190 years ago today - Apr 18, 1833

A mob of 300 "old settlers" gathers at Independence to decide on plans to destroy or expel the Mormons from Jackson County. After they spend all day trying to decide on various plans, their liquor gets the worst of them and they break up in a "Missouri row." These "old settlers," largely from the southern states, came to Jackson County before the Saints, and could not move on because anything west of Missouri had been designated by President Jackson as Indian territory. They watched with some resentment as ever-increasing numbers of the religiously oriented northerners flocked into Jackson County claiming that God had given the county exclusively to them. Acts of violence began as early as the spring of 1832, when the homes of some Saints were stoned and windows broken. In the fall of 1832, some haystacks were burned, houses shot into, and people insulted; and as recently as February 20, a mob of 50 or 60 men armed with whips and guns attacked at least one household. Thegroup on this date constitutes the first organized resistance to the Mormons in Missouri.

[Conkling, Christopher J., Joseph Smith Chronology]

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