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The Short Creek raid was an Arizona Department of Public Safety and Arizona National Guard action against Mormon fundamentalists that took place on the morning of July 26, 1953, at Short Creek, Arizona. The Short Creek raid was the largest mass arrest of polygamists in American history. At the time, it was described as "the largest mass arrest of men and women in modern American history." [1]
Just before dawn on July 26, 1953, 102 Arizona officers of public safety and soldiers from the Arizona National Guard entered Short Creek. The community, which was composed of approximately 400 Mormon fundamentalists, had been tipped off about the planned raid and were found singing hymns in the schoolhouse while the children played outside. The entire community was taken into custody, with the exception of six individuals who were found not to be fundamentalist Mormons. [2] Among those taken into custody were 263 children. One hundred and fifty of the children who were taken into custody were not permitted to return to their parents for more than two years, and some parents never regained custody of their children. [3]
Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle initially called the raid "a momentous police action against insurrection" [4] [5] and described the Mormon fundamentalists as participating in "the foulest conspiracy you could possibly imagine" that was designed to produce "white slaves." [2] More than 100 reporters had been invited by Pyle to accompany the police to observe the raid. However, the raid and its tactics attracted mostly negative media attention; one newspaper editorialized:
By what stretch of the imagination could the actions of the Short Creek children be classified as insurrection? Were those teenagers playing volleyball in a school yard inspiring a rebellion? Insurrection? Well, if so, an insurrection with diapers and volleyballs! [6]
In the same week that the Korean War Armistice Agreement was signed, the raid achieved notoriety in media across the United States, including articles in Time [7] and Newsweek , [8] with many media outlets describing the raid as "odious" or "un-American." [9] [ page needed ] One commentator has suggested that commentary on the raid was "probably the first time in history that American polygamists had received media coverage that was largely sympathetic." [10] Another has suggested that the raid's "only American parallel is the federal actions against Native Americans in the nineteenth century." [11]
When Pyle lost his bid for re-election in 1954 to Democratic candidate Ernest McFarland, Pyle blamed the fallout from the raid as having destroyed his political career. [12]
One of the few media outlets to applaud the raid was the Salt Lake City-based Deseret News , which was owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). [13] The News applauded the action as a needed response to prevent the fundamentalists from becoming "a cancer of a sort that is beyond hope of human repair." [14] When the paper later editorialized its support for separating children from their polygamist parents, there was a backlash against the paper and the church by a number of Latter-day Saints, including Juanita Brooks, who complained that the church organization was approving of "such a basically cruel and wicked thing as the taking of little children from their mother." [9] [ page needed ] The Short Creek raid was the last action against polygamous Mormon fundamentalists that has been actively supported by the LDS Church. [15]
After the Short Creek raid, the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist colony at Short Creek eventually rejuvenated. [16] Short Creek was renamed Colorado City in 1960. In 1991, the Mormon fundamentalists at Colorado City formally established the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS Church). The members of the sect did not face any prosecutions for its polygamous behavior until the late 1990s, when isolated individuals began to be prosecuted. [17] In 2006, FLDS Church leader Warren Jeffs was placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted List; he was arrested in 2007 and in 2011 was convicted in Texas of two counts of child sexual abuse [18] and sentenced to life in prison. [19]
On 3 April 2008, following allegations of physical and sexual abuse by an unidentified caller who claimed to be a 16-year-old girl, law enforcement officers raided a FLDS compound Jeffs had founded in Texas called the YFZ Ranch. [20] As of 8 April, a total of 416 children had been removed from the compound by authorities. [21] A former member of the FLDS Church, Carolyn Jessop, arrived on-site 6 April and stated her opinion that the action in Texas was unlike the Short Creek raid. [22] Others, however, have drawn direct connections between the two events. [23] [24]
Colorado City is a town in Mohave County, Arizona, United States, and is located in a region known as the Arizona Strip. The population was 2,478 at the 2020 census. At least three Mormon fundamentalist sects are said to have been based there. A majority of residents and many local officials belong to the most prominent of these sects, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whose corporation also owned much of the land within and around the town until state intervention in the 2000s.
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a religious sect of the fundamentalist Mormon denominations whose members practice polygamy. It is variously defined as a cult, a sect, or a new religious movement.
