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For the Cause of

Righteousness

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For the Cause of

Righteousness
A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism
18302013
Russell Stevenson

Greg Kofford Books

Salt Lake City, 2014

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Copyright 2014 Russell Stevenson

Cover design copyright 2014 Greg Kofford Books, Inc.
Cover design by Loyd Ericson
Published in the USA.
All rights reserved. No part of this volume may be reproduced in any form
without written permission from the publisher, Greg Kofford Books. The
views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Greg Kofford Books.
Greg Kofford Books
P.O. Box 1362
Draper, UT 84020
www.gregkofford.com
facebook.com/gkbooks
Also available in ebook.
2018

17
16
15
14
5
4
3
2
__________________________________________________

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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Dedicated to Stewart Stanley Stevenson

(October 31, 1980November 1, 1980).
Hope were making you proud, Stew.

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Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface: Growing up White

ix
xi

Part 1: The History

1. Black and White, Bond and Free, 183047
2.
Cursed, 184590
3. The Long Night, 18901960
4. Dawning: From Aba to Detroit, 194675
5.

6.
7.

This Negro Problem:

Mormons and the U.S. Civil Rights Era
The World Is Ready: 197078
Repairers of the Breach

3
13
37
73
105
129
159

Part 2: The Documents

8. Making Race in Mormonism: 183347
9. Origins of the Priesthood Ban: 18471849
10. White Zion: 18521903
11. A Sleep and a Forgetting:
Losing the Black Mormon Heritage, 190249
12. American Mormons Struggle
with Civil Rights: 195369
13. Reconciliation, then Truth: 1971-2013

205
237
259

Bibliography
Index

359
417

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293
313
337

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Acknowledgments
Only a knave would suggest that a book he authored rested solely on
his own laurels. Books take time, infrastructure, documents, and legwork
from people whose names could easily remain unseen by the reading public. But they do it all the same.
I owe a tremendous debt to the personnel at the LDS Church History
Library. Librarians such as Brittany Chapman, Ronald Romig, and Jay
Burrup make the work of any serious researcher of Mormonism possible.
Similarly, the team of digital historians at the Church History Library
have made a generous collection of documents available to historians
who live far from the Archives. Those who have generously reviewed my
manuscript also deserve high praise. And to those who have pointed me
toward important sources, I pay particular thanks. Men and women such
as Steven Densley, Stephanie Sorenson, James Egan, Julianne Gough, and
Lavina Fielding Anderson have provided consistent and life-giving encouragement and feedback as I labored on this project. The story is more
complex, compelling, and intriguing due to your generosity.
And my familythose ranging from my siblings (Natalie, Travis,
Brady, Clint, and Stewart) to my parents (Kent and Nancy) to my grandfather, Stanley Walker Stevensonhave all played a role in motivating me to
embark on this project. Even when we have disagreed (moments that have
proven to be few and far between), such things matter little compared to
rolling, generally-unseen, strength that strong family bonds provide.
In this book, I seek only to tell a story. Nothing more and nothing
less. I owe it all to the black Saints who have toiled, pressed, and endeavored to live out their faith, even when faced with considerable oppositionwhether from mob attacks or interpersonal microaggressions. At
times, it is a difficult story. And at others, it moves and edifies. No decent
history is so simple that it can only appeal to one of the human emotions.
It demands that we explore the full spectrum of human existence: frustration, joy, grief, anger, mourning, depression, and love.

