It's a human quality to fear and disparage a worldview different from one's own. This family had been persecuted for years in their home country due to their conversion to Mormonism, despite centuries of religious tyranny that drove their ancestors into the remote villages of the Piedmont region; and despite Michael's eight years of service in the Italian army.
They came to this country to worship freely, like tens of thousands who made similar journeys. And though America welcomed their entry via Ellis Island — a fact that fills me with pride — they were joining a notorious subgroup: citizens ousted from two states by religious intolerance. Missouri Gov. Lilburn Boggs issued a Jackson County order of extermination in 1838, proclaiming to his state militia that “Mormons must be treated as enemies … and exterminated or driven from the state … their outrages are beyond all description.” The Missouri order cited reasons of, among others, electoral growth of the Mormon community and the Mormons' opposition to slavery.
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