Short Creek raid

Last updated

Short Creek raid
Nome Nugget, August 12, 1954, "Bigamy Raid" image.png
Men from Short Creek gathered at local school
DateJuly 26, 1953 (1953-07-26)
Location Short Creek Community

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". [1] Law enforcement arrested polygamist men and removed children from their families. Arizona governor John Howard Pyle had invited journalists to view the raid, and the resulting media coverage from multiple outlets was negative, criticizing the raid's tactics and the intrusion upon children.

Contents

Events

The schoolhouse where the Mormon fundamentalists were during the raid. Colorado City schoolhouse.jpg
The schoolhouse where the Mormon fundamentalists were during the raid.

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] Time called it "the largest mass arrest of polygamists in American history". [1] Arizona law enforcement took 164 dependent children into custody; a superior court ordered in March 1954 that they be released back to their families. [3] Numerous Short Creek children ended up in foster care and some were never returned to their families. [1] Historian D. Michael Quinn argued that the raid's "only American parallel is the federal actions against Native Americans in the nineteenth century." [4]

Media attention

Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle initially called the raid "a momentous police action against insurrection" [5] [6] 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! [7]

Arizona newspapers variously called the raid "odious" and "un-American." [8] Time and Newsweek also covered the raid. [9] [10] One commentator has averred that coverage of the raid was "probably the first time in history that American polygamists had received media coverage that was largely sympathetic." [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]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) owned the Deseret News , [13] a periodical that supported the raid on Short Creek. [14] The News applauded the action as necessary to prevent the fundamentalists from becoming "a cancer of a sort that is beyond hope of human repair." [15] 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." [16] The Short Creek raid was the last action against polygamous Mormon fundamentalists that has been actively supported by the LDS Church. [17] [ citation needed ]

Aftermath

After the Short Creek raid, the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist colony at Short Creek eventually rejuvenated. [18] 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. [19] 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 [20] and sentenced to life in prison. [21]

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. [22] As of 8 April, a total of 416 children had been removed from the compound by authorities. [23] 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. [24] Others, however, have drawn direct connections between the two events. [25] [26]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colorado City, Arizona</span> Town in Mohave County, Arizona, US

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints</span> Latter-Day Saints denomination

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a Mormon fundamentalist group whose members practice polygamy. It is variously defined as a cult, a sect or a new religious movement. The FLDS Church has been involved in various illegal activities, including child marriages, child abandonment, sexual assault and human trafficking including child sexual abuse. The sect is not connected to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the largest Latter-day Saint denomination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mormon fundamentalism</span> Advocates of some early Mormon doctrines

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warren Jeffs</span> American sex offender and cult leader (born 1955)

Warren Steed Jeffs is a convicted peadofile and an American cult leader who is serving a life sentence in Texas for child sexual assault following two convictions in 2011. He is the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamous cult based in Arizona. The FLDS Church was founded in the early-20th century when its founders deemed the renunciation of polygamy by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be apostate. The LDS Church disavows any relation between it and the FLDS Church, although there are significant historical ties.

Bountiful is a settlement in the Creston Valley of southeastern British Columbia, Canada, near Cranbrook and Creston. The closest community is Lister, British Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apostolic United Brethren</span> Polygamous Mormon fundamentalist church

The Apostolic United Brethren (AUB) is a Mormon fundamentalist group that practices polygamy. The AUB has had a temple in Mexico since at least the 1990s, an endowment house in Utah since the early 1980s, and several other locations of worship to accommodate their members in the US states of Wyoming, Arizona, and Montana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lost boys (Mormon fundamentalism)</span> Term for young males excommunicated or pressured to leave a polygamous Mormon community

"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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">YFZ Ranch</span> Former Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints community in Texas

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. As of 2019, the property was in the process of being sold to the Dallas-based firm ETG Properties LLC, who were already leasing it for use as a military and law enforcement training facility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leroy S. Johnson</span> Fundamentalist Mormon leader (1888–1986)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Owen A. Allred</span> American religious leader (1914–2005)

