Zion's Camp was an expedition of Latter Day Saints, led by Joseph Smith, Jr., from Kirtland, Ohio to Clay County, Missouri during May and June 1834 in an unsuccessful attempt to regain land from which the Saints had been expelled by non-Mormon settlers. In Latter Day Saint belief, this land had been destined to become a city of Zion, the center of the Millennial kingdom; and Smith dictated a command from God ordering him to lead his church like a modern Moses to redeem Zion "by power, and with a stretched-out arm."
Receiving word of the approaching Latter Day Saints, the Missourians formed militias, which outnumbered Smith's men. Smith then dictated another revelation stating that the church was presently unworthy to "redeem Zion" because of its lack of commitment to the United Order, a form of religious communism more closely related to capitalism. They were told they must "wait a little season" until its elders could receive their promised endowment of heavenly power. The expedition was disbanded on July 25, 1834, during a cholera epidemic, and a majority of survivors returned to Ohio. Nevertheless, the failed expedition permitted Smith to determine his most loyal followers, and most Latter Day Saint leaders of the following years were selected from among these men.
Read more about Zion's Camp: Background, Formation of The Camp, The March, Aftermath
Famous quotes containing the word camp:
“The Indians invited us to lodge with them, but my companion inclined to go to the log camp on the carry. This camp was close and dirty, and had an ill smell, and I preferred to accept the Indians’ offer, if we did not make a camp for ourselves; for, though they were dirty, too, they were more in the open air, and were much more agreeable, and even refined company, than the lumberers.... So we went to the Indians’ camp or wigwam.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)