• The Netflix series ‘American Primeval’ examines key events and figures of 1857’s Utah War through a fictional lens.
• The creators intended to use historical fiction to depict the struggle to survive during the Westward Expansion.
• Based on historical records, Brigham Young did not order the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Netflix is releasing a new six-episode series of fictionalized history on Thursday morning that includes Brigham Young and uses the Mountain Meadows Massacre as what the streamer calls “the inciting event that connects” the cast of “American Primeval.”

The series is largely fiction, according to the New York Times, but it is centered around real events during 1857′s Utah War and includes real people like Brigham Young, the governor of the Utah Territory and the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“I’m pleased that they are saying it’s fiction,” said Barbara Jones Brown, co-author of “Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath.” “They’re just being straightforward and saying, ‘Yeah, this is historical fiction,’ and so, of course, that gives them license to do whatever they want to do.”

The Utah War was instigated by U.S. President James Buchanan, who stripped President Young of his governorship and sent 2,500 soldiers to escort a new federally appointed territorial governor to Utah. President Young said he would accept the federal appointees but resisted military occupation of the territory, Jones Brown said.

President Young and the Latter-day Saints resisted in numerous ways. Work on the construction of the Salt Lake Temple ceased and crews buried the foundation to hide it from the soldiers. President Young and others fled Salt Lake City. (Even the Deseret News moved to Fillmore, Utah, during 1857-58 because of the fighting.)

The war became known as “Buchanan’s Blunder” because it was a financial boondoggle for the United States. The government spent a mind-boggling $15 million to $20 million to keep as many as 3,500 soldiers at Camp Floyd, making it the nation’s largest garrison for a time. The camp closed in 1861, when the start of the Civil War took precedence.

The story Netflix is trying to tell

Several TV writers say the Netflix is trying to cash in on the interest in “Yellowstone” and its spinoffs, which include “1883″ and “1923.” Those series tell violent stories about clashes between cultures and interests as the United States moved west.

Director Peter Berg said he wanted to tell a story about how difficult life was in the American West in the middle of the 19th century.

“America was born through war and blood and death,” he told the Times. “And that’s just reality. That’s just the way it seems to go with humans.”

Berg and others involved with the production say the accuracy they sought to portray relates to how difficult it was to survive in those circumstances and that they wanted to explore the violent side of humanity.

“I’m looking forward to taking viewers into the most dynamic, intense and heart-pounding survival tale humanly possible,” he said, per Netflix. “We are going into the belly of the beast.”

Why are Latter-day Saints part of the story?

The writers, director and producers are using the Mountain Meadows Massacre at the center of their historical fiction. Some historians have called the Utah War a bloodless war because of the relatively few deaths outside of the massacre, Jones Brown said.

Latter-day Saint pioneers (commonly referred to as Mormon pioneers) began to arrive in Utah in 1847. The United States acquired the area from Mexico the following year and established the Utah Territory in 1850. At the time, the territory included most of Nevada, much of the western part of Colorado and a southwest piece of Wyoming.

By 1857, the federal government and territorial government were at odds. President Young resolved to protect Utah from federal occupation. He encouraged Native Americans to raid emigrant cattle companies, Jones Brown said. His strategy was to alert the federal government that Utahns would not protect the emigrants unless the army backed down.

“We found that several cattle companies were raided between Sept. 7 and Oct. 3, 1857, and in only one case did you have this mass murder,” Jones Brown said.

Some historians have blamed President Young for the massacre.

“Did Brigham Young order the massacre? We found no evidence of that,” Jones Brown said. “In fact, we found a lot of evidence to show that he did not order it.”

In the other cases, the raiders simply scattered the cattle herds. But at Mountain Meadows, Latter-day Saints and Paiutes exchanged shots with the emigrants and some were killed. Some of the Latter-day Saints knew they’d been recognized. One local leader sent a letter to Brigham Young for advice, but local leaders eventually made the decision to kill the witnesses on Sept. 11, 1857, two days before they received President Young’s reply — “Let them go in peace.”

What is the plot of ‘American Primeval?’

The official Netflix logline is this:

“Up is down, pain is everywhere, innocence and tranquility are losing the battle to hatred and fear. Peace is the shrinking minority, and very few possess grace — even fewer know compassion. There is no safe haven in these brutal lands, and only one goal matters: survival. American Primeval is a fictionalized dramatization and examination of the violent collision of culture, religion and community as men and women fight and die to keep or control this land.”

Some of the characters include Jacob Pratt, a Latter-day Saint leading a group from Illinois to Utah to escape violent persecution, and his wife, Abish. Taylor Kitsch stars as Isaac Reed, who begrudgingly agrees to guide a vulnerable woman and her son across southern Utah.

“Beyond the gore of scalped men and arrow-riddled innocents, American Primeval aims to showcase a rawness of emotion motivating every character …,” one reviewer wrote.

Is the series historically accurate?

Jones Brown said she planned to stay up late to watch the first episode as Wednesday turned into Thursday.

“I’ve been talking with my friend, Darren Perry, who’s a direct descendant of some of the chieftains of the Shoshone people of that period, and we’re going to be watching it and taking notes. My approach is not to be critical of the series … but to be available to answer questions for folks that are curious about what is historically accurate.

“We want to be able to say, ‘This is historically accurate and this is fictionalized.’”

One TV writer has said the series will depict President Young as “a man who will do whatever it takes to secure the survival of his persecuted followers — including using his Mormon army, the Nauvoo Legion.”

A religion consultant for the show said it takes fictional license by truncating timelines and reimagining Jim Bridger and Brigham Young.

What is the church’s official position on the massacre?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made a statement about Mountain Meadows in a Gospel Topics essay released on its official website titled “Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints.”

“In recent years, the church has made diligent efforts to learn everything possible about the massacre, the statement said. “In the early 2000s, historians in the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints scoured archives throughout the United States for historical records; every church record on the massacre was also opened to scrutiny. In the resulting book, published by Oxford University Press in 2008, authors Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr. and Glen M. Leonard concluded that while intemperate preaching about outsiders by Brigham Young, George A. Smith and other leaders contributed to a climate of hostility, President Young did not order the massacre. Rather, verbal confrontations between individuals in the wagon train and southern Utah settlers created great alarm, particularly within the context of the Utah War and other adversarial events. A series of tragic decisions by local church leaders — who also held key civic and militia leadership roles in southern Utah — led to the massacre.”

Turley and Jones Brown co-authored “Vengeance Is Mine” in 2023 to update the history.