Riders of the Purple Sage

The Mormon Church, or the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, began in upstate New York when John Smith published the Book of Mormon. In an attempt to create the city of Zion, a place where believers can gather freely, Smith moved his congregation from New York to Ohio, then to Missouri, and finally to Illinois. Smith and his congregation struggled with violence between themselves and local non-believers who disagreed with the beliefs of the Mormons. In 1844, Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were arrested and killed, leaving the church without a leader. A fight over succession followed, creating two branches of the church. Brigham Young took control of the majority of the congregation, the group that is known in modern times as the LDS church.

In light of the continuing persecution of Mormons in Missouri and Illinois, Young decided to move his congregation west, to territory that was generally unpopulated, and therefore open to the creation of Zion. Beginning in 1847, Young and many of his followers established farming communities in the Utah territory. In 1852, Mormon leaders became vocal about their beliefs, including their belief in plural marriage, a practice that many non-Mormons found disturbing. This caused tension between church leaders and non-Mormons who traveled through the area. Between 1857 and 1858, during which time Young was governor of the territory of Utah, the Mormons engaged in the Utah War, an unofficial war between Mormon communities and outsiders. Tensions during this time resulted in the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857. This massacre resulted in the deaths of 120 members of the Baker-Fancher wagon train who were traveling through the area to California.

Zane Grey uses the history of the Mormon Migration and the Utah War to explain how Jane Withersteen’s father came to establish the fictional village of Cottonwoods near the southern border of Utah. In the opening pages of the novel, Jane explains that the northern settlements of Utah have begun to resist the invasion of non-Mormon settlers and that this sentiment has also invaded Cottonwoods. This creates the setting in which Jane finds herself at odds with church leaders because she has developed friendships and a caretaker relationship with many of the non-Mormon settlers, including her fiancé, Bern Venters and an adopted child, Fay. While the novel opens 13 years after the Utah War, it shows the dominance of Mormon men over Mormon women, and the distrust Mormons still felt for non-Mormon people.