Speak Your Piece: a podcast about Utah's history

Rick Turley and Barbara Jones Brown on “Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath” (2023) (S5 E7)

February 27, 2023 Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian, Utah Dept. of Culture & Community Engagement Season 5 Episode 7
Speak Your Piece: a podcast about Utah's history
Rick Turley and Barbara Jones Brown on “Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath” (2023) (S5 E7)
Show Notes

Date: July 7, 2022 (Season 5, Episode 7: 75 minutes long). For the entire show notes and additional resources for this episode, click here. Are you interested in other episodes of Speak Your Piece? Click here. The episode was co-produced by Brad Westwood and Chelsey Zamir, with sound engineering and post-production editing by Jason T. Powers, from the Utah State Library Recording Studio.

This episode of Speak Your Piece is an interview with Barbara Jones Brown, director of Signature Books, and Richard E. Turley, Jr., former assistant Church Historian of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on their book Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath (Oxford University Press), to be released May 30, 2023, with SYP host Brad Westwood. This book is a sequel to the 2008 Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Walker, Leonard and Turley). In Vengeance is Mine, the authors exhaustively cover the motives that led to the massacre at Mountain Meadows of the 120-plus victims, followed by the complex aftermath that includes cover-up attempts with the entirety of the blame placed on the neighboring Paiutes, as well as governmental and political intrigue. Also detailed are the delayed, if not coordinated, efforts to obstruct justice in indicting the nine key individuals involved.

For the speakers' bios, please click here for the full show notes plus additional resources and readings. 

Do you have a question? Write askahistorian@utah.gov.