Danite - Expanding Role

Expanding Role

The Danites' role shifted from internal enforcement to external defense when the non-Mormon Missourian majority asked the Mormons to leave, at first making a request without threat of force. In coming months, hostilities between Mormons and Missourians would grow to the point that the State Militia drove most of the Mormons out of Missouri. Governor Lilburn Boggs issued Missouri Executive Order 44 on October 27, 1838, which expelled the Mormons from Missouri.

However, conflict developed between Smith and the Danites' leader, Sampson Avard. In Smith's account, Avard, while a new member to the Church, formed a "secret combination", an allusion to a nefarious society as discussed in the Book of Mormon. Smith further stated that Avard's pride and zeal prompted him to organize the group contrary to the will of Smith and the other leaders of the Church. According to this view, Avard illegitimately claimed to be the Lord's agent, and according to a quote Smith attributed to Avard, he wanted to profit from vigilantism by taking "spoils of the goods of ungodly Gentiles ."

Joseph Smith soon took action against Avard in the name of the church, removing him from all military duties and establishing him as a surgeon to help with the wounded; Avard mentions this demotion himself. Avard was eventually excommunicated. Smith's History of the Church states: "When a knowledge of Avard's rascality came to the Presidency of the Church, he was cut off from the Church, and every means proper used to destroy his influence, at which he was highly incensed and went about whispering his evil insinuations, but finding every effort unavailing, he again turned conspirator, and sought to make friends with the mob."

With the opposition leaders ousted and the hostilities increasing, the Danite group took on three additional primary functions, (1) enforcement of the Law of Consecration, (2) political activities, and (3) militia activities.