Past, Present, and Persecution

Every memory has a culture, and Joseph Smith’s best-known account of his first vision (the 1838/39 account) consolidated in a hostile environment. Smith and his people were driven from Missouri by the governor’s executive order, he was jailed during the winter of 1838–39, and then he escaped to reunite with his exiled followers in Illinois. There he and associates renewed work on a manuscript history that begins with a defensive and defiant account of his first vision. The saints eventually canonized this version of Smith’s memory. It shapes their identity as a people persecuted for transcending creedal Christianity and accessing God directly. That outcome was not inevitable.