Missouri Executive Order 44

 

(Wikipedia) Missouri Executive Order 44, also known as the Extermination Order, was an executive order issued on October 27, 1838, by the Governor of Missouri, Lilburn Boggs.
The order was issued in the aftermath of the Battle of Crooked River, a clash between Latter-day Saints and a unit of the Missouri State Militia in northern Ray County, Missouri, during the 1838 Mormon War. Claiming that Latter-day Saints had committed open and avowed defiance of the law and had made war upon the people of Missouri, Governor Boggs directed that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description".
 The militia and other state authorities—General John B. Clark, among them—would use the executive order to expel the Mormons from their lands in the state following their capitulation, which in turn led to their subsequent migration to Nauvoo, Illinois. Continued