Revelation called the early Saints to gather to Missouri to build the city of Zion, but their hopes were met with violence, and they were driven from place to place.

It would have been a very stressful and anxiety-filled existence to be a Mormon living in Missouri in the 1830s. You wanted to build a permanent, stable society, a community in which you could live happily and raise your children and they could then, in turn, raise their children. But Mormons were denied that at this time. By 1838, after 7 years in Missouri, the Saints were losing patience with persecution. We warn all men, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come on us no more forever. For from this hour, we will bear it no more. That mob that comes on us to disturb us, it shall be between us and them a war of extermination. We will never be the aggressors. We will infringe on the rights of no people but shall stand for our own until death. Sidney Rigdon. The Saints did not wait long to have their approach tested. In August, voters in Daviess County tried to block Mormons from voting, and a fight broke out. The persecutors of the Saints are not asleep in Missouri. Joseph Smith. That same election day, citizens in Carroll County voted to drive Mormon residents out. When the Saints stayed, their opponents laid siege to the Mormon town of De Witt. The De Witt Saints hoped for protection, but local militia members sympathized with the mob, and Governor Lilburn Boggs ignored their appeals for help. So, in early October, they accepted the mob's demand that they leave immediately. When observers saw that the government would not protect Mormons, mobs headed toward Daviess County, and the Saints, worried that their neighbors there would help the mobs drive them out, went on the offensive. The Mormons were no strangers to persecution, and they'd certainly defended themselves before, even firing back upon mobs that first fired on them. But this was different. Here they were driving their neighbors out of their homes or taking their neighbors' goods. And to several of the Mormons involved in this, it felt different, and it didn't feel right. Exaggerated reports of Mormon aggression spread quickly. When a group of Mormon men fought to free captives taken by a rogue militia unit, messengers told the governor that the Saints were in open rebellion. Governor Boggs' response was swift and extreme. The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary, for the public peace. Governor Lilburn Boggs. People in Missouri were determined to rid the state of this unpopular religious minority, and they were willing to use violence to have that happen. The governor's extermination order both reflected that violence and gave further sanction to it. Missourians used all sorts of tactics against the Mormons. They raped women. They took men from their homes and beat and whipped them. They burned homes. They burned crops. In the most horrific incident, they attacked a settlement of Mormons at Hawn's Mill, killing 17 men and boys there, who ranged in age from 9 to 78.

At the end of October, troops surrounded the Saints' main settlement and demanded that they surrender, giving up their leaders and their property. They were instructed to leave the state and warned against ever gathering together again. I would advise you to scatter abroad and never again organize yourselves with bishops, presidents, et cetera, lest you excite the jealousies of the people and subject yourselves to the same calamities that have now come upon you. General John B. Clark. Over the winter, with Joseph Smith still in prison, the Saints made their way out of Missouri. Brigham Young and others led efforts to help the poorest Saints move. After they left Missouri, the Mormons debated General Clark's advice. Should they cease to gather together as a people and just blend in with the rest of society? They decided no. They needed to continue to be a distinctive people, and that sense of how to retain that distinctiveness has followed the Saints ever since--followed them to Illinois, and it followed them to Utah, and it continues with us today.