is guilty of SOMETHING. Makes it hard for anyone to claim the moral high ground. Let he who is without sin, and all that.

Ultimately, I am inclined to agree, simply because of the principle of inherited guilt (which has a shaky theological foundation, to say the least.) Another funny thing: In the case of Ham (and I would be STUNNED if this is not a variation on that old hoary old verse, popularly used in Joseph Smiths day to rationalize for slavery,) Noah, not God, utters the malediction, without reference to skin color, only condemning one of his sons descendants to be "a servant of servants" to his other sons descendants. I say that because this could be a case of slapping a "Kick Me" sign on someones back: When they inevitably get kicked, does the fault lie with the people kicking them or the guy who made the sign? I would say both, but in any case, an innocent bystander observing that they are being kicked because they did something that made someone else mad enough to put a sign on their back is in no way an indictment of said bystander. THAT said, casting the action that prompted the sign as a "sin" does tend to imply at least some degree of judgment on the past, but is neither here nor there to present behavior or attitudes.

The point is that is more a case of "sucks to be them" than "they deserve it." Particularly in provincial settings where thunder and lightning come from "the Leader," people are eager of explanations for why some groups get shafted harder, deeper and more often than others. Ideally, an explanation that does not make "the Leader" into a total ass (clashes with the whole "righteous perfection" theme.) The easiest solution is to make peoples suffering into "the judgment of Heaven on their sins," and, if no such sins are readily evident, dead ancestors can conveniently be blamed since they are no longer around to defend their good name. Now, I would not be a bit surprised (the opposite, really) to learn there was no element of "the Indians ancestors were bad people so we deserve their land" in 1840s MO (let alone UT, particularly given the Mormons were as quick to declare it their New Canaan as the Puritans were New England) but it is not a given.