Fastpaced report of the stories of the day. Listen to cspan any time. Tell your smart speaker, play c span radio. Cspan, powered by cable. It is my pleasure to welcome dr. Woods of back to the library and to give a presentation on mormon transmigration in missouri between 1838 and 1868. These decades were an overlooked period of lds in missouri, history, when latter day saints traversed hundreds of miles across the state, despite a government extermination threat, issued by the governor. Woods has been a professor of Church History and doctrine at Brigham YoungUniversity Since 1998. He specializes in latter day saints immigration studies, and is the editor of the saints by the sea, since by the sea website, which documents lds maritime immigration in america , in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He is editor and compiler of the mormon immigration index, which was released in 2000, and is widely used by researchers. Woods has authored and co authored more than a dozen books and scores of articles on lds history. And has collaborated on several documentary films. The most recent being the saints of tonga, a century of violent faith, which is a companion work to his 2019 book. He has lectured extensively at conferences, universities, churches, and libraries. And we are thrilled to have him back at here in kansas city at the central library. Please join me in welcoming dr. Fred woods. [ applause ] well, good afternoon, and thank you jeremy for your kind introduction. I also appreciate on this sunday afternoon, we have joel jones, assistant directory of the library and i appreciate him being here. I appreciate all the help i have had with the technology. I hope that things are working well, it sounds like things are up. Okay, even though theres only a few here, i am told at least 10,000 a listening right now. So, i hope you have a good time today. I want to have a good time. I think history should be enjoyable. Even when you deal with some things, the good, the bad and the ugly, right . So i, for me, i like to generate light instead of heat. I will tell you right up front, i am not six generation mormon heritage. I am a guy that streetwise from l. A. , that tied into the latter day saints as an adult. And so i think it might be helpful for the audience, there was ive looked at this topic and others from the outside looking in and not the inside looking out, if that makes sense. So im going to kind of take you on a tourism of some things. I am going to talk about this topic for about 45, 50 minutes and then open it up for questions. I want you to have that opportunity. It if you can wait until im finished, i will say, q a time. That would be nice. So lets just kind of, get into this. I want to thank byu for their support of all my projects. And by the way, i love the Missouri Valley room right over here. If you have never been in it, you got to pop in on your way out. Most recently i was looking to have 532 sources, only to be used in the Missouri Valley room, if you search toward mormon. If youre looking under latter day saints, this 459 sources, only to be used. So they have a very rich collection of latter day saints sources. So with that, i want to go back to 1833. What you need to understand, and this is like were talking history, right . Like, you know you have this them and us. And hopefully, by the time we finished, it is like we. We go from conflict understanding and things work out. But i wanted to say before, even laying this thing out, that i was thinking this morning of the 19th 1828 Protestant Missionary journal i read, a guy coming from new england. He is being sponsored. He gets to Jackson County, right on the border, right . You have the organized territory. Once you cross the river, he saying, that this area at that time, certainly not now, was the most godless place he had ever seen. I mean, this is on the santa fe trail. This makes you know, gunsmoke look like kitty cartoons. Okay . It was a wild place. And his account, there was a multiplication of women, practicing the worlds oldest profession. A lot of whiskey. It was crazy. It was wild. There was cockfighting and people trying to take each other out from time to time. And when the federal marshals would come into the area he said, there was scurrying across the border. Kind of like if you are a drug runner in san diego and you are going to tijuana, Something Like that. At this is how it was in the 1830s. It was rough and tumble. Now we have great, upstanding citizens and things have changed. But mixing latter day saints culture with what was in at the time was oil and water. It wasnt jelling at all. So i want to point that out as we get into this. And there was, they call it an manifesto in history where the missourians at the time were making their point of why they wanted latter day saints to leave. Okay . They were tampering with slaves or they were northerners and had people, southerners coming in on the missouri side. Accused of being friendly to native americans. In indian territory, right . We had missionary sent over there and they were worried, you are going to get slaves to revolt or get the native americans, and you are going to come after us. It was economic and lyrical competition as well. So these were the issues. When the latter day saints were voting for one person, block voting, there was a problem when you have like 3500 people in the community and all of a sudden youve got a herd of these mormons coming in, to the tune of 1200, so we got to understand. I can really see, the other side of the issue. And so we have these land policies, you know, how would you feel if someone said to you, you can either sell is your land or we are going to take it from you, right . This kind of attitude, it was. So we could have done better as latter day saints. We could have generated light instead of heat on a number of days, weeks, and even years. So theres two sides of the story and im hoping by the time i get through this show, you can see this. So some of the factors i can see, this is what the mom manifesto, this is what they laid out. A live 1833, you need to leave