Owen Arthur Allred was the leader of the Apostolic United Brethren, a Mormon fundamentalist polygamist group centered in Bluffdale, Utah. He came to this position following the murder of his brother Rulon Allred on orders of rival polygamist leader Ervil LeBaron, in 1977.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Short Creek Community</span> Community

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.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Smith Jessop</span> Mormon patriarch (1869–1953)

Joseph Smith Jessop was an early patriarch in the Mormon fundamentalist movement and, with John Y. Barlow, co-founder of Short Creek, Arizona, home to the polygynous Short Creek Community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Council of Friends (Woolley)</span> One of the original expressions of Mormon fundamentalism

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leroy S. Johnson Meetinghouse</span> Church in Arizona, United States

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.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Cosgrove, Ben (April 20, 2014). "Photos From a Notorious 1953 Raid on a Polygamist Arizona Town". Time .
  2. 1 2 Driggs (1990 , p. 367).
  3. ↑ Driggs (1992 , paragraph 10).
  4. ↑ Quinn (1998 , p. 12).
  5. ↑ Bradley (1993 , p. 207).
  6. ↑ "Parallels to Short Creek raid in 1953 are pointed out". Deseret News . April 10, 2008. Retrieved March 27, 2021. 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.
  7. ↑ Arizona Republic , 1953-07-28.
  8. ↑ Van Wagoner (1992 , p. 294).
  9. ↑ "The Great Love-Nest Raid". Time magazine . August 3, 1953. Archived from the original on December 22, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2009.
  10. ↑ "People: The Big Raid", Newsweek, 1953-08-03, p. 26.
  11. ↑ Stephen Eliot Smith, The "Mormon Question Revisited : Anti-polygamy Laws and the Free Exercise Clause (LL.M. thesis, Harvard Law School, 2005).
  12. ↑ Abbie Gripman, "Short Creek Raid Remembered" Archived August 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine , The Miner, 2002-08-02.
  13. ↑ Barringer, Felicity (January 7, 2001). "Of Church, State, and Journalism". The New York Times .
  14. ↑ Van Wagoner (1992 , pp. 294–295).
  15. ↑ Van Wagoner (1992 , p. 295).
  16. ↑ Van Wagoner (1992 , pp. 296–297).
  17. ↑ Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the LDS Church, has stated that the decision whether or not to prosecute a Mormon polygamist is "entirely in the hands of the civil officers. It's a civil offence. It's in violation of the law. We have nothing to do with it. We're totally distanced from it. And if the state chooses to move on it, that's a responsibility of civil officers." : Gordon B. Hinckley on Larry King Live , CNN tevevision broadcast, 1998-09-08.
  18. ↑ Neil J. Young, "Short Creek's Long Legacy", Slate, April 16, 2008.
  19. ↑ "The Primer" Archived 2005-01-11 at the Wayback Machine – Helping Victims of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse in Polygamous Communities. A joint report from the offices of the Attorneys General of Arizona and Utah.
  20. ↑ Wagner, Dennis (24 February 2011). "Jailed sect leader retakes legal control of church". USA Today. McLean, Virginia. Retrieved 6 May 2019
  21. ↑ "Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs sentenced to life in prison". CNN .
  22. ↑ "52 children taken during raid". The Eldorado Success. April 4, 2008. Archived from the original on October 21, 2013. Retrieved April 6, 2008.
  23. ↑ "Texas takes legal custody of 401 sect children". CNN. April 7, 2008. Archived from the original on April 11, 2008. Retrieved April 7, 2008.
  24. ↑ Adams, Brooke (April 7, 2008). "People who have left sect go to Texas to help". The Salt Lake Tribune. Archived from the original on April 8, 2008. Retrieved April 7, 2008.
  25. ↑ Adams, Brooke (April 11, 2008). "Polygamous crackdown echoes 1953 Short Creek arrests". The Salt Lake Tribune. Archived from the original on April 12, 2008. Retrieved April 18, 2008.
  26. ↑ "Polygamy: Where religious liberty ends". The Salt Lake Tribune. April 13, 2008. Archived from the original on April 14, 2008. Retrieved April 18, 2008.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.