Branch Davidians

Branch Davidians, American religious movement that became widely known in 1993, when most of its members were killed in a fire that destroyed their headquarters near Waco, Texas. The fire marked the end of a 51-day siege by United States federal agents.

The Branch Davidians trace their origins to the Davidian movement, a splinter group of Seventh-Day Adventists founded by Adventist leader Victor Houteff in Los Angeles, California, in 1934. Houteff retained the traditional Adventist belief that the apocalypse (the end of the world) and the Second Coming of Christ were imminent and would be preceded by catastrophes and war. Houteff also taught that the kingdom of ancient Israelite monarch David—hence the term Davidian—would be reestablished in Palestine. After splitting from the Adventists, Houteff led his followers from Los Angeles to Waco, where they established the communal Mount Carmel Center. Houteff died in 1955, and the Branch Davidian movement itself eventually splintered.

In the mid-1980s Vernon Howell, a recent convert, became leader of one faction of the Davidian movement and adopted the symbolic name David Koresh. “David” signifies the kingdom of David to be restored in Palestine, and “Koresh” is the Hebrew form of the name of Cyrus the Great, the ancient Persian king who played a messianic role in the history of ancient Israel by freeing the Jews from Babylonian captivity (Isaiah 45:1-7). Koresh emphasized the apocalyptic element in Davidian theology, teaching that the Davidians at the Mount Carmel Center—renamed Ranch Apocalypse in 1992—would be assaulted by forces of evil. Communal life focused on recruiting new members, studying the Bible, and preparing for the coming cataclysmic events by stockpiling food, weapons, and fuel. In the late 1980s Koresh began practicing polygamy, which he characterized as taking spiritual wives.

By 1993 accusations of various kinds of abuses were being leveled at the group by anticult activists, including some former members, and the United States federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) decided to search the complex for illegal weapons. The ATF raid of February 28, 1993, quickly became a firefight between federal agents and the Branch Davidians, who interpreted the attack as an episode in their end-of-the-world scenario. In the firefight, 4 ATF agents died and 16 were wounded, and a number of Branch Davidians were killed or injured, although it is not known for certain how many. A standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidians ended on April 19, when agents pumped CS tear gas into the buildings in an attempt to force the occupants out. A fire then broke out. While the U.S. government claimed that the fire was deliberately started by occupants of the headquarters, some survivors and their supporters believed that the structure caught fire as a direct result of the federal assault. After the fire, 80 bodies were recovered from the compound, a few of which had gunshot wounds and were presumed to have died during the February 28 shootout rather than the fire.

Some surviving Branch Davidians—about 45 people—for the most part remained committed to their faith. Other sects within the larger Davidian movement, never affiliated with David Koresh, continued as well.