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Violence Across The Land: Vigilantism And Extralegal Justice In The Utah Territory, Scott K. Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

For years historians of the American West have overlooked Utah when dealing with the subject of extrajudicial violence, while researchers of Mormonism have misread the existence of such violence in territorial Utah. The former asserts that Utah was free from extrajudicial proceedings and that such violence was nearly nonexistent within the contours of the Mormon kingdom. The latter maintains that any violence that existed in Utah was directly connected to the religious fanaticism of the Mormon populace in the region. The reality is that much of the extralegal violence in Utah was a result of the frontier, not the religion …