young actually made the statement, it is history to over three million Mormons. And more than mere history, it is part of a pioneer heritage, a part of the lore of Mormondom.”5 By glorifying the tale of Young following the murder of church founder Joseph Smith, Poulsen argues that the ordained nature of Utah as the home of the Mormon people becomes further entrenched into the Mormon faith. He writes, “Young undoubtedly meant that this is the place we have studied on maps and in travelers’ reports and have heard of from the mouths of explorers, the place we have finally reached.”6 Thus, Poulsen argues that the quote is not about ordination, but about discovery. The oral tales told through the masses of Mormons during the migration over vast amounts of land, however, created the myth that Mormons now believe.
Michael B. Toney, Carol McKewen Stinner, and Stephan Kan further prove the entrenchment of the myth discussed by Jackson and Paulsen, that the Mormon people believed Utah was ordained land for them to build Zion, in their 1983 work Mormon and Nonmormon Migration in and out of Utah. By evaluating census records from the 1960s and 1970s, the author’s look at migration in and out Utah based on religious and ethnic groups. They found “that Mormons make up a much higher proportion of Utah’s in-migrants than the proportion Mormon at areas of origin. Non-Mormons are much more likely to be planning to leave the state.”7 This proves two things. First, that Mormons are leaving areas of lower Mormon concentration to come to what their religion believes to be Zion. Second, that Non-Mormons frequently leave the state further entrenching Utah as a Mormon stronghold.
The concentrated immigration of Mormons to Utah, and emigration of non-Mormons from Utah, leads D. W. Meinig, in his 1965 article, The Mormon Culture Region, as to conclude that the group is “easily mapped and described … The implication is not that Mormons, as persons, are necessarily more religious than others but that, as a group, they constitute a highly self-conscious subculture whose chief bond is religion and one which has long established its mark upon the life and landscape of a particular area.”8 From a human geography perspective, “Mormon society tended toward uniformity, stability, cohesiveness, and a self-conscious circumscription of its attitudes and activities, the Gentile society of such towns was heterogeneous, mobile, volatile … In time, some convergence of these two would be quite apparent; yet they remain today recognizably distinct wherever they exist side by side.”9 Expounding upon the arguments presented by Toney et al and Jackson, Meinig explains that from a variety of motivating factors the Mormons have become even more deeply entrenched into Utah. Additionally, they have also branched into other areas of the western seaboard. As a result, Meinig concludes “The Mormon region will long endure as a major pattern within the American West” and its distinct features will allow it to be discernable from its non-Mormon neighbors.10
In contrast to much of the historiography dealing with Mormons, the aptly named Richard Sherlock investigates causes other than conflict for Mormon migration. In his 1977 article, Mormon Migration and Settlement after 1875, Sherlock writes, “Though the importance of the polygamy crisis itself is now downplayed … The theme of conflict remains largely dominant. This exclusive focus on the often dramatic struggle between Saint and Gentile serves to obscure the much slower process of the later stages of Mormon migration and settlement of the West.”11 The author argues that expansion into places such as Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, and Canada were not driven by conflict as much of the early expansion of the Church was, but instead driven by an expansion of population and need for resources. Quoting Brigham Young, Sherlock points out “as Zion is constantly growing so must we extend our settlements.”12 This serves as a turning point the development of the historiography.
Marshall Bowen supplements this line of historical argumentation in his 1977 article, Migration To and From A Northern Wyoming Mormon Community 1900 to 1925. Rather than being driven by conflict, Bowen argues immigrants to the town of Cowley, Wyoming went in search of land and job opportunities. Bowen writes, “focusing on Cowley, Wyoming, which lost more than one-third of its original settlers within twenty-fiver years … is a reminder that some Mormon colonization ventures did not live up to their founders’ expectations.”13 Thus, rather than conflict with outside groups, Bowen argues, “specific experiences that the settlers had before moving to Cowley largely determined their success in Cowley and, If they failed there, where they would next locate.”14 Like Jackson, Bowen illustrates that the occupations of many Mormons at the time were based in agriculture, and their ability to stay in Cowley was dependent on the access to resources to be successful farmers.
