“The members of this [Danite] band, when engaged in the execution of any important decree, are clothed in female apparel wearing a snow-white robe and a scarlet girdle … They are bound to consecrate the riches of the Gentiles to the house of Israel, which, in plain English, means, to rob and plunder the people who are not Mormons, and appropriate the spoils to the use of the Church. They also pledge themselves to poison the wells and the food and drink of dissenters, apostates, and all enemies of Zion, and to murder those who refuse to tithe or contribute the tenth part of their property to the use of the Church, and, in short, to destroy by fire and sword all the enemies of Mormonism.”

John C. Bennett, History of the Saints (Boston, MA: Leland & Whiting, 1842), 271.