Anti-Mormonism in an Ethnic Enclave: Immigrants and the Embrace of a Common Foe

A few years ago, as I prepared for my comprehensive exams, I read several excellent studies on Mormonism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Books by scholars like Sarah Gordon, J. Spencer Fluhman, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Kathleen Flake helped me to consider how the history of Mormonism helps us to understand how religion functioned during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. With that said, I do not study Mormons. Nevertheless, last summer as I was conducting research in a small ethnic enclave in West Michigan, all of that comp reading came in particularly handy when discovered an extensive discussion of Mormons. In many ways, the themes I found in this archive, in a mixture of Dutch and English, reflected the themes identified by scholars like Gordon, Fluhman, Ulrich, and Flake; however, I was finding them, somewhat unexpectedly, in an ethnic archive.

Most of the Dutch immigrants I was studying made their way to the United States after the Mormons departed for Utah. A few of the earliest arrivals to Pella, Iowa, in 1847 witnessed the final convoys of Mormons crossing the state as they headed west; however, Dutch immigrants tended to live far from any large population of Mormons. Like many Americans during the nineteenth century, though, these Dutch immigrants expressed grave concern about Mormonism, even though they had little to no contact with them.

In an article simply titled “The Mormons” written in 1882, John Rozema, a Dutch student in Holland, Michigan, took aim both the authenticity of the religion and its leadership. When describing Joseph Smith, he characterized Smith as a “well-known fanatic” who masqueraded as a prophet. Rozema also claimed that only the gullible flocked to Smith’s new religion.[1] To make matters worse, the young student reported that after Smith’s death Brigham Young, “the most wicked man of his time,” became the new prophet. Young’s widely acknowledged polygamy outraged the young man.

This had not been the first time that the Dutch warned of Mormon marriage practices. Two years earlier, in 1880, a standard news update took the time to inform readers, “The Mormons evade the legal decisions against polygamy by secret marriages and taking the new wife home as help or a teacher and the old wives submit because they religiously believe it to be their duty.”[2] In the mind of these Dutch immigrants, the institution of plural marriage stood as incontrovertible proof of the error of the Mormonism.

The Dutch in West Michigan also depicted the Mormons as particularly prone to criminal activity. They were not the first to accuse the Mormons of criminal activity, and in fact, Mormons faced frequent accusations of criminality during their stay in the Midwest.[3] Rozema claimed that the story of Mormonism was “written in glaring characters of blood” and that “the bones of westward-bound emigrants lie bleaching on the plains, the ghastly records of their atrocious crimes.”[4] He also announced that the testimony of escaped women told gruesome stories of the religion.

All of these factors suggested to Rozema that Mormons were not fit to participate in a civilized and enlighten society. He referred to the acts of Mormons as “barbarous” and “inhuman” and stated clearly that all of these infractions took place “under the mantle of religion.”[5] In closing his piece, he ended with a flourish, declaring, “The time now seems to be near at hand when the all-overcoming power of civilization will crush this remnant of barbarism.”[6] Because of their understanding of Mormons’ religious beliefs and practices, Dutch settlers identified Mormons as outsiders. Furthermore, by decrying them as “uncivilized,” Rozema also suggested that he and the Dutch community he represented were, in fact, civilized.

This pattern fits well within the transformation of perceptions of Mormonism documented by the scholars I read for my comprehensive exams years ago. Yet, what struck me the most about these writings was the fact that they occurred in such a small ethnic enclave, often perceived to have limited engagement with intellectual, religious, and social issues taking place beyond their provincial towns. The writings, prejudices and conceptions of Mormonism perpetuated by these Dutch immigrants tracked easily with broader American conceptions.

The presence of this rhetoric in a rural immigrant community not only reveals the level of engagement these communities had with outside influences but also, I would argue, demonstrates how these recently arrived immigrants marshaled broader arguments to position themselves within the hegemonic white American culture. Even if their particular strand of Dutch Calvinism, preference for speaking Dutch, and broader efforts to maintain their customs put them at odds with their American neighbors, a mutual enemy—Mormons—helped to situate them as insiders who opposed a common foe. By focusing on shared Protestantism, whiteness, and understandings of civilization, these immigrants downplayed the elements of their communities that marked them as outsiders, and positioned themselves among the nineteenth-century Americans rallying against a common, Mormon foe.

[1] John Rozema, “The Mormons,” The Excelsiora 12, no. 10 (Spring 1882), 308.

[2] G. Van Zoeren, “News,” The Excelsiora 10, no. 7 (February 1880), 271.

[3] See, for instance, Brady G. Winslow, “David W. Kilbourne: The Creation of an Iowa Anti-Mormon,” Annals of Iowa 78, no. 3: 241­–87.

[4] Rozema, 309.

[5] Rozema, 310.

[6] Rozema, 310.