Notwithstanding public excommunications of Danite leaders by the Church and both public and private statements from Joseph Smith referring to the band as being both evil in nature and a "secret combination" (a term used in the Book of Mormon to signify corruption within a group of people such as gangs, organized crime, and politics, as well as used in general parlance to signify unlawful conspiracy), the nature and scope of the organization and the degree to which it was officially connected to the Church of Christ (Latter Day Saints) are not agreed between historians.

"[1] In 1834, during the march of Zion's Camp, a military expedition from Kirtland, Ohio, to Clay County, Missouri, Joseph Smith organized the first Mormon militia known as the "Armies of Israel,", which pre-dated the Nauvoo Legion by eight years, to protect his community.

After the 1838 Missouri Mormon War, the term "Danite" was often connected with Latter Day Saint peacekeeping, including the Nauvoo, Illinois police, the bodyguards of Joseph Smith, and the "whistling and whittling brigades".

[7] Sudden heavy Mormon immigration, combined with their tendency to vote in a bloc, and their anti-slavery political and northern cultural views aroused hostility from the native Missourians.

[8] Joseph Smith encouraged the Saints to be unafraid and referred to a passage in the 18th chapter of Judges about the tribe of Dan, "If the enemy comes, the Danites will be after them, meaning the brethren in self-defense.

While not wishing or intending to start any trouble with his non-Mormon neighbors, Rigdon wanted to make clear that the Mormons would meet any further attacks on them—-such as had occurred in Jackson County during the summer and fall of 1833—with force.

"[14] The newly formed Danites disagreed initially on what steps to take against the dissenters, who had left the church but still lived nearby on land that had murky legal status.

[18] Ebenezer Robinson (who remained with the church after 1838), recalled that the next day a letter was "gotten up in the office of the First Presidency,"[19] which Danite leader Sampson Avard later charged was written by Sidney Rigdon.

One of the expelled dissenters, John Whitmer, said that they had been "driven from their homes" and robbed "of all their goods save clothing & bedding &c."[22] Reed Peck agreed, asserting that "the claims by which this property was taken from these men were unjust and perhaps without foundation cannot be doubted by any unprejudiced person acquainted with all parties and circumstances.

"[23] 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.

Seeing the mob violence as a repeat of the nightmares they went through in Independence, Missouri a half-dozen years earlier, the Latter Day Saints requested assistance from state authorities, with little success.

On October 18, Joseph Smith called for the assistance of all men who could participate; elements of the Caldwell militia, as well as some of the Danites and their secret oaths of vengeance, gathered at Adam-ondi-Ahman, the Saints' headquarters in Daviess County.

The cannon with which the mob had promised to attack Far West was found buried in the ground, and the towns were basically deserted; remaining non-Mormons were expelled, and some stores and homes were burned.

[43] Patten, who had come to be known as "Captain Fear-not", for his part in the attacks in Daviess County, was apparently a leader in the Danite organization, and the choice of him over Hinkle may indicate the rescue was planned as an unofficial excursion.

[45] The Mormon company approached the camp of the Ray militia and formed a battle line in three columns, led by David W. Patten, Charles C. Rich, and Patrick Durfee.

The Missouri state officials considered the Mormons to be the aggressors in the war, and after the destitute saints were forced to flee to Illinois, their homes in Far West and Adam-ondi-Ahman were occupied by the mob.

[49] According to an essay on the website of the LDS Church, "Historians generally concur that Joseph Smith approved of the Danites but that he probably was not briefed on all their plans and likely did not sanction the full range of their activities.

[citation needed] Further, LDS Church leader Sidney Rigdon expressed disapproval of Danites, although he asserted his belief that the Mormons were within their rights to forcibly expel dissenters from their midst, saying that: "When a country, or body of people have individuals among them with whom they do not wish to associate and a public expression is taken against their remaining among them and such individuals do not remove it is the principle of republicanism itself that gives that community a right to expel them forcibly and no law will prevent it.

Several scholars have pointed to evidence which suggests that, to avoid prosecution, Avard may have promised prosecutors that he and his associates (i.e., Robinson, Phelps, and Lee) would implicate Smith in the Danite organization.

[75] Historian Leonard Arrington attributes the stories of Danites in Utah to overzealous descriptions of the "Minute Men," a law enforcement organization created by Brigham Young to pursue marauding Indians and white criminals.

[77] At the same time, there is evidence that, purportedly in order to deter and punish crime in Utah Territory, Brigham Young occasionally authorized local church leaders to engage in vigilante actions on an ad hoc basis.

[78] Indeed, in the same sermon where he spoke of the Danites and Vigilance Committees in 1857, Young also stated: "There have been men here who have had their plans to arrange for robbing; and I will take the liberty to say that, when we find them, 'judgement will be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet.'

[78] Beginning in the 19th century, a number of authors, including the notable British fiction writers Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson, make references to "Danites" as a shadowy, secret group who terrorized the early LDS Church settlements in Utah.

These references usually appear in popular fiction or works critical of the LDS Church, and rumors of Danites practicing some form of blood atonement often play a significant role in these accounts.

Washington Bailey, in his memoir, "A Trip To California In 1853",[79] reported local rumor that Brigham Young's "Destroying Angels" were conducting raids on wagon trains near Salt Lake City and blaming it on Indians.

In the story, the Danites constitute a brutal group of enforcing vigilantes operating under the direction of Brigham Young—and more particularly the fictional Sacred Council of Four, silencing criticism and questioning, and preventing dissenters from leaving the Salt Lake Valley.

Doyle's embellishment of the folklore surrounding the original Missouri band transplanted to a romantic wild west setting, the established criminal notoriety of Rockwell, and rumors of Young's Avenging Angels made acceptance of the "authoritative" Sherlock story a simple matter for English readers.

"[83] The Avenging Angel (1995) is a film featuring Brigham Young, Porter Rockwell, and Wild Bill Hickman that centers on the fictional character and his activities as a Danite.

According to Denton, this "consecrated, clandestine unit of divinely inspired assassins" introduced "the ritualized form of murder called blood atonement--providing the victim with eternal salvation by slitting his throat.

"[86] Denton implies that large numbers of such "atonements" occurred during the Mormon reformation of 1856, although "none of the crimes were ever reported in the Deseret News", and that the "bloody regime…ended with [Jedediah] Grant's sudden death, on December 1, 1856.