Primary Sources: Alternative Religions, Sects, Cults and Communes: Mormons

Presents the text of the measure passed by the US Congress on March 14, 1882, which proscribed certain aspects of Mormon religious practice. Provisions of the law dealing with polygamy and other related issues.

Access digital collections provided by the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. Subjects include: LDS Religion & Church History, Western History, Family History, etc.

"One of the most consequential crimes in American history occurred on a summer day in 1844 when a mob stormed a jail in Carthage, Illinois and murdered Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum. The killing of Joseph Smith, the charismatic founding prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, America's most important homegrown religion, led to a schism among Mormons and the trek west to Utah of Brigham Young and his followers. The story of the 1844 murders and the trial that followed is much less known than it deserves to be--largely owing to the over-sensitivity of American textbook writers on all matters religious. "

Official webpage of the church.

Provides digital access to a variety of manuscripts, diaries, letters, etc. contained in the Huntington Library's Mormon collections.

"Called "the darkest deed of the nineteenth century," the brutal 1857 murder of 120 men, women, and children at a place in southern Utah called Mountain Meadows remains one of the most controversial events in the history of the American West. Although only one man, John D. Lee, ever faced prosecution (for what ranks as one of the largest mass killings of civilians in United States history), many other Mormons ordered, planned, or participated in the massacre of Arkansas emigrants as they headed through southwestern Utah on their way to California...."