because of this. This is not working, okay . So this idea of latter day saints, boasted taking missouri lands, or going to take, were gathering in haste. They were told, dont gather in haste but be consistent with the feelings of the people. Dont try to overpower them. And some of the things they were doing wrong, there were contentions, strife, they would say lustful and coveted desires and their latter day saints scriptures. So this is kind of laying out the big picture. And anyway, as a result, by 1833, Later Day Saints are cast out of Jackson County. But that isnt, that is kids stuff compared to what happens five years later. Five years later, we have the governor of missouri, low burn w boggs, who issues and extermination order. And quite frankly, and in fairness to him, i think you didnt want to go around and try to kill the mormons, but rather he was saying, look, if you dont remove peaceably, we are going to have to do something else. But i dont think he was trying to take out as many latter day saints as he could. This is what is happening. Theres a lot of misunderstanding and i think we are Getting Better at this. I hope we are. I love the idea of seeking to understand, before fully seeking the understood. Trying to understand the other perspective. Trying to look for the Common Ground instead of the battleground. [ captioners transitioning ] sot latterday saints by the sot thousands about 10,000 theyre going to leave western, missouri right go east and theyre going to go into the area for the most part in quincy, illinois. And eventually theyre going to migrate a little bit north to an area called commerce. Thats later called nauvoo, which is a hebrew word, which means beautiful. So some of the saints are saying to their leader joseph smith. I mean joseph this place is like a mud pit, you know, theres mosquitoes or swamps and he says look at well just drain it and he says we will drain it. That was the idea. What happens here is when they are driven out it is during this frigid season. It seems to be winter when the saints were moving. We created that frigid season with bitter feelings. Carries on into salt lake. I think they are more comfortable talking about what happened in missouri once they were on safe turf, quite frankly. A number had a very difficult time. Theres 678 petition we know file that the federal government. At the time, i can do nothing for you because of the issue of states rights and didnt want you to lose the vote. We had these kinds of issues going on but what i want to talk about today im dribbling the ball and now we are going to milan. I want to talk about what happened after the extermination or between the time of 38 and 68. The Transcontinental Railroad comes in at 69. People that study pioneer history seem to have this issue. Its a cultural myopia where theyre always thinking about the trail. They dont think about the sale and rail. Theyre just focused on this. Hopefully today you can see kind of a different aspect of migration, west immigration and see whats cooking here in what we refer to now as the show me state. I want to say my family has lived in missouri. I used to be a visiting professor out in st. Louis and the western and eastern side in this time period was really on quite different. We say the extermination order and all of misery when in actuality there are newspapers saying what the heck is he doing . It was an oasis in st. Louis at the time. Rather than it being a hotbed as it was in western missouri. The most important part is that last five minutes. When its five minutes before q a i want to drive it home that even though things are looking rather bleak, right, in the early period that things have really changed in the last 50 years which is awesome. Here we go. What did latterday saints experience when they passed through misery . You might be wondering. It was a twosided thing. These are people that have strong feelings towards each other. Those are tough things to deal with. Weve got to listen to the other person. I want to go back to the idea that they are driven from western missouri clear across the state about 200 miles so they are going into that area if you picture quincy north of st. Louis and then they go into this little area they call naboo. In this area this is actually a daguerreotype from 1845. Whats nice about the novel. Is its the first time we have latterday saints history in photographs because this frenchman that invents this foot now we have actual photographs of what is cooking in these latterday saints communities. This is an important time period. That building is important. Thats the latterday saints templeay. I will and on temples at the end of this thing. This is the outhouse picture. This is the river here looking up and so this will become a magnet for latterday saints coming from the British Isles. About one out of every four latterday saints in the nauvoo. Were from england. They sent missionaries over and they came from liverpool, of the mississippi through st. Louis and on their way to nauvoo. We have this interesting history. Latterday saints felt obligated to record their experience. Just like for a would be coming to jerusalem. Along with this Missouri Family room here. In Salt Lake City they have whats called the Church History library and even if youre catholic, jewish protestant, agnostic, atheist, whatever there is hundreds and thousands of firstperson immigrant accounts describing what it was like to go to america in the mid19th century. This is really interesting stuff with a lot of people that were fresh converts. What was it like to experience this or that . I love it and share with my historian friends the different cultures. Youve got to at least take a look at this. Here we go. These latterday saints converts coming from the British Isles are coming from liverpool in the new orleans and making their way up here. You can see nauvoo. I dont know if you remember dead Poets Society with Robin Williams where he says sees the day . The stories they had to tell leaving your homeland, joining a ddifferent faith. I have four different faiths in my family alone. Church of