When Mormons Were Expelled From Nauvoo

By September, 1845, a scattered group of anti-Mormons of Lima and Green Plains, Illinois, met to devise a means of expelling Mormons from their neighborhood. As they met in one of their homes, one of their own number fired upon it. Then they announced through the neighborhood that the Mormons had fired on them—just the excuse they needed to begin a work of death and massacre. They began by burning the homes of the most vulnerable—those who lived in the outlying areas beyond the protection of Nauvoo.