Zion Camp

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Drawing of the expedition, from the book The Rocky Mountain Saints .

The Zion's Camp was a Mormon expedition of Joseph Smith was led. Its aim was to give back to the Mormon settlers their land that had been taken from them by non-Mormons.

The expedition went from Kirtland, Ohio to Clay County, Missouri, and lasted from May to June 1834. Mormon belief was that this land was destined to become a city ​​of Zion , and Smith, like modern Moses, was to keep this promise.

When the Missouri residents heard that Smith was on an expedition to visit them, they formed paramilitary units. They brought together more men than Smith's company.

Joseph Smith received another revelation in this situation: He rebuked church members that they were not worth "redeeming Zion" for not giving enough support to the United Order . He also told them that they would have to wait a while for each "elder to receive the endowment from heaven."

The expedition was affected by a cholera epidemic and was disbanded on July 25, 1834; most of the survivors returned to Ohio. While it was a failure, Joseph Smith could now gauge who his most loyal followers were. Many who had proven themselves in Zion's Camp became important church leaders in the years to come.

background

A fundamental Mormon belief is that the biblical New Jerusalem will be built on the American continent. This belief is based on the Book of Mormon . On July 20, 1831, Smith identified the location of this new Jerusalem as Jackson County, Missouri and sent Mormon settlers there to build a city ​​of Zion .

By the summer of 1833, approximately 1,200 Mormons had arrived in Jackson County. The older settlers felt threatened by the political and economic power of the newcomers and were unsettled by rumors that the Mormons were against slavery. So they founded paramilitary groups and organized attacks against the Mormons in the summer of 1833.

Joseph Smith received a revelation in this situation in August 1833: He opposed spontaneous acts of vengeance, but allowed retaliation after the fourth act of aggression and retribution up to the third and fourth generations.

The Mormons initially tried to get their land back legally. So they hired four lawyers from Missouri to go to court and the state government. However, the decision to hire lawyers and take the matter to court led to even more violence in October 1833. When the senior Missouri settlers attacked the Mormons a fourth time, they followed Smith's revelation and fought back. By late 1833, many Mormon homes and buildings had been destroyed and all Church members had fled the county. These Mormon refugees settled in neighboring counties for a limited period , particularly in Clay County, Missouri .

In December 1833, Smith wrote another revelation about the "salvation of Zion." She called on the Missouri settlers to seek justice through political or legal channels and warned that a military confrontation would be necessary if these attempts fail. The revelation predicted that under Smith's military command, a group of church members would retake the land. The legal and political efforts seemed futile at the time, although there should be a judicial hearing. This was postponed to a later date in the year after the old settlers protested.

Formation of the camp

At church headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio , Smith received a revelation that he should set up an expedition to move from Kirtland to Missouri and "redeem Zion" there. About 200 men and some women and children joined this expedition called "Zion's Camp".

The march

Smith and his associates left Kirtland on May 4, 1834, and by June 4 they roamed Indiana and Illinois . They reached the Mississippi River and crossed it to Missouri . They crossed much of Missouri by the end of June, and news of their possible arrival alerted non-Mormons in Jackson and Clay Counties.

Attempts to negotiate a return of the Mormons to Jackson County have been fruitless. However, Smith chose to disband the camp rather than force the "salvation of Zion" through. Many participants in the camp were convinced they should fight and criticized Smith. Many became ill with cholera . The 900 mile march did not reach its destination; fourteen participants died.

Effects

Smith encountered growing hostility on his return to Kirtland. Even so, many camp participants turned out to be loyal supporters of the movement. When Smith returned to Kirtland, he organized the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the Quorums of the Seventy. He mainly selected men who had supported him on this expedition.

The Mormons did not achieve their goal of returning to Jackson County. Although the Missouri Legislature proposed a compromise in 1836 that allowed Mormons to settle in Caldwell County , they were completely expelled from the state two years later.

Long after Smith's death, the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) returned to Jackson County to "redeem Zion."

