[h=1]Revealed: Mormon suffragette icon married to Brigham Young and Joseph Smith 'was left infertile after being gang-raped by eight men in 1838'[/h]
Eliza Snow is believed to have been gang raped during 1838 Mormon war
Shocking revelations describe how rape was so brutal she was left infertile
Mormon founder Joseph Smith had apparently 'offered her marriage as a way of promising her that she would still have eternal offspring'
Revelations 'challenge' or 'at least complicate' the origins of LDS's plural marriage belief, says professor
By ALEXANDRA GENOVA FOR DAILYMAIL.COM PUBLISHED: 17:43, 4 March 2016 | UPDATED: 19:58, 4 March 2016
One of Mormonism's most iconic founding mothers was gang-raped and left infertile, it has been revealed in a shocking historical account.
Eliza R. Snow is said to have been sexually assaulted by eight Missourians during 19th Century tensions between Latter Day Saints (LDS) settlers and their Midwestern enemies.
'The rape was brutal, and so it made Eliza unable to have children,' Idaho professor Andrea Radke-Moss told the Salt Lake Tribune.
Eliza R. Snow (left) is said to have been sexually assaulted by eight Missourians during 19th Century tensions between Latter Day Saints (LDS) settlers and their Midwestern enemies (pictured right)
The alleged rape came in the context of the bloody Mormon War of 1838, which saw the massacre of eighteen unsuspecting Mormon men and boys during an attack on a settlement by Missouri non-Mormons, after a period of intense unrest. The scandalous sexual assault allegations come from the autobiography of Alice Merrill Horne, who was the granddaughter of Bathsheba W. Smith, one of Snow's closest friends. Snow was one of the most celebrated Mormon women of the nineteenth century: A renowned poet, she chronicled history, celebrated nature and relationships, and expounded scripture and doctrine. Born in Beckett, Massachusetts in 1804, she was the second daughter of Oliver and Rosetta Snow and when she was two years old the family moved to Western Reserve valley in Ohio. The Snow family became members of Disciples of Christ but when in 1831, Joseph Smith, founder of LDS moved to Ohio, four miles from the Snow family farm, the family took a strong interest in the new religious movement.
Snow was married to American leader Brigham Young (left) as well as Mormon's founder Joseph Smith (right)
Snow's mother and sister joined the LDS and Snow was also baptized into the church, later donating all her inheritance to the church. Several years later, the Snow family moved West to Missouri, and it was at this time - during the 1838 Mormon War - that Snow is believed to have been raped. Later, Mormon founder Smith offered her marriage 'as a way of promising her that she would still have eternal offspring and that she would be a mother in Zion', according to Radke-Moss. These revelations of sexual assault might help to challenge or 'at least complicate' the origins of LDS's founding belief, plural marriage, says Radke-Moss.
Smith is said to have wed as many as 40 wives, including some who were already married and one as young as 14 years old. Radke-Moss described how for Snow, polygamy was about 'spiritual comfort following a savage crime' and was a 'protective measure in the context of trauma and sexual violence that Mormon women experienced.' Some have cast doubts on the legitimacy of Horne's sexual assault claims on Snow. But Horne says she learned of the rapes after listening to her grandmother and her friends discuss stories about the early days of LDS. And Snow's autobiographer seems to suggest that something was awry during her time in Missouri and says her writing there 'exposes particular rage that is not seen in most of her other poetry.'
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Joseph Smith (pictured right) is seen preaching to a Native Indian settlement - what followed was a period of intense unrest between Mormons and the original settlers
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The rape revelations come in the context of the Momon War of 1838, where non-Mormons in Missouri attempted to expel them by force, massacring eighteen unsuspecting men and boys
After Smith's death in 1842, Snow married the president of LDS, Brigham Young as a plural wife. She then traveled to Salt Lake City in 1847 and there, childless Snow became a prominent member of Young's family, moving into an upper bedroom in Young's residence. Snow was called on by Young to head up a re-organized Relief Society and her presidency emphasized spirituality and self-sufficiency. The Relief Society sent women to medical school, trained nurses, opened the Deseret Hospital, operated cooperative stores, promoted silk manufacture, saved wheat, and built granaries. Snow died in Salt Lake City in 1897 and was buried in Young's family cemetery.
[h=3]A BATTLE OF BELIEFS: THE BLOODY MORMON WAR OF 1838 [/h]Mormonism, founded by Joseph Smith, gained center stage in Missouri politics during the 1830s and quickly gained in popularity throughout northeastern America.
In 1830, Smith sent missionaries to Missouri 's western border to preach to the Native American tribes.
In 1831, he designated Missouri as the place where 'Zion' would be 'gathered'.
But the state's 'Old Settlers' said the Mormon settlers' 'clannish behavior' made a mockery of the republican institutions already in place.
Violence broke out in 1833 as the 'Old Settlers' under the guise of 'extra-legal' justice took the law into their own hands.
By 1836, a 'separate but equal' proposal was devised to resolve this and borders were devised across the state.
This quickly failed after the growing Mormon population burst its borders into neighboring states, culminating in a riot at an election riot in 1838.
That same year, the violence escalated further when on October 30, an organized mob launched a surprise attack on the small Mormon community of Haun's Mill, massacring eighteen unsuspecting men and boys.
Over the next year, around eight thousand church members, often ragged and deprived of their property, left Missouri for Illinois.
The Missouri State Archives' 'Mormon War Papers' add detail to this tumultuous period, and reveals that Joseph Smith and other church leaders had been heard for treason and other crimes.
Source: Missouri Digital Heritage
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Snow became a prominent member of Brigham Young's family, moving into an upper bedroom in Young's residence in Salt Lake City (pictured)
The LDS has since abandoned polygamy after 'God withdrew the command to practice plural marriage' in 1890, according to Mormon Newsroom. The practice had also come under frequent attack from the US federal government during the late 19th Century. Now only splinter groups, such as the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) practice plural marriage. These details come in the context of countless reports of sexual abuse from the FLDS. While the FLDS founder himself, Warren Jeffs, is currently serving a life sentence for sexually abusing two 12-year-old girls he claimed were his 'spirit wives'.
[h=3]EXTRACT FROM ONE OF ELIZA SNOW'S MISSOURI POEMS[/h]
The Gathering of the Saints and the Commencement of the City of Adam-ondi-Ahman
'Twas Autumn: Summer's melting breath was gone,
'And winter's gelid blast was stealing on.
'To meet its dread approach, with anxious care.
The houseless Saints were struggling to prepare.
'When round about a desp'rate mob arose,
'Like tigers waking from a night's repose —
'They come like hordes from nether shades let loose —
'Men without hearts — just made for Satan's use!
'With wild demoniac rage they sally forth,
'Resolv'd to drive the Saints of God from Earth.'
