Greed drove 1838 persecution, BYU Studies article says

Editor's note: This is a synopsis of an article appearing in the latest volume of BYU Studies about motives behind the 1838 persecution of Latter-day Saints in Missouri.New findings reveal that several prominent Missouri persecutors in Daviess County made immense profits off the lands from which early Mormon settlers were driven. New research also suggests the timing of the Extermination Order facilitated this landgrab.

In 2005, Jeffrey N. Walker was working as manager of the Legal and Business Series for the Joseph Smith Papers project when he discovered important documents that shed new light on the 1838 conflict between Mormons and Missourians in Daviess County. Walker shares his findings in the current issue of BYU Studies: “While popular history has painted the persecution as religiously motivated, the facts suggest a more base reason: greed, in its most ugly and insatiable form.”

Land laws enacted in 1830 stated that “preemption was the process whereby individuals secured right to purchase public land they had improved and inhabited.” After lands were surveyed, a sale date was announced, and if squatters did not pay for the land they had inhabited by the published deadline, other interested parties could buy the improved land at unimproved prices.

Surveyors struggled to keep up with the workload. “A settler could file an application for his land and then wait months, or sometimes even years, for the surveying process to be completed,” Walker explains. In the meantime, settlers worked the land and earned money to purchase it. Also, once houses, mills, and crops were in, the land became vastly more valuable — the case with most Mormon property in Daviess County.

Preemption rights — and the delayed payment for claimed lands — directly influenced Mormons’ settlement decisions following the financial collapse in Kirtland, Ohio. Although “Caldwell County was informally designed to accommodate Mormons,” Saints established their main community, Far West, in Caldwell County but also expanded into Daviess County. This was not because “Caldwell County had filled up to overflowing with Mormons,” as some have claimed. Many Saints from Kirtland had sold their land and possessions to help pay Church debts, so they came to Missouri unprepared to buy property. Many of these Saints settled Daviess County because preemption rights gave them time to farm and earn money before having to pay for the land.