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Preface

Growing Up White
It is my church as much as it is yours.
Bishop Edwin Woolley1
The Lord our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall
to drink, because we sinned against the Lord.
Jeremiah 8:14
A confession: I am a white Mormon man.
I grew up in the white wilderness: Lincoln County, Wyoming. There are
no stoplights, and the nearest department store is two hours away. In 2010, demographers identified all counties with fewer than six people per square mile as
frontier counties. In Lincoln County, racial diversity cropped up spontaneously and served primarily as interesting novelties for my whitenessdrenched
Mormon community. My familys idea of an engaging night at home was looking
up various headings in Bruce R. McConkies Mormon Doctrine (second edition,
of course). I, like myriad others, accepted the pre1978 priesthood ban as advertised. I didnt really bother to engage the doctrinal issues undergirding it. One
of the tragic luxuries of living a white narrative is the ability to entertain the
delusion that nonwhite populations and their struggles are, at best, irrelevant.
My hometown was one of the last Mormon colonies settled in the nineteenth century. Made up of hardworking, stolid folk, my community exuded
the qualities Mormonism values in its white pioneer tradition. Year after year,
cattle ranchers and farmers powered through 40 F winters, even as they worked
1. This quotation has also been attributed to Robert Gardner, though Woolley almost certainly
uttered it. Both the Gardner and the Woolley families quote it proudly as a defining aspect of
their relationship to the institutional LDS Church. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Woolleys great
niece, observed: The sense that this is my church, as well as the the Lords church permeates my
family scriptures and explains my own commitment to the institution even when I have been
most aware of the problems in it. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Family Scriptures,123.Brigham
Young once quipped that if Bishop Woolley should fall off his horse while crossing the Jordan
River on the way to his pasture, those searching for him should not expect him to be floating
downstream; they would more likely find him swimming upstream, obstinately contending
against the current. Leonard J. Arrington, From Quaker to Latterday Saint: Bishop Edwin D.
Woolley, 449; Arrington, Brigham Young: American Moses, 200.For the Gardner (mis)attribution,
see William R. Palmer, qtd. in Pioneers of Southern Utah: Robert Gardner, 384.

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For the Cause of Righteousness

a secondday job for The Man to make ends meet. Exposure to urban issues or
most ethnic diversity came through the media or through the handful of students
of color (generally adopted) through the school system. And for the rural poor,
the media amounted to three television stations received by erecting the rabbitears antennae. We lived in a modernday Mayberry where boys could play
football in the streets and a local drivein provided the best food in town.
The information age resounded in Americas small towns. My home received
internet service in the mid90s, and it unleashed a wave of information upon our
cloistered community. Even with my parents controversyfree book collection, I
had worked through the various Mormon narratives I had been raised with: the
Mormon narrative of Sunday School, of home evenings, and of Ivan Barretts
Joseph Smith and the Restoration. The internet opened up an entirely new conversation for me. I learned not only of seer stones but also polygamy, polyandry,
and, most importantly for this book, Elijah Ables, a black priesthood holder
lauded for his zeal for the cause of righteousness.2 I could not square Elijahs
experiences with what I thought I knew, so I put his memory aside in my box of
what I thought were irrelevant but interesting curiosities.
Mormon missions can do a lot of things to Mormon young people. They
give some confidence and others humility. My mission rewired my racial makeup. As a Hmongspeaking missionary in California, my active engagement with
the white community was limited; I spent my time interpreting for paramedics, eating pig brains, and explaining that the bearded man with the red robe
was Jesus of Nazareth. I came to believe that Zionincluding the institutional
churchshould be a safe haven and a refuge for the downtrodden and oppressed.
Zion looks a little differentand perhaps a little truerin the slums.
My mission experience mirrored Elijah Abless Mormonism a little more than
that of my parents. I spoke regularly with African Americans and struggled to look
them in the eye as they quoted Acts 10:34 (God is no respecter of persons). I
sorted through various explanations, often preferring what I call the dispensationalist explanation: that is, that in Gods grand scheme of things, he planned for different races to receive priesthood blessings at different times. It was neat, clean, and
precedented in holy scripture. As Joseph Smith would tell Orson Hyde when Hyde
postulated a theory, there was but one serious objection to it: it is not true.3
Mormonism celebrates the idea of resounding revelations and overflowing
visions. How could the Saints have stumbled so badly on a matter so important
to the salvation of the human family? Would not a prophet have sought to correct his people from excluding a large percentage of the human family from his
blessings? That the Mormon collective could influence the leadership has been
2. Kirtland Elders Certificates, CD, CR 100 41, 75, LDS Church History Library.
3. Minutes of Council of the Twelve in Upper Room of Historians Office, qtd. in Gary
J. Bergera, The Orson PrattBrigham Young Controversies: Conflict within the Quorum,
18531868, 31.

