When speaking of the exodus from Nauvoo to the Rocky Mountains, pioneer leaders stressed two interconnected understandings: The Saints migrated to the mountains because they were compelled to - because they were driven - and also that this migration was not by accident, but under the direction of God and according to His will.

Although pioneer leaders never forgot the reality of the "driving," they schooled the Saints to remember the element of divine direction. George Q. Cannon spoke of the Saints' mountain home as "a land that God has given unto us, to which He led us and which He designated by the finger of inspiration."1"We came to these mountains because we were compelled to," declared Heber C. Kimball. "Was there revelation that we should came here?" he asked rhetorically, and then answered: "Yes." There were "predictions in the old Bible," such as the prophecy in Isaiah 2 that in the last days "the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains . . . and all nations shall flow unto it."2 Though he did not then elaborate, Kimball also knew of revelation in his own day.

These leaders shared an awareness of prophetic promises through Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and a conviction that they had witnessed the hand of the, Lord in fulfillment. Knowing this, they looked upon the establishment of Zion in the tops of the mountains as miraculous and providential, a central part of God's latter-day work, even "the main Key of the Mormon History of the nineteenth century."3

Hints that an expansive future destiny for the Saints would include the Rocky Mountains and the Far West surfaced as early as 1831. Privately, individuals were promised that they would one day accompany the Saints "to the bosom of the Rocky Mountains," and public comments in Ohio's Painesville Telegraph and in the Church's Missouri organ, The Evening and The Morning Star, reflected this understanding that the Saints' promised land included the Rocky Mountains and beyond. Even in 1831, the Indian agent who banned Oliver Cowdery and his Lamanite Mission companions from contact with the Western tribes wrote to his superior that these Mormon emissaries boasted they would go to the Rocky Mountains, if necessary, to be among the Indians.4

Book of Mormon prophecies about the Indians and prophetic promises of the future establishment of a secure and powerful Zion came to be related, even intertwined. But for the most part, little was said publicly or recorded in the 1830s, especially about potential involvements with the Indians: "Though all this may be true," warned Frederick G. Williams in a letter to Missouri, "it is not needful that it should be spoken."5

There were also other priorities - prerequisites - before Zion could be established in the West or elsewhere, especially the Temple. The Fishing River revelation of 1834 made clear that these things could not come to pass "until mine elders are endowed with power from on high"; the Kirtland Temple must be built. And in 1844, in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith explicitly instructed Church leaders to obtain the keys and knowledge associated with the temple before departing for the West.6

But the leaders, from early Kirtland on, expected eventually to witness grand developments in the West. Sidney Rigdon later spoke of the expansive vision animating the Church even in those early days: "We knew the world would laugh at us - so we concealed ourselves - we had things to say to one another that nobody else knew of - all nations to flock to it - whole nations born in one day - we talked such big things."7

Wilford Woodruff remembered one such occasion in April 1834, his unforgettable first meeting with Joseph Smith. After declaring himself edified and instructed by the testimonies of the elders, the Prophet went on to explain that they had not yet begun to glimpse the true "destinies of this Church and kingdom." It would yet fill North and South America, even the world, and "it will fill the Rocky Mountains."8

The establishment of Church headquarters in Missouri in the spring of 1838 placed Church leaders "on the borders of the Lamanites" and provided a constant reminder of earlier promises. Legal restrictions prevented expanded contacts with the western Indians, however, as did the exigencies of founding a new city on the frontier. Nonetheless, proximity fanned the enduring interest in the Indians and the West

The Saints' sojourn in northern Missouri was brief. Foreseeing confrontation and possible departure, leaders wished, if it must be, that they might at least head West, among the Indians. But they knew the West was out of reach, that the time was not yet. Joseph Smith expressed this sentiment in Liberty Jail. And, according to his later retelling, it was clear to Brigham Young even before violence erupted that the path to their place of refuge in the West lay east -that they would first regroup in Illinois.9

Though farther from the Rockies, Illinois provided better access to the West. Despite the demands of starting over, once there leaders lost no time in renewing contacts with potential Indian allies and learning more about the West - both preparations for an eventual westward move.