christ, evangelical baptist and latterday saint. This was really Emotional Trauma when somebody joined the church of jesus christ latterday saints made that leak and the adjustments of leaving home and family. These were real things. There were some feelings about missouri. This is one of the famous latterday saint leaders. Hes talking about how he landed with my family. The company continued on. My reason for landing there is i would not venture into missouri after the abuses in former times. As i go through all these things keep in mind im fully aware theres two sides to every story. Im going to give it now from the latterday saint perspective of what they are thinking about these things. Thomas wrigley. We felt afraid of the extermination orders which were. Still in force. This is five years after the extermination order. Stan kimball was a great historian from edwardsville notes at the time of the extermination there are several st. Louis newspapers in support of the states. They even held meetings for the purpose of raising funds to assess the latterday saints in their condition. A different story there. Its right at the time they are coming across where its been 800 banks have collapsed. It was the financial panic kind of a deal. They wanted someone to boost the political side of things. Really humanitarian appeal. This was big business in the mid19th century. Coming to st. Louis, the steamboat business, youre traveling about six days across the state in the steamboat and 207 miles on the railroad. A little faster. We have these different accounts. I dont know if youre aware but somewhere between 3000 to 4000 latterday saint were in st. Louis during this period of the early 50s and there was an immigration agent here. Its interesting the latterday saints even had their own newspaper. The st. Louis luminary. Because of polygamy these latterday saint newspapers were launched in the 50s so in 1852 from Salt Lake City it came out, yes, we do practice polygamy just like abraham. The message boom came out there and all of a sudden you see the western standard newspaper of the latterday saints in san francisco. Youve got the mormon in new york, the st. Louis luminary and as far as Sydney Australia youve got zions watchmen. They have these things in place to defend their doctrine. Also to teach the immigration. They had these newspapers. St. Louis is a fine large and flourishing city and has furnished employment. For latterday saints to do family search and i have the same spicy website that jeremy talked about. A lot of different things. People think that mom, dad and the kids all came together and left from liverpool and went to salt lake. They didnt realize that sometimes they were stuck in boston, philadelphia, new york, st. Louis, new orleans for months and sometimes years trying to raise enough money to be able to continue the journey. Does that make sense . This idea of having jobs in the missionaries had to send a passenger list ahead of time thats like we need eight miners over here. Whatever vocation. They are setting things up to try to help them but the idea at this time was it was a temporary location to make it to salt lake. Once the city of the saints is firmly established it becomes out of migration and latterday saints in the mid20th century start coming out to the st. Louis area, kansas city area and those kinds of things largely because of employment. H many of you are probably all our familiar with the missouri republican. Its interesting what they havek to say about latterday saints. Our city is the greatest recruiting point for mormon ta immigrants in the Eastern States whose funds generally become exhausted. They stopped for several months and frequently remain here for a year or two. During this time in st. Louis about 3000 english mormons, nearly all are masters of some o trip this was actually a good gig for everybody. This was synergistic and winwin. Im trying to contrast what was going on. This is 15 years since the extermination order. Just kind of keep those things in mind. What about the northwest . I know one of our people today mentioned they were from the northwest. This is interesting because as you look at the mormon trail re here they are also driven from nauvoo , illinois. They crossed iowa. It took them longer to this distance than this distance because of the mud. You can see it is weeding its way to various areas. Here where you see this northwestern corner there were people traveling down trying to get jobs. Working to be able to have funds to continue on in the journey. This was one of my colleagues saying they were far enough away. As not to provoke trouble get close enough to prevent trade and armslength. The elements of trade between missouri and the mormons must be seen on at least two levels. First, aggregate and corporate purchases for the church and second individual trade. Many hired themselves out as laborers for nearby farmers. Some and more desperate straits traveled incognito among northern missouri farm sites and villages to find interim employment. T my colleague maintains that from 46 to 50 missouri became the lifeline to the mormon exodus. Had it not been for this misery trade and employment folks would not have gathered sufficient needs to migrate. I think this whole idea of being economic salvation that im giving you snapshots. Its kind of a feel of what is happening here. At the time. This is the year that Brigham Young comes into the Salt Lake Valley. Jose kept a meticulous journal. He said the most opposition we have in missouri about a decade after the extermination and consequence of the stories of the dissenters otherwise the missourians are very friendly. Some left the church but couldnt leave it alone. This is reality taking snapshots. This gets a little more colorful and theres some language. I toned it down. When they get into salt lake, people are more relaxed. I think they shared how they felt. There was some difficult things that happened to men, women and children in missouri before they left. What i did is i went out to the library. They have a great collection for immigrants in the weste