Marrying Sherlock’s thesis of non-conflict based migration to prior conflict-based arguments, in their 1994 article, The Mormon Settlement of Southeastern Idaho, Lawrence G. Coates et al argue that while migration to Idaho was not rooted in conflict, their leaving the state was. Due to expanding populations and the need for more land, the authors write, “this investigation of Mormon communities in southeastern Idaho challenges the prevailing view that Brigham Young and his colleagues left Nauvoo with the Salt Lake Valley firmly in mind.”15 Their motivation to leave Idaho, however, the authors argue was conflict based. They write, “the U.S. marshal from Blackfoot hounded polygamists, arrested them, and sent them to prison by using anti-Mormon juries.”16 Thus, the line between conflict and non-conflict based Mormon migration is much blurry than prior historiography seemed to indicate.
In his 1945 article, The Mormon Migration to Texas, C. Stanley Banks argues internal conflict, rather than outside factors, were what lead members of the church to come to Texas. After the death of Smith and the assumption of power by Young, Lyman Wight and two other members of the Quorum of Twelve, the governing body for the Church, “refus[ed] to acknowledge the leadership of Brigham Young, the group … had no further connection with the main body of the Saints, who followed Young to Salt Lake City.”17 Prior to Smith’s death, a group was sent to explore gaining land in Texas, convince Texas to view them as their own nation, and ally themselves with Texas in the fight against Mexico. It was this land that was discussed with the Texas Republic that Wight and his companions moved onto in the state.18 Banks argues that this group had particular hardship in terms of conflict with outside forces and disease, and was never able to find permanent settlement in Texas.19
Following in the line of Jackson’s encouragement to view primary documents and writings, most of the authors rely heavily on the personal writings of the Church’s leaders, elites, and common people. In doing so, they are able to interrogate the beliefs and understandings of those people in order to evaluate their motivations for behavior. In addition to writings, some authors evaluate census data in order to understand the movement of the people at a quantifiable level. The authors generally advance similar arguments. On balance, they agree that migration occurred for societal reasons such as conflict, better access to agricultural resources, or a combination of the two. The exception to this was Sherlock who argued that conflict should not be the soul focus. His argument still falls in line with the others, however, when he attempts to show that many people were moving to be with the other members of their church and family.
In conclusion, the Mormon Church has faced a variety of hardships since their creation. Between conflicts with other religious groups and Native Americans, the people’s lives were filled with turmoil until the founding of the permanent settlement in Utah. While the myth within the church is that the land was ordained for them, the physical geography had great impacts on their choice of location for the purposes of the agriculture their society pursued. Additionally, through the convergence of human geography leading to additional conflict, secondary migrations occurred in order to promote the prosperity of the church. Thus, though the first century of the Mormon Church’s existence was tumultuous, through the utilization of both the physical geography and their connections as a religious group the church was able to create a sustainable foundation for continued growth and prosperity.
Bibliography
Banks, C. Stanley. "The Mormon Migration into Texas." The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Vol. 49, No. 2 (Oct., 1945): 233-244.
Belk, Russell. "Moving Possessions: An Analysis Based on Personal Documents from the 1847-1869 Mormon Migration." Journal of Consumer Research. Vol. 19, No. 3 (Dec., 1992): 339-361.
Bowen, Marshall.
"Migration To and From A Northern Wyoming Mormon Community 1900 to 1925." Pioneer America. Vol. 9, No. 2 (Dec. 1977): 208-227.
Coates, Lawrence, Peter Boag, Ronald Hatzenbuehler, and Merwin Swanson. "The Mormon Settlement of Southeastern Idaho, 1845-1900." Journal of Mormon History. Vol. 20, No. 2 (Fall 1994): 45-62.
Jackson, Richard. "Mormon Perception and Settlement." Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 68, No. 3 (1978): 317-34.
Meinig, D. W. "The Mormon Culture Region: Strategies and Patterns in the Geography of the American West, 1847-1964." Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Vol. 55, No. 2 (Jun 1965): 191-220.
Meinig, Donald W. The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Vol. 2: Continental America, 1800-1867. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
Poulsen, Richard, ""This Is the Place": Myth and Mormondom," Western Folklore, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Jul, 1977): 246-252.
Sherlock, Richard. "Mormon Migration and Settlement after 1875." Journal of Mormon History. Vol. 2 (1975): 53-68.
Tony, Michael, McKewen Stinner, Carol, and Kan, Stephan, "Mormon and Nonmormon Migration in and out of Utah," Review of Religious Research, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Dec. 1983):
114-126.