Mormon fundamentalism is a belief in the validity of selected fundamental aspects of Mormonism as taught and practiced in the nineteenth century, particularly during the administrations of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and John Taylor, the first three presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormon fundamentalists seek to uphold tenets and practices no longer held by mainstream Mormons. The principle most often associated with Mormon fundamentalism is plural marriage, a form of polygyny first taught in the Latter Day Saint movement by the movement's founder, Smith. A second and closely associated principle is that of the United Order, a form of egalitarian communalism. Mormon fundamentalists believe that these and other principles were wrongly abandoned or changed by the LDS Church in its efforts to become reconciled with mainstream American society. Today, the LDS Church excommunicates any of its members who practice plural marriage or who otherwise closely associate themselves with Mormon fundamentalist practices.
Warren Steed Jeffs is an American religious-cult leader and felon, convicted of several sex crimes and two assisted sex crimes involving children. He is the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamous cult. In 2011, he was convicted of two felony counts of child sexual assault, for which he is serving a life sentence.
Bountiful is a settlement in the Creston Valley of southeastern British Columbia, Canada, near Cranbrook and Creston. The closest community is Lister, British Columbia.
"Lost boys" is a term used for young men who have been excommunicated or pressured to leave polygamous Mormon fundamentalist groups, such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). Although sometimes officially accused of apostasy or disobedience, it is thought that they are mainly pressured to leave by older adult men to reduce competition for wives within such sects, usually when they are between the ages of 13 and 21.
The Yearning for Zion Ranch, or the YFZ Ranch, was a 1,700-acre (690-hectare) Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) community of as many as 700 people, located near Eldorado in Schleicher County, Texas, United States. In April 2014, the State of Texas took physical and legal possession of the property.
Leroy Sunderland Johnson, known as Uncle Roy, was a leader of the Mormon fundamentalist group in Short Creek, which later evolved into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, from the mid-1950s until his death.
The Short Creek Community, founded in 1913, began as a small ranching town in the Arizona Strip. In the 1930s it was settled by Mormon fundamentalists.
Carolyn Jessop is an American author and former Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member who wrote Escape, an autobiographical account of her upbringing in the polygamist sect and later flight from that community. She is the cousin, by marriage, of Flora Jessop, another former FLDS member and advocate for abused children. Carolyn Jessop now lives in the Salt Lake City area with her children.
Polygamy is the practice of having more than one spouse at the same time. Specifically, polygyny is the practice of one man taking more than one wife while polyandry is the practice of one woman taking more than one husband. Polygamy is a common marriage pattern in some parts of the world. In North America, polygamy has not been a culturally normative or legally recognized institution since the continent's colonization by Europeans.
Nathaniel Baldwin was an American inventor and industrialist, known for his improved telephonic earphone, among other inventions. He was also a supporter of the early Mormon fundamentalist movement.
Wendell Loy Nielsen was the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, replacing Warren Jeffs, at that time imprisoned on charges related to sexual assaults against minors.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Kingdom of God is a Mormon fundamentalist church in the Latter Day Saint movement. The sect was founded by Frank Naylor and Ivan Nielsen, who split from the Centennial Park group, another fundamentalist church over issues with another prominent polygamous family. The church is estimated to have 200–300 members, most of whom reside in the Salt Lake Valley. The group is also known as the Neilsen Naylor Group or the Third Ward.
The Council of Friends was one of the original expressions of Mormon fundamentalism, having its origins in the teachings of Lorin C. Woolley, a courier and bodyguard for polygamous leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who was excommunicated in 1924.
The Church of Jesus Christ Inc. is a Mormon fundamentalist denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement, and is also known as the Blackmore Group. There are approximately 700 members of this group.
Benjamin "Ben" Granger Bistline was an American historian of Mormon fundamentalism in Short Creek, a community of which he was a part.
The United Effort Plan also known as the UEP Trust is a charitable organization that was originally formed in 1942 as a subsidiary organization of the FLDS church. The organization is based in the Short Creek Community, comprising Hilldale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona, which was primarily the base of the FLDS church until church leader Warren Jeffs was arrested in 2007. In 2005 the trust was seized after the Attorney General of Utah filed a lawsuit against the church.
The Leroy S. Johnson Meetinghouse was the meetinghouse of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) located in Colorado City, Arizona, serving the Short Creek Community which includes Hilldale, Utah.
Pyle called it "a momentous police action against insurrection," and described the fundamentalists as "the foulest conspiracy you could possibly imagine," saying it amounted to white slavery.