Further literature

Individual evidence

  1. Jump up ↑ Doctrine and Covenants 103: 15–18 .
  2. Jump up ↑ Doctrine and Covenants 105: 2–5 .
  3. Jump up ↑ Doctrine and Covenants 105: 9–13 .
  4. ↑ Article of Faith : “10. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and the restoration of the Ten Tribes that Zion (the New Jerusalem) on this [i.e. H. the American] continent, that Christ will personally reign on the earth and that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory. "
  5. ↑ Book of Ether, Chapter 13
  6. Jump up ↑ Doctrine and Covenants 57: 1–3 .
  7. ^ Launius: Alexander William Doniphan: Portrait of a Missouri Moderate. 1997, p. 13.
  8. ↑ Bushman: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. 2005, pp. 327-328.
  9. ↑ Bushman: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. 2005, p. 235 .; Doctrine and Covenants 98
  10. ↑ Quinn: The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of. 1994; Doctrine and Covenants 98
  11. ^ Launius: Alexander William Doniphan: Portrait of a Missouri Moderate. 1997, p. 15.
  12. ^ Launius: Alexander William Doniphan: Portrait of a Missouri Moderate. 1997, pp. 15-16.
  13. ↑ Quinn: The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of. 1994
  14. Jump up ↑ Doctrine and Covenants 101: 43 .
  15. ↑ Doctrine and Covenants 101: 76–88 ; Roberts: History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1902, p. 455.
  16. ^ Roberts: History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1902, p. 455 (letter by Joseph Smith stating that if the government fails to restore the Missouri Saints to their land, then God "will come with ten thousand of His Saints, and all his adversaries shall be destroyed with the breath of His lips ").
  17. ↑ “Verily, verily, I say to you, My servant Joseph Smith jun. is the man I have compared the servant to whom the master of the vineyard spoke in the parable I gave you. ”Doctrine and Covenants 103: 21 .
  18. Jump up ↑ Doctrine and Covenants 101: 55–58 .
  19. ^ Launius: Alexander William Doniphan: Portrait of a Missouri Moderate. 1997, p. 19.
  20. ↑ Bushman: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. 2005, p. 236 .; Doctrine and Covenants 101: 75 : “Already there is enough, yes, abundant, to redeem Zion and to rebuild its devastated places so that it will never be overthrown, if only the churches that call themselves after my name arise wanted to hear my voice. "
  21. ^ Brodie: No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith. 1945, pp. 159-160: “Zion's Camp was Joseph Smith's second major failure. ... Far from being a second Moses, he had left the exiled colony still outside the promised land and had returned with little except consoling words for the families of the fourteen dead. Kirtland met him with a hostility that exceeded his worst fears, for Sylvester Smith had rushed back with a dismal story of defeat without honor. "
  22. ↑ Bushman: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. 2005, p. 247: “Nothing that Joseph aimed to accomplish came about. Several hundred men spent three months walking two thousand miles; fourteen of them never came home. Nothing the camp did improved the situation in Jackson County. ... what Zion's Camp a catastrophe? Perhaps, but it was not the unmitigated disaster that it appears to be. Most camp members felt more loyal to Joseph than ever, bonded by their hardships. The future leadership of the Church came from this group. "

literature

  • Fawn Brodie: No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith . Knopf, New York 1945.
  • S. Kent Brown: Historical Atlas of Mormonism . Simon & Schuster, 1994, ISBN 978-0-13-045147-7 , pp. 28-29 .
  • Richard Bushman : Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling . Knopf, New York 2005, ISBN 1-4000-4270-4 .
  • Roger D. Launius: Zion's Camp: Expedition to Missouri, 1834 . Herald Publishing House, Independence, Missouri 1984.
  • Roger D. Launius: Alexander William Doniphan: Portrait of a Missouri Moderate . University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 1997.
  • D. Michael Quinn: The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of . Signature Books, Salt Lake City 1994, ISBN 1-56085-056-6 .
  • Andrea G. Radke-Moss: We Also Marched: The Women and Children of Zion's Camp, 1834 . In: BYU Studies . 39, No. 1, 2000, pp. 147-165. Retrieved May 22, 2014.
  • BH Roberts : History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . Deseret News, Salt Lake City 1902 ( google.com ).
  • BH Roberts: History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . Deseret News, Salt Lake City 1904 ( google.com ).