An 1840 letter preserves the understanding of Jonathan Dunham, whom Joseph Smith had dispatched 400 miles west to the Indians near the Missouri River, that his work involved more than preaching to Native Americans. The nation would suffer, even be destroyed, confided Dunham, but "there is a place of safety preparing for

the SaintsT away towards the Rocky Mountains."10 Details about this and similar missions from Nauvoo have not been preserved, but we can assume their commission was much like that of the 1845 missionaries sent "to fill Joseph's original measures" by "proceeding from tribe to tribe, to unite the Lamanites and find a home for the Saints."11

Although these preparations generally proceeded beneath the surface, they were not totally unknown. Disaffected Latter-day Saint Oliver Olney was among those who grasped the plan. The Mormons would, he wrote in 1842, "start and go out by degrees untill all will follow who has their faith" and, once in their western home, "form a union until they become a powerful people."12

In a series of meetings in February 1844, Joseph Smith explicitly assigned the Quorum of the Twelve to oversee preparations for the West. He instructed them to investigate "Callifornia & oregon & find a good location where we can move after the Temple is completed. & build a city in a day - and have a government of our own."13

Joseph Smith's death intervened before the Twelve carried out this commission. Viewing the temple as a necessary prerequisite for successfully establishing Zion in the West, the Twelve put these plans on hold and focused all possible resources on the Nauvoo Temple. By the spring of 1845, Illinois Governor Thomas Ford, seeing increasing tensions between Mormons and their neighbors, chided Brigham Young. "I was informed by Gen Joseph Smith last summer that he contemplated a removal west; and from what I learned from him and others at that time, I think if he had lived he would have begun to move in the matter before this time."14

President Young did not need the governor's prodding: With the temple nearing completion, wheels for the West were already in motion. Later that summer, before the first outbreak of mob violence, Church leaders approved a plan for the exodus.

Mob violence did play a role, however. As Brigham Young wrote during the fall, "the mob puts the gathering spirit into the brethren,"15 prodding some to depart for the West who might otherwise have hesitated. The mobs also provided the opportunity to publicly announce what leaders had already determined to do: go West. As violence escalated in September 1845, Brigham Young shocked both friend and foe by announcing abruptly, before the Nauvoo Legion had even been tested, that the "war" was over and the Mormons would leave.

It was indeed an emergency, Brigham Young acknowledged in explaining the departure to the Saints in October 1845, but it was a "Glorious Emergency." Far from whipped and beaten, finally they were heading to their longed-for, prophesied land of promise in the West.

Notes

1 Journal of Discourses 18:4-6.

2 Journal of Discourses 9:374.

3 Wilford Woodruff letter to Thomas L. Kane, March 8, 1859, in "Manuscript History of Brigham Young."

4 For these and other foreshadowings from the 1830s, see Ronald W. Walker, "Seeking the `Remnant': The Native American During the Joseph Smith Period," Journal of Mormon History 19 (Spring 1993): 1-33, esp, 8-15; and Ronald K. Esplin, "A Place Prepared': Joseph, Brigham and the Quest for Promised Refuge in the West," Journal of Mormon History 9 (1982): 85-111, esp. 85-88. Consult these two articles for additional details on all points discussed here.

5 Frederick G. Williams to Missouri Saints, October 10, 1833, in History of the Church 1:419. Missourians particularly feared a Mormon alliance with nearby Indians.

6 See D&C 105:11, and Joseph Smith diary, February 23, 1844.

7 Conference Minutes, April 7, 1844.

8 Conference Reports (Sixty-eighth Annual Conference, 1898), p. 57.

9 Journal of Discourses 3:209, 11:17-19; see also Walker, 20.

10 Thomas Burdick letter to Joseph Smith, August 28, 1840.

11 William Clayton diary, March 1, 1845.

12 Oliver Olney letters, Yale University. Although at least by 1840 (and most likely earlier) Joseph Smith foresaw the West as a place of future refuge, no existing record dates when he learned this. Reminiscent accounts of him prophesying about the West in Nauvoo refer not to the receipt of revelation at that time, but to a public or private expression based on the understanding he already had. Clearly he talked about this on more than one occasion. See History of the Church 5:85 and Esplin, 90-92.

13 Joseph Smith diary, February 20, 1844. Oregon and California were then broad regions comprising the entire Pacific coast.

14 Thomas Ford to Brigham Young, April 8, 1845.

15 Brigham Young letter to Samuel Brannon, September 15, 1845.