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a recurring theme throughout Mormon scripture and modern Latterday Saint

history.
Religion is made on the ground as well as it is revealed from Mount Sinai.
That godly communities can render themselves unworthy of revelation is a
wellestablished tradition in JudeoChristian and Mormon texts. In the Book
of Mormon, an ancient prophet in America taught that he that will harden his
heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word, a proviso that does not
exclude word received from Mormon Church leadership. In another episode,
Gods people had become so wicked that their commander, Mormon, felt they
had been left to ourselves, that the Spirit of the Lord did not abide in us. They
had become weak like unto our brethren (Mormon 2:26). God commands
Mormon, their prophet and military commander, to withhold counsel from
his followers, ordering him to stand as an idle witness while he watches them
selfdestruct (Mormon 3:16). In the Old Testament, the Israelites requested that
Moses speak with them but, they continued, Let not God speak with us, lest we
die; and they stood afar off while Moses spoke with the Lord. In another text,
the Lord silences the prophet Ezekiel from speaking to the people of God because
they were a rebellious house. God continued with details: I will make thy
tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not
be to them a reprover (Ezek. 3:26). In modern times, Joseph Smith, speaking
on behalf of the Lord, declared that vanity and unbelief have brought the whole
church under condemnation (D&C 84:55).
As the Saints developed their racial attitudes, they were also a profoundly small
minority struggling to survive in an America illdisposed to welcoming them. A
wide corpus of literature has demonstrated that minority religious groups must
develop strategies to navigate within the larger community. In J. Kameron Carters
magisterial work, Race: A Theological Account, he concludes that race and racism
were a social arrangement that allowed Christianity to coexist with the rise of
Western civilization.4 Mormonism shared this impulse: an almost existential need
to negotiate and compromise in a futile effort to survive. Joseph once quipped
that getting anything into the heads of this generation . . . has been like splitting
hemlock knots with a corndodger for a wedge and a pumpkin for a beetle.5 Yet
as resistant as they were to Joseph Smiths teachings, they felt entirely comfortable adopting the racial attitudes prevalent in nineteenthcentury America. Even
Joseph Smith entertained it on occasion. When Church leaders released Official
Declaration #2 in 1978, it was not only the dawning of a longpromised day; it
was also the close of a very long night.
In assessing the origins of Mormonisms racial doctrines and policies, the
question of power and agency inevitably enter the conversation. As Michel
4. J. Kameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account, 8.
5. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, comps. and eds., The Words of Joseph Smith: The
Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 319.

