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Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, also known as Mormonism, and an important religious and political figure during the 1830s and 1840s. In 1827, Smith began to gather a religious following after announcing that an angel had shown him a set of golden plates describing a visit of Jesus to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. In 1830, Smith published what he said was a translation of these plates as the Book of Mormon, and the same year he organized the Church of Christ.

For most of the 1830s, Smith lived in Kirtland, Ohio, which remained the headquarters of the church until the cost of building a large temple, financial collapse, and conflict with disaffected members encouraged him to gather the church to the Latter Day Saint settlement in Missouri. There, tensions between Mormons and non-Mormons escalated into the 1838 Mormon War. Smith and his people then settled in Nauvoo, Illinois where they began building a second temple aided by new converts from Europe. After being accused of practicing polygamy, and of aspiring to create a theocracy, Smith encouraged the suppression of a newspaper that had published accusations against him, leading to his assassination by a mob of non-Mormons.