Today’s Pioneer Day in Utah, commemorating the day the first group of Latter-day Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. The move was forced: the murder of Latter-day Saints had been legalized in Missouri and was ignored elsewhere. That we survived as a people was a miracle.

In Missouri, 2 reasons were given to justify our extermination: 1. we were poor 2. race-mixing/impeding the practice of slavery and 3. we were blasphemers. Some Latter-day Saints managed to escape before the onset of winter, while others could not. Many Latter-day Saints lost their properties to arson and vandalism. Many were also victims of assault, theft, rape, and murder.

With little money, they traversed the Midwest and Rockies. Many used shoddy handcarts, pulled by human power, to carry their scanty belonging.

Even after arrival, things were difficult: Utah is mostly desert, famine, illness, poverty, relations with local cultures were complicated (Utes in particular had grown into a powerful slaver culture after centuries of enslaving Shoshone and Paiutes the Spanish Empire).

(small aside: the Ute language is most closely related to the language of the Aztecs in Central Mexico, despite many significant languages and cultures separating them. v fascinating.)

Many people died before the exodus, and many died after. Included several of my ancestors.

While I didn’t grow up with Pioneer Day, I grew up with stories of my ancestors’ struggle to survive. These events still have significant ramifications.

Not the least are the cultural memory of persecution and the generational effects of trauma. Additionally, religious persecution in the US finds its legal precedent in cases against Latter-day Saints from the early Utah period.

Indigenous holy sites, rituals, and religions have been destroyed under reliance on legal principles set forth to harass and control Latter-day Saints. It’s a complex and often tragic history, but people made it work and managed to find their measure of happiness.