Hello everyone, got some more revision posts coming. I'm going to be talking about the Mormons today :)
Where did it all begin?
Mormonism was founded by a guy called Joseph Smith when he started preaching in New York City. He was fairly unpopular, but he and his 1000 other Mormons relocated to Kirkland, Ohio, where they built a new community containing a mill, store, temple and bank.
Yeah, everyone apart from Mormons, hated the Mormons
Loads of local people were like Nah, they feared Mormons would soon be in control of everything, which was bad for the locals. But soon the banks had a mega-crisis, the economy was on its way out, and the Mormons got the blame. Resulting in a massive angry mob chasing them out of Kirkland, forcing them to migrate to Missouri.
shoutout to my art skills on my ipad
Why was Mormonism even that popular?
Well, many Americans during this time (1789-1900 onwards) were lacking in the dough, they were beyond poor. The Mormons believed in shared ownership of land and property. For a large majority of struggling Americans, this seemed like a promise of a better life. Making the population of Mormons grow in Missouri.
They remained unpopular in the East
People disagreed with their belief in land-ownership, and it was argued that Joseph Smith acted like a king amongst the peasants. Which obviously, isn't the best impression to give people, now is it Joseph? They also disagreed with slavery (which is excellent well-done chaps) but this made them very unpopular with slaveholders. Not only that, but they were very aggressive when it came to converting people to Mormonism, like stubbing your toe and screaming aggressive. Not nice. They even practiced polygamy to increase their numbers quicker! Brigham Young, another Mormon leader, had 55 wives in his lifetime, ledge.
The book of Mormon
The book of Mormon was basically a book on everything a Mormon would need to know. It was pretty much a tutorial on 'How to: Mormon'. And it was compiled by our lad Joseph Smith in 1830.
Escaping Nauvoo
This is a town the Mormons had to settle down in after they had to peg it from their last hometown due to a dangerous amount of violence. Remember when I mentioned Illinois earlier and that angry mob? That's when our homeboy Joseph got murdered! and then Bringham took over. He had to lead is Mormons to safety, but he had great leadership skills and devised multiple plans to get his followers somewhere safe.
To be fair, there are loads more on Mormons. Maybe its all in the Book of Mormon I don't know. But its pretty obvious they were some questionable things going on with them, from the violence to the many, many marriages. But they weren't completely bad, slavery was a big no, no for them.
Thanks for reading again, I quite enjoyed making this post, hope you enjoyed reading.
Cody :)