Joseph Walker: Says Mormon land grabbed in Missouri

A historian at Brigham Young University argues that Mormons were persecuted in Missouri in 1838 in a deliberate and successful effort to get their land.

Joseph Walker, who is working on the Joseph Smith papers, said documents show the Extermination Order of 1838 -- aimed at the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints -- was timed to prevent Mormons from buying land they had improved, Mormon Times reported.

Local laws allowed what was known as pre-emption, Walker says. Settlers had the right to buy government land they had lived on and farmed, but if they were unable to do so, others could buy the improved land at the price of vacant land....