The Polygamists: A History of Colorado City, Arizona

by Benjamin G. Bistline

What some of the people have been forced to endure in Colorado City is little different from living in a third world country. Ten-year-old Benjamin Bistline moved with his parents to Short Creek (Colorado City), Arizona, in 1945 to join with a group of excommunicated Mormons who believed in honoring the law of polygamy as revealed by the Prophet Joseph Smith and instituted by Brigham Young. Mr. Bistline has compiled a detailed history of the significant events that shaped and sustained this community from the beginning. He tells of the shifts in power, changes in leadership philosophies, persecution from outside forces – and from within. Mr. Bistline’s goal in writing this history is to reveal that the original leadership structure of a Council of men holding common and balancing power has slowly descended into A ONE-MAN TYRANNICAL RULE over the people. Bistline has 1) Older men being taught to take CHILD BRIDES before the girls are attracted to boys their own age. 2) BOYS DRIVEN OUT of the community for competing with older men for wives. 3) Plural wives expected to apply for GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE as single mothers. 4) Men out of favor are "EVICTED" from their homes with their wives and children reassigned to a more compliant man. 5) Community members AFRAID TO DISOBEY the "Prophet" out of fear for their eternal salvation. RESIDENT HISTORIAN Ben Bistline is recognized as the most credible and knowledgeable source of information about Colorado City. He knows more about the people, their motives, their family connections, their religion, their strengths and their weaknesses than any other pundit. Mr. Bistline is contacted by media and the press from all across the country, and has appeared on CNN and ABC Primetime.

Genres: Religion, History

432 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2004

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is both terrific and terrible.

It's a terrific resource for historians of fundamentalist Mormonism. Bistline reprints numerous court documents, letters, diary entries, and sermons, providing a trove of primary sources that might otherwise be difficult to find. Likewise, Bistline is a first-hand participant in some of the events he describes, so he provides a perspective that is increasingly difficult to find as witnesses age.

But it's also got glaring weaknesses in part because of that perspective. Bistline is part of the group that split from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) in the 1980s, and it's clear that he is unable to put aside the anger that caused this division. He refers to the FLDS as a cult multiple times, describes its leaders as a cabal, and frequently drops inflammatory or otherwise negative information about the group into his narrative – which is fine since the group has clearly done bad things – but he does so without sources, which makes the information unusable except for curiosity's sake.

Likewise, the historical narrative itself is a mess. Some information gets repeated multiple times in subsequent chapters as if it wasn't covered earlier. Other information – such as the names of key leaders – doesn't get repeated often enough despite being referenced multiple times over hundreds of pages, and in a polygamous group with numerous intermarriages and shared names, the confusion multiplies across generations. And like many of these sorts of books, it focuses so much on details that the broader purpose of the book gets lost in the weeds of name- and event-checking, regardless of how irrelevant those names or events might be.

So the irony is that I will almost certainly refer to this book quite a lot as I work on my dissertation, but an enjoyable read this is not.