Review
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Title: Proclamation to the People: Nineteenth-century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier
Editors: Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp and Reid L. Neilson
Publisher: The University of Utah Press
Genre: Mormon History
Year Published: 2008
Number of Pages: 330, Includes index
Binding: cloth
ISBN: 978-0-87480-918-3
Price: $29.95

Reviewed by Laura Compton

The lands in and around the Pacific Basin are sometimes called the "Ring of Fire." In "Proclamation to the People: Nineteenth-century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier" editors Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp and Reid L. Neilson have pulled together 14 essays that reveal how a gospel fire spread throughout the region as Mormon missionaries carried their messages to all the isles of the sea and several other places. As a general reference book and place to begin studying the Eastward spread of a Western American religion, "Proclamation to the People" is a breath of fresh air.

"Proclamation to the People" may be the first book of its kind, bringing together in one place the study of the influence of Mormon missionaries from California to Australia, Samoa to Japan, and Alaska to New Zealand. As R. Lanier Britsch writes in the foreword, "In recent years, a number of authors have seen the cohesion in this vast geographical area. Most scholars have dealt with politics and economics, but some have worked on religion, ethnology and archaeology. This book is the first that I am aware of that attempts to deal with the two-way interchange represented by the nineteenth-century LDS encounter with the Pacific Basin frontier." (xii)

The book is organized geographically, with a small handful of essays for each region examined: the Americas, Polynesia, Australasia and Asia. Individual essays detail LDS life and/or missionary work in San Bernardino, California; Chile; San Francisco; missionary wives in Polynesia and Hawaii; efforts at gathering Polynesian cultures to Iosepa, Utah; Australians gathering to Utah; missionaries to both Maori and Pakeha cultures in New Zealand, China, Japan and integration of Asian cultures into Salt Lake City. Not only do the essays discuss the effect of missionaries on converts, they also address the effects of converts and their Pacific cultures on the main body of the church.

The size of the Pacific Basin, geographically, culturally and linguistically, at first may appear to be too large and diverse for one volume of essays. However, like a stream of molten lava forever changes the lands it touches, tales of missionary zeal from the likes of Parley P. Pratt and George Q. Cannon indelibly link these disparate cultures and essays together. Indeed, nearly the first half of the collection could be pieced together as a kind of family history of the Pratts, due to their influence in what was then the Pacific Mission. A. Delbert Palmer and Mark L. Grover’s essay on the church in Chile reads like a very personal history of Parley Pratt and his wives as he tried to overcome language and governmental barriers and preach the gospel to those viewed as descendants of Book of Mormon peoples.

While Palmer and Grover, among others, provide very personal narratives, Maffly-Kipp’s introductory essay outlining the scope of the book and Marjorie Newton’s contributions on Australia and New Zealand are much more scholarly in tone. This combination of personal and scholastic views adds both color and interest to a book which could easily get lost in the minutiae of sociological theories or the peculiarities of specific cultures. The editors’ work in finding authors familiar with their subjects, yet able to express themselves clearly to non-experts, makes "Proclamation to the People" accessible reading for anyone with just a passing knowledge of either LDS missionary work or specific cultures within the Pacific Basin. For those with more knowledge of specific areas, the historic details in most essays are sure to charm and enlighten.

Several themes tie the essays together, perhaps inadvertently, but more likely due to the editors’ selection of essays. In every continent and culture, 19th-century missionaries had to deal with the way the Mormon church was perceived by “Gentiles.” Its practice of polygamy and its call to converts to “come to Zion” were particularly high barriers to overcome, especially when governmental entities or other religions' leaders spoke out in opposition to missionary work. On the other hand, the church’s position as “outside” the normal Protestant religious circle, and perhaps even its status as persecuted underdog, drew the interest of potential converts. Add in the 19th-century perspective that many of those being preached to were considered descendants of the Book of Mormon peoples, and some cultural doors swung wide open for missionaries.

As a general, introductory piece, "Proclamation to the People" is an excellent starting place. Footnotes, an index and brief biographies about the contributors provide readers with resources and references for follow-up reading. Maffly-Kipp encourages the reader to take a new look at LDS conversion stories and expand the traditional definition of a 19th-century Latter-day Saint pioneer. She writes:

"[Religion] reorients the believer, it reorders one’s sense of time and place, and it redraws the sacred map of one’s life and surroundings. The normative story of early Mormonism itself follows this pattern: it has often been portrayed as a religious movement inextricably bound to a particular time and space, anchored there by a sacred story and a community of memory. It was, we have often been told, ‘quintessentially American,’ a westward migrating band of settlers who proclaimed the ultimate sanctity of the American landscape, a people who achieved a particular fusion of sacred and profane in the material construction of an earthly Zion.

"[Other voices] tell a somewhat different story, one no less Mormon but with a particular sense of what it meant to 'become a people.' Theirs is not the traditional story of migration and settlement in Zion. They were not necessarily led to the church by the promise of a gathering, nor by the sanctity of the temple rituals (since most knew they would not enter a temple in this life), nor even by the many elements of a Mormon lifestyle that came to be so associated with the church in the Great Basin. They did not become Saints in the majority sense. Yet they came into the fold, sometimes in surprising large numbers...." (p.124-125)

As Britsch summarizes in his foreword, "This book stands alone in its genre. I believe sophisticated readers - Mormons and non-Mormons alike - will find its compilation interesting and useful."