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Foucault observes, the prison system shifted from a system of violence to a system
of surveillance. Surveillance, Foucault argues, does not link forces together in
order to reduce them; it seeks to bind them together in such a way as to multiply
and use them. This system of surveillance did not function as a triumphant
power based on omnipotence but as a modest, suspicious power, which functions as a calculated, but permanent economy.6
The Mormon race question is, at its roots, a question of power: who wields
it, to whom it is delegated, and who must partake of its fruits. The tightknit and
cloistered communities of Mormon society created the perfect environment in
which Mormons could establish for themselves a selfregulating community, one
in which all could be watchful for threats to their own whiteness. As Foucault
noted, modern constructions of power no longer relied on brute force but via
the actions of individuals as they discipline themselves, in accordance with dominant norms and ideals. The discipline of oneself assures the automatic functioning of power. Foucault noted that power in perfected form should tend to
render its actual exercise unnecessary. In Foucaults history, the civil authorities
directed the building of this structure. Armed with financial resources and armaments, the government couldand didexercise brute force when selfregulation broke down. 7 In 1861, N. B. Johnson complained to Mormon President
Brigham Young that his uncertain racial status had rather embarrast [him] on
the account of some who pretend to understand all mysteries.8 Haunted by
Missouri, racialization discourse infected the Mormon community, ultimately
evolving to become a selfperpetuating strand of the Mormon peoples cultural
DNA. As Foucault sorrowfully noted: We all have some element of fascism
inside our heads.9
Questions surrounding the Mormon hierarchys power have been some of
the most enduring queries in its history. In the nineteenth century, describing
Brigham Young as an allpowerful dictator was stockintrade discourse for the
Eastern establishment.10 Brigham Young is a complete tyrant, the National
Aegis raged. Every man holds his life at the will of Brigham Young.11 His sway
is now effectually undisputed in the territory, one commentary noted as the
Mormons inched towards war with the United States in spring 1857.12 A widely
published report cast Young as the most brutal tyrant now on earth and in point
6. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 201.
7. Ibid., 170.
8. N.B. Johnson, Letter to Brigham Young, January 1, 1861, Brigham Young Office Files,
Reel 38.
9. Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College de France, 30.
10. For a treatment of antiMormon rhetoric directed at Brigham Young, see J. Spencer
Fluhman, A Peculiar People: AntiMormonism and the Making of Religion in NineteenthCentury
America, chaps. 34.
11. The Condition of Utah, National Aegis, April 1, 1857, 2.
12. Details of Utah News, Boston Post, June 8, 1857, 2.

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of treasonous designs without an equal. The Boston Courier complained that

Church leadership controls all the actions of the people.14
Indeed, several modern commentators have also employed this rhetoric in
describing Brigham Young, the leader most often associated with the origins of
Mormonisms policy of racial exclusion. In 1978 skeptics often asked Sonia Johnson
and her supporters how she dodged excommunication for supporting the Equal
Rights Amendment. Johnson said all the right things, assuring them that the
Church is not a totalitarian organization. But she admitted that her arguments
exhibited a certain lack of real conviction.15 Historian David Roberts notes that
Brigham Young used Stalinlike tactics to eliminate his rivals.16 Another historian,
John J Hammond, has felt that Brigham Youngs relationship to Joseph Smith
could be compared to that between Lenin and Stalin. Whereas Lenin created
Bolshevism, Stalin institutionalized it. Similarly, Smith created Mormonism,
and Young institutionalized it.17 In 2012, a youth group in Russia called for the
expulsion of Mormon missionaries, declaring them to be a totalitarian sect.18
Chronologically and geographically, they are vastly different disciplines
one deriving from a bloc of land covering almost a fourth of the earths land
mass and the other from a sliver of territory in the remote Intermountain West.
Certainly, exerting political control over a small region such as territorial Utah
would be a much simpler task, making it easier to believe that Brigham exerted
greater control over the territory and certainly Mormon society.
But we can take the comparisons of our several commentators and engage
them on their merits. If Brigham Young could be considered a tyrant, how did
he go about building the racial wing of his empire? At whose feet do we lay the
blame? Who directed the building of this edifice? Who surveyed it, managed its
keeping, and guarded it from interlopers? And when the walls began to come
down in 1978, who played the role of Gorbachev in allowing free passage into
the outside world? In what had become a global faith community, the ability to
concentrate this power into the hands of a single man or group of men would be
an awesome talent indeed. But boiled down, these comparisons evoke a crucial
question: Who bears the responsibility for pulling the trigger?
An examination of how scholars have answered the question for the Soviet
Union reveals how elusive the issue of culpability can be. In the rich corpus of
13

