The brutality of the Mountain Meadows Massacre continues to reverberate—not only through the subsequent generations of its victims and perpetrators, but also throughout American culture. Convicting the Mormons, Janiece Johnson's award-winning monograph, deftly explores the origins of this dynamic by tracing “the cultural narrative that surged out of this single event” and “how it helped Americans create and police the boundaries of civilization” (15–17).
Johnson makes a compelling argument that the ensuing narrative had tragic consequences. It fueled efforts to punish an entire community and its leaders rather than focus on specific massacre participants—“endeavors that ultimately impeded the prosecution of the perpetrators and justice for the victims” (2). What's more, the massacre narrative became a “weapon with which concerned citizens sought to battle the Mormon incursion” (2). And this “weapon” has had a long shelf life. Even now, after nearly two centuries, it “remains a tool—ex uno disce...
