Latter-day Saint Life

How One Brave Teen Reacted to Lies About Mormons in Her History Book

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High school. A necessary evil, I guess. Well, it’s not really evil, but the homework is. Especially in history. In my U.S. history class we’d learned about the Pilgrims and Puritans, the Founding Fathers, and the expansion from the original colonies. It all sounded familiar.

But when we got to the part about Manifest Destiny and the role Mormons played in the settlement of the West, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I knew that there were some controversial events and even controversial figures in Church history, but it seemed like the authors of my textbook were presenting the most negative interpretation possible rather than a factual overview.

“Mom, is this really true?” I asked.

I pointed to the page I was on, and my mom read the first paragraph and then stopped. “Wow,” she said. “Where did they come up with that information?”

Lead image from the New Era.
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