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

**Brad Westwood** (0:02)
Welcome to the podcast Speak Your Piece. This is a podcast about Utah's history produced by the Utah Department of Culture and Community Engagement. I'm Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian. My job is to make the very best, the most interesting, the most accurate history of Utah, accessible to the widest audience. We hope if there's one place, one podcast, you get your Utah history fix. We hope this is the place. If you subscribe to this podcast or if you are the first-time listener, we hope you will go back and listen to scores of other prior episodes. Rate us, would you please?
This particular episode is about the Mountain Meadows Massacre and its aftermath, which occurred in Utah September 11, 1857 My guests today are Richard E. Turley, Jr. and Barbara Jones Brown.
Rick is formerly Assistant Church Historian of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Rick also served as Managing Director of The Church History, Family History, and Public Affairs Department for The Church. Barbara is currently now Director of Signature Books, a Utah publisher specializing in books about Utah, Mormonism, and Western Americana, and has been new for how long?

**Barbara Jones Brown** (1:17)
Since March of 2022

**Brad Westwood** (1:19)
Prior to directing Signature Books, she was the Executive Director of the Mormon History Association.
We will be including more details, bios for both Rick and Barbara in the show notes. Welcome you two, so grateful to have you here.

**Richard E. Turley Jr.** (1:34)
Thank you for the invitation.

**Barbara Jones Brown** (1:35)
Thanks for including us, Brad.

**Brad Westwood** (1:37)
In May 2023, Oxford University Press will release Vengeance is Mine, The Mountain Metal Massacre and its Aftermath, co-authored by our two guests. Would you please listen to this episode of Speak Your Piece, and then order an advance copy of this book? This is a stunningly important book about American and Utah history.
There is a level of complexity that is made very plain in this book. So I urge all of you to pick up a copy of this book and evaluate the complexities and the conclusions for yourself. Once more, you two, tell me, how do you feel about all of this right now?

**Richard E. Turley Jr.** (2:19)
After a long period of time preparing the book, we're happy to see it finally reach the shelf.

**Barbara Jones Brown** (2:24)
Yeah, it's thrilling to having researched it and written about this subject for so many years. It's almost hard to believe that the book is almost available. We're very, very excited to make it available to people.

**Brad Westwood** (2:37)
Well, and it's good to be here and have an advanced reading copy, which you provided me, and have a chance to read through it and be prepared for this interview.
Rick, tell us how this book aligns with the 2008 book, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by historians Glenn M. Leonard and Ronald W. Walker, and you were one of those authors as well.

**Richard E. Turley Jr.** (3:01)
Yes, so when we started this project over 20 years ago, we had hoped to get the entire story within the covers of a single book.
But a half dozen years into it, it became apparent to us that we were blessed with so much information we couldn't possibly contain it in a single volume. So at that point, we decided to break it into two volumes, the first of which was published in 2008 and the second of which is coming out this year. Now, if you've read the first volume, the second one will be a wonderful sequel to that. I say wonderful not in the sense of being a good topic, but wonderful in sense of being an amazing story. If you've not read the first book, you don't need to read the first book to understand Vengeance is Mine.

**Brad Westwood** (3:40)
I noticed you have some advanced chapters or earlier chapters that kind of pull the story together. So one doesn't need to be obliged to read the first.

**Richard E. Turley Jr.** (3:48)
That's correct.

**Barbara Jones Brown** (3:49)
Yeah, our plan was often times if you see a sequel to a movie, for example, they'll set up the movie so that if you haven't seen the first one, you can still understand what's going on. And that was our plan for this book is even if you hadn't read Massacre at Mountain Meadows, that you could read this book and through flashback, we could bring readers up to speed and then start with the aftermath.

**Brad Westwood** (4:12)
Well, but I would still ask readers, pick up both copies.

**Barbara Jones Brown** (4:16)
Sure, absolutely.

**Brad Westwood** (4:17)