Others Unknown
By: C. Allen
Tags: History, Mormon Church, Tragedy, Essay, Violence

In September of 2017 the remains a previously unidentified victim were interred at the memorial site of the Massacre of Mountain Meadows. A skull of a nameless child was buried next its fallen companions.

163 years ago, one can only imagine the relief that it must have felt like to be told your five day nightmare, as a hostage of a marching gun battle in the meadows of west, was to soon be over. In the morning hours of September 7th, 1857 this child, Mary we’ll call her, must have been transfixed with fear as her party attacked suddenly and without warning nor provocation.

The men and women who were Mary’s family and neighbors dug shallow trenches, circled their wagons, hugged themselves close to the ground as they lowered rifles of their own to become incidental soldiers against a mysterious and unidentified enemy. Five sleepless days and nights passed, sparse with gunfire and pitched battle. Mary may have moved little during this period as any exposure might bring the attention of surveilling shooters encircling the camp. At some point, there may have been a revelation that the attackers were not Indians, or at least weren’t only members of the local Paiute Indian tribe, but also white men. We don’t know what effect this revelation had, if any, on the desperate survivors but we know they were desperate to end their besiegement, no matter who had arrested them.

So when it was finally announced that the battle would end, and the emigrants would be permitted to pass peacefully under the white flag of surrender to move onward to their destination, Mary and her embattled emigrant troupe would’ve only let out a monumental sigh of mortal relief. Though her company would have to bury some of their compatriots who fell during the battle, the rest would be spared. It must have then seemed odd when the men were split from the women and children and let astride, away from their defenses, themselves, having relieved their weapons, were defenseless.

The armed men escorting Mary and her company might have changed their posture and allowed, between the guards, an exposition to a nearby forested space that might even have allowed for hasty escape if the battle had been required to continue. As the first shots came forth from these bushes, Mary may have looked to the Mormon guards, wondering who could be doing the shooting. Hadn’t the battle ended? What combatants could there be remaining that had not yet surrendered? Mary must have realized, even in small way what this evidence was revealing when the militiamen who had become fidgety moments before turned towards the file of defenseless women and frightened children, now, knowing their signal had been sent up, trained their weapons on the older women standing at their sides. Which would have been logical because when one is precipitating a massacre you must eliminate those most likely to take adverse action.

In the distance, where the men of the emigrant train had been lead, Mary could have heard the thunderous rhythm of volleys of rifle fire and screams of agony and desperation that followed. Mary, utterly confused as the cadence of the guns and their cacophony that rolled down across the valley, and now like a orchestra announcing their overture, began in earnest just meters away. The pleading of the women and children fell on the deaf ears of malice as the men of the holy land of Zion fired, cleared, loaded and fired again into the host of unarmed hostages. Mary must have watched in stupefying horror as her world fell and crawled and begged and blead on the soft grass of Fall meadow. She may have seen few of the older girls flee away towards the creek in hopes of outrunning the carnage, only to watch as men followed and cut them down in brutish savagery.

Whether Mary was initially wounded and thrown prostrate to the ground or simply stood frozen unable to process or proceed with any rationale action, we don’t know. From even a layman’s examination of the remnant skull of the child Mary we do know what happened next. Laying wounded on the ground, or stilled standing in fear, a Mormon saint or noble native approached and put a bullet through her head.

The only attendees of the slaughter not sworn to a sacred oath of secrecy to protect the reputation of their divine theocratic state, were a select few emigrant children whom the murderers deemed were too young to be able to recount the atrocity they had just seen and heard and were sent to live with Mormon families.

Mary’s life could have ended at the ages of 6 through 10 as investigators were not able to determine her identity and used the record of the perforated cranium to guess the age.

Mary now lies with her brothers, and sisters in a now peaceful valley with a meadow of tall grass that flows easily in breeze. The breeze which graces the stone face of a wall inscribed with a memorial that does not bear Mary’s name but only: