Review
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Title: Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath
Authors: Richard E. Turley, Jr., and Barbara Jones Brown
Publisher: New York City: Oxford University Press
Genre: Religious non-fiction
Year Published: 2023
Number of Pages: 501
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9780195397857
Price: $34.95
Reviewed by Conor Hilton for the Association of Mormon Letters
Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath is a stunning achievement. Richard E. Turley, Jr., and Barbara Jones Brown have written an engaging, thoughtful, searching volume that dives into the massacre and what followed, leaving no stone unturned. Brown and Turley’s commitment to the search for truth and knowledge is apparent in the level of detail found throughout the book and the robust endnotes and sourcing to support their insights and conclusions.
One of the main takeaways I had from reading Vengeance is Mine was the power of stories—the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we hide, and the stories that we uncover. Brown and Turley demonstrate this power of stories not only in the historical record, as they lay out the various ways that the events of the Mountain Meadows Massacre were covered up, denied, hidden, and misunderstood. They also demonstrate the power of stories by presenting all of this information to the reader as a narrative. They use the power of narrative to work to challenge and correct the false narratives that have been believed for too long. They work to find and to tell the truth, sharing the experiences and words of voices from the dust, as it were.
Another strength of the book, as some other reviewers have mentioned or alluded to, is the way that Vengeance is Mine reckons with the historical context. Turley and Brown lay out the historical context quite thoroughly. To do so offers the reader an opportunity to better understand the various villains, heroes, and all those in between. While offering this chance at extending empathy to the perpetrators and others, Brown and Turley also are intentional about highlighting the experiences of victims, direct and indirect, of the Massacre, extending empathy widely.
These efforts at building and portraying the context helped me understand what happened and use that understanding to better judge the choices that were made. There is no excusing the Massacre in Brown and Turley’s work (as there shouldn’t be!). The context offered helps the reader evaluate the actions and to better identify possible parallels in our own context. This also helps draw attention to the choices that were made that could not have been made, that is what could have happened, but didn’t.
One of the most devastating lines in the book, for me, comes early on, as Brown and Turley describe Rachel Hamblin arguing with John D. Lee about the fate of some of the orphans, who were siblings. They write, “Normally timid, Hamblin found the courage to stand up to Lee—the only Mormon to do so at the Mountain Meadows” (36). The final clause of that sentence chills me to the bone. By noting that Rachel was the only Mormon to stand up to Lee at the Mountain Meadows, the specter of all the other Mormons involved, who did not stand up to Lee is invoked, all the people who could have changed their behavior and maybe changed the outcome. This moment also highlights the ways in which individual people may only have small spheres of influence but can use that influence for real, measurable good.
Reading Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath is not easy—the story is devastating and heartbreaking, and enraging, over and over again. Yet, it is necessary for us as a people to know better the truth of the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Brown and Turley’s book is a phenomenal, breathtaking step toward communal learning.