1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre: What Under The Banner Of Heaven Leaves Out
WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Under the Banner of Heaven episode 1.
Under the Banner of Heaven episode 1, «When God Was Love,» features historical flashbacks to the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, but the series leaves out a few key details. As Under the Banner of Heaven uncovers how LDS extremism and traditional Mormon teachings influenced the true 1984 murders of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter Erica, the series also features flashbacks to violent moments in Mormon history that set a precedent for the killers’ actions. When Allen Lafferty explains to Detective Jeb Pyre how violence is deeply embedded in Mormon history, one tragic example he gives is the real-life Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Allen recites how in 1859, Major James Henry Carleton found a group of innocent gentiles and their children who'd been slaughtered in the name of God by a group of Mormons two years earlier. Allen then says that Detective Pyre likely doesn’t know the story because the church has carefully hidden the truth of such cruelty at the “will of God.” At the end of the episode, the flashback shows Carleton inspecting the bones of the murdered children, with the violent history of the religion connecting back to the modern-day murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty.
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The Andrew Garfield-led Under the Banner of Heaven gives a few of the tragic details of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and its link to violent teachings in Mormon history, yet the series leaves out many important and even more appalling details of the real-life event. What Allen leaves out is that the mass murder took place in the Utah Territory at Mountain Meadows, which saw a group of Mormon
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