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American Primeval is making rounds as the most recent popular show on Netflix. The show presents a gritty and raw portrayal of the great American expansion in which pioneers and the Natives fought against each other in order to establish supreme control over various parts of the country. Although it is a fictional show, it is rooted in and around historical events of the day, with the Mountain Meadows massacre assuming a prominent role in the narrative.
As revealed by American Primeval creators, the Mountain Meadows massacre was an incident of extreme violence and retribution and ended up in an outright massacre. The massacre took place on September 11, 1857, and saw a brutal clash between Mormons and pioneers from Arkansas.
The massacre caused unprecedented bloodshed and casualties, as the Mormons manipulated and deployed a Native American tribe to do most of the dirty work. The cause of the conflict was a bid to reign supreme across the province of Utah. It is believed that approximately one hundred and twenty people, including women and children, lost their lives.
As explained by writer Mark L. Smith and director Peter Berg, the events of the massacre have been recorded and acknowledged by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Nevertheless, the exact standpoint maintained by the Mormon church has been somewhat dubious over the years, with the Church at times expressing remorse about the massacre. Here's everything we know.
Showrunners open up about American Primeval and the Mountain Meadows massacre
In an exclusive interview with Steve Weintraub, Mark L. Smith, and Peter Berg spoke extensively about the way in which they approached the show and their decision to include a historically accurate portrayal of the Mountain Meadows massacre. Berg stated:
"One of the themes Mark L. Smith and I wanted to explore was man's inherently violent nature. Certainly, if you go back to the origins of this country and start studying and documenting the history of violence committed by humans upon humans up to the present day that we're living in today, and certainly from the origin story of America and other countries — almost all of them — we are a violent species. The reasons for this violence are hard to define, but certainly, fear is a big one, and a desire for humans to bond with their own group and to protect themselves from perceived threats. That was sort of a theme of the show. That then led to some of the violent altercations that you see in the show. We wanted to present that violence in a very unfiltered, unglamorous way. We wanted to capture as much as we could of the rawness, the brutality, and the immediacy of this violence."
He further added:
The Mountain Meadows Massacre, which is the event that you're referring to, which occurs in the first episode, is a real event. It was a mass murder that was committed by Mormons against pioneers from Arkansas. The Mormons had involved some different members of an Indian tribe and manipulated, I believe, that tribe into participating in this massacre. It's been documented. It's been owned by the Mormon Church. There's a monument that I attended where the Meadows Massacre happened in southern Utah that the Mormon Church built. It's a horrible crime that really did occur. We present it, and the one thing I would add to it is that we don't present it in a vacuum. We try to explain to the audience how tensions got this elevated, why something like this was able to happen, and folks were able to get this angry and feel this threatened by each other, leading to something really catastrophic, which was the Mountain Meadows Massacre."
Julia O'Keefe contributed to American Primeval
Julia O'Keefe, who is known for her work on Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, worked as the Indigenous Consultant on American Primeval. Speaking in the same interview with Weintrab, O'Keefe mentioned gathering a team of Native experts from the three nations of the Shoshone, Ute and Southern Paiute. She also added that the showrunners were committed to the idea of making the show as authentic as possible.
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American Primeval is now streaming on Netflix.
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