13. From Utah, Newark Daily Advertiser, April 6, 1857, 2; Outrages of Brigham Young,
Rock River Democrat, April 14, 1857, 2; From Utah, Weekly Wisconsin Patriot, April 18, 1857, 1.
14. Utah, Boston Courier, May 14, 1860, 2.
15. Sonia Johnson, Letter to Alvin and Ida Harris, July 20, 1978, Box 42, fd. 12, Sonia
Johnson Papers.
16. David Roberts, Devils Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy, 67.
17. John J Hammond, A Divided Mormon Zion: Northeastern Ohio or Western Missouri, 389.
18. A Totalitarian Sect: Youth Group Wants to Kick Mormons Out of Russia, October 31, 2012,
http://www.rferl.org/content/prokremlingroupwantsmormonsoutofrussia/24757052.html
(accessed December 5, 2013).

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literature on the Soviet purges of the 1930s, three distinct approaches have surfaced. One of the first scholars to assess the origins of the Soviet massacres was
Robert Conquest, who centered the responsibility for the massacres on Vladimir
Lenin and Josef Stalin. Lenin, Conquest argued, established within the Party all
the seeds of a centralized bureaucratic attitude. The Communist Party did not
represent the populace as it existed, but the future and real interests of that proletariat. Loyalty and solidarity stemmed largely from the ideas in the minds
of [the Partys] leading members.19 As for the second instrument of Soviet slaying, Conquest quotes Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukacss depiction of Stalin
as the apex of a pyramid which widened gradually towards the base and was
composed of many little Stalins. From above, they were objects. From below,
they were the creators and guardians of the cult of personality. By Conquests
reckoning, loyalties and solidarities in Stalinism worked in one direction
onlyupward.20
In the 1970s, a new wave of scholars began to reassess the analysis of Robert
Conquest. Led by historians such as Stephen Cohen, Jerry Hough, and Sheila
Fitzpatrick, they attacked Conquests approach as simplistic. I thought the
suggestion absurd that any political regime could control a society, Fitzpatrick
declared. It was a valueladen system that played all too easily into the hands
of Western historians seeking to undermine Soviet claims to Eastern Europe.
Fitzpatrick and others concluded that the politics were more complicated than
simple top down repression. Many people and groups were pushing competing agendas. Fitzpatrick began to see a from below pattern that was driving
the politicians further than they might otherwise have gone. She and other revisionists sought to understand the degree to which social support existed for the
Bolshevik regime, while acknowledging that critics disparaged her efforts merely
as an attempt to justify Stalinism.21
J. Arch Gettys analysis of the Soviet purges attacked those who cast Stalinism
as monolithic even more potently: Was it necessary, he asked, to attribute every initiative and policy to the Great Teacher? He warns readers that it would
nave to be taken in by Stalins cult of personality and to accept Stalinist protestations of unity. Indeed, he concludes, it may well be that where one finds
the loudest affirmations of unity are the places where unity is most lacking.
Getty criticizes the Western view that casts Soviet power as flowing from top to
bottom, from the center to the localities.22 The reality, he concludes, is that the
chain of command collapsed more often than it functioned. The Communist
Partywas more an undisciplined and disorganized force than a sophisticated
order of totalitarianism.23 As Stephen Kotkin has argued, in the Stalinist state,
19. Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment, 7.
20. Ibid., 44647.
21. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Revisionism in Retrospect: A Personal View, 68384, 689, 694.
22. J. Arch Getty, Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 27.
23. Ibid.

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mechanisms of powersuch as mutual surveillance and selfidentification existed in the Soviet state on a much more ordinary level. The Soviet central
state understood that its power rested on the characteristics and behavior of the
people.24 Crafting Mormonisms racial consensus, therefore, has been a much
more involved process than sending out First Presidency circulars or making
speeches. Foucault has insisted that the power isnt localized in the state apparatus, and societal change is impossible if the mechanisms of power that function
outside, below and alongside the State apparatuses, on a much more minute and
everyday level, are not also changed.25
The comparison invites us to reassess who has controlled the defining of
Mormon discourse on racism through the decades. In Harvard business professor Ronald Heifetzs groundbreaking study on leadership, he argues that figures
within an organization often wield leadership without authority. Such leaders,
Heifetz argues, have the capacity to be both more bold and subtle.26 They can
raise hard questions and generate distress.27 We find that in the creation of
Mormon racial identity, there was an intricate interplay between voices such as
the authoritative Brigham Young and the informal (though, in the end, equally
provocative and attitudedefining) white mob at Winter Quarters. We find that
while David O. McKay may have held the pulpit, African Saints held the imagination, both to their hope and to their doom.
Mormonisms racial prison housed both executive suites and dungeons alike.
Thomas Coburn, a victim of racial violence in territorial Utah, lived in a different
wing than Jane Manning James, the faithful black Saint who labored tirelessly
(and failed) to receive Mormonisms temple rituals. Spencer W. Kimball, who
acknowledged the soulsearing personal obstacles he overcame in granting blacks
the priesthood, lived in a very different cell than Caleb Shreeve, the retired army
general whose efforts to uphold the priesthood ban bordered on the fanatical. Yet
prison walls encased them all the same.
By the time the Saints had settled in the Intermountain West, they had
achieved a state ofto adopt Heifitzs languageracial equilibrium. As an
overwhelmingly white community with few racial outsiders, the Mormon community could labor under the notion that racial Otherness was a foreignand irrelevantelement to the Intermountain Mormon community. As Heifitz notes,
A society may operate without increasing levels of stress, quite oblivious to the
bankruptcy that lies ahead. If a society lacks a general climate of urgencythe
feeling that something must changethe society may do nothing until it is too
late.28
24. Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization, 23.
25. Foucault, BodyPower, in Colon Gordon, ed., Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and
Other Writings, 19721977, 60.
26. Heifetz, Leadership without Easy Answers, 207.
27. Ibid., 128.
28. Ibid., 35.

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In our wandering through the blackMormon milieu, it becomes hard not

to wonder whenor ifMormon leaders in fact led the Mormon people. The
conventional scholarship on the essence of leadership has, as Heifetz has observed, used influence as the mark of leadership. By this model, a leader gets
people to accept his vision, and . . . if something goes wrong, the fault lies with
the leader. This model of leadership is an oversimplification, Heifitz argues. It is
the duty of the leader not merely to give directives to communityto which they
respond with a rigid goosestep. Leadership requires giving clarity and articulation to a communitys guiding values.29 And one need not hold the prophetic
mantle to find success in this responsibility.
Leonard Arrington has warned Mormon historians to be aware of the unanimity biasthe notion that Mormon society has, from the earliest years, been
characterized by concert in thought and behavior, by cooperation, concord, and
consensus.30 On racial issues, it took nearly a century before significant pushback against the consensus developed; the degree of unanimity in the Saints
position is shocking. Until the midtwentieth century, few Saints made the effort
to dissent on racial issues. Factions and dissenters had mobilized based on the
claims of visionaries, capitalists, and fundamentalists. A paltry few of these voices
based their dissent on a desire for racial equality. Indeed, the most notable group
to dissent based on racial issues expressed concerns that Church leaders had erred
in granting blacks the priesthood in 1978.
This volume seeks to explore the story of blacks and Mormonism through
an intimate lens, focusing not only on the experiences of Church leaders but
also the ordinary Latterday Saint: the day laborer nervous about his African
ancestry, the West African woman establishing her own Mormon congregation,
the Pat Booneloving Mormon missionary in Africa, the deathdefying explorer,
John M. Goddard, ruminating on his affection for African dance, and the Black
Panther musing on the Mormons wasted potential. Robert Orsi has argued that
religion comes into being in an ongoing, dynamic relationship with realities of
everyday life.31 This drama played in several theatres: West Africa, the United
States, Brazil, and South Africa. This volume seeks to explore the story of blacks
and Mormonism through an intimate lens in each of these locales. Race was both
a spoken and lived experience. The Mormon people witnessed it, felt it, and absorbed it. But for the Mormon people, racism was also a conscious decisionand
one that exacted a heavy toll during their epoch in the wilderness.

29. Ibid., 23.

30. Leonard Arrington, The Search for Truth and Meaning in Mormon History, 7.
31. Robert Orsi, Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion, 321.

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Part 1

The History

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Chapter 1

Black and White, Bond and Free,

183047
Dont let a single corner of the earth go without a mission.
Joseph Smith
Mormonisms earliest narratives took pains to include blacks. Racial narratives
attempt to explain the origin, state, and destiny of a grouping of people. Even
if its first adherents were uniformly Anglo-Saxon, its earliest scriptural texts were
unequivocal concerning the spiritual unity of all mankind. Joseph Smiths Book
of Mormon insisted that the gospel of Jesus Christ was available to both black
and white, bond and free, male and female (2 Ne. 26:33). In 1831, Joseph Smith
declared in the name of the Lord that it is not right that any man should be in
bondage one to another (D&C 101:79).
Establishing a global Mormonism became something of an obsession for the
young prophet. In 1843, he told members of the Churchs governing body: when
you meet with an Arab, send him to Arabia, when you find an Italian, send him
to Italy. & a french man, to France; or an Indian, that is suitable, send him among
the Indians. & this and that man send them. to the different places where they
belong.Send somebody to Central America and to Spanish America & dont let
a single corner of the earth go without a mission.1 By the time of his death, he and
his followers had transformed his movement from a band of the disenchanted to
a movement he promised would revolution[ize and] civilize the world.2 Lyman
Littlefield felt Josephs vision enabled mankind . . . to see the gospel eye to eye and
travel together the strait and narrow path.3

Joseph Smiths Racial Coalition

The grand designs of Mormonisms vision make for a strange fit with its
provincial origins. Mormonisms founder Joseph Smith started as little more than
1. Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Richard Lloyd Anderson, eds., Journals 2: December
1841April 1843, April 19, 1843, 370.
2. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts
of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, July 23, 1843, 234.
3. Lyman O. Littlefield, Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints, 53.

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a village seer in upstate New York. His more urbane contemporaries would have
called him a huckster, hardly distinguishable from the myriad self-proclaimed
prophets teeming throughout New England.
As a boy, Joseph participated in a debating club at the schoolhouse on
Durfee Street in Palmyra. Josephs neighbor, Orasmus Turner, recalls that his intellect occasionally shone out . . . especially when he used to help us solve some
portentous questions of moral or political ethics.4 However, Palmyras free black
population was limited: forty-six blacks in a population of 3,724.5 The neighboring Rochester had but eighteen in a population of 1,502.6
While slavery was considered to be a moral evil, upstate New Yorkers had
little incentive to grapple with the problems of racism and slavery directly.
Furthermore, the Smith family generally had had other issues pressing upon
them: leg infections, crop failures, and the occasional treasure hunt. Still, Josephs
mother thought him a pensive boy inclined to meditation and deep study
rather than the perusal of books.7
Living in a predominantly white agrarian community, Joseph saw little of
the abolitionist furor developing in northern cities. He had probably heard of the
debate over Missouris entrance into the Union as a slave state. In 1820, a local
paper editorialized that friends of a free government should stand to their
posts and put at defiance the gasconading threats of southern slave-holders.8 In
1819 a Palmyra newspaper published Patrick Henrys letter on slavery, despairing
over the plight of the enslaved: I believe a time will come when an opportunity
will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we can do is to improve
it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants together
with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and abhorrence for slavery.9 When
a black man was dragged through the street like a dog in the South, the story
reached upstate New York. The scene repulsed Yankee pundits: Is humanity and
sympathy for our fellow beings selfishly confined to our own color only?10
As early as 1820, Joseph began claiming to receive visions from God the
Father and Jesus Christ. In 1827, according to Joseph, an angel directed him
to a hill in which he unearthed plates that had the appearance of gold. Joseph
translated these plates into a text of more than five hundred pages that he and
4. Orasmus Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps & Gorhams Purchase and Morris
Reserve, 214.
5. Horatio Gates Spafford, ed., A Gazetteer of the State of New York, 400.
6. British visitor James Silk Buckingham observed: There were fewer people of colour in the
streets [of Rochester] than in any town we had visited. Qtd. in Diane Shaw, City Building on the
Eastern Frontier: Sorting the New Nineteenth-Century City, 190 note 44.
7. Lucy Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and His Progenitors for
Many Generations, 84.
8. Missouri and Slavery, Palmyra Register, December 6, 1820, 3.
9. Patrick Henry, Letter on Slavery, Palmyra Register, December 29, 1819, 3.
10. A Most Barbarous Scene, Rochester Telegraph, August 1, 1820, 3. For another example see
Barbrous [sic], Palmyra Register, August 18, 1819, 2.

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others interpreted to be an account of Americas ancient inhabitants known as

the Nephites and the Lamanites.11 Having completed the translation, he officially founded the Church in April 1830.
The black populations of Joseph Smiths and the Saints settlements never
amounted to more than a few hundred at most. In 1839, Mormon apostle Parley
P. Pratt observed that one half dozen negroes or mulattoes, never have belonged to
our Society, in any part of the world, from its first organization to this day.12 But
some Saints experienced a limited degree of interracial dialogue in their youth. Sarah
DeArmon Pea Rich had grown up with a black slave in her intimate family circles.13
Levi Hancock recalls that the first time in my life I saw some negroes was during
his childhood when he listened to their stories. Years later, he still remembered that
one confided that he wished he had been white as I was.14 Martha P. Jane Thomas
was proud to call herself a southern woman . . . raised in a slave state.15 The wife
of Joseph Smiths first cousin by marriage, Bathsheba Bigler Wilson Smith from
Tennessee remembers that her family had either given freedom to their slaves . . .
from conscientious motives or eschewed slavery outright.16
In 1831, Joseph received a revelation assuring him that Missouri was the land
of promise . . . appointed and consecrated for the gathering of the Saints (D&C
57:1). In his official 1838 history, Joseph Smiths scribe, James Mulholland, initially
identified Negroes as descendants of Ham and Native Americans as Lamanites.
Someonelikely Joseph Smith himselfordered that any genealogical identifiers
be stricken from the record. Mulholland either removed the scriptural names or
replaced them with modern terms such as Indians or, in the case of Missouri
whites, identified them as descendants of the biblical Japheth, pioneers of the
west.17 Joseph had received revelations identifying the Missouri borderlands with
Zion, locating the Garden of Eden in its far-western Jackson County. A wave of
Mormons began to flow into the region. When Joseph visited the region in summer
1831, he freely preached to a respectable number of negroes.18

11. For the best scholarly work on the Book of Mormon, see Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of
Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion.
12. Parley P. Pratt, Late Persecutions of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter-day Saints; Inflicted by the
State of Missouri upon the Mormons (1839), 11. In the 1840 edition, Pratt increases the number to
one dozen, suggesting that approximately six blacks joined the Saints between 1839 and 1840. See
also Pratt, Late Persecutions of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter-day Saints; Ten Thousand American
Citizens Robbed, Plundered, and Banished; Others Imprisoned, and Others Martyred for their Religion.
With a Sketch of Their Rise, Progress and Doctrine (1840), 28.
13. Sarah DeArmon Pea Rich, Journal of Sarah De Armon Pea Rich, transcribed by Alice
M. Rich, 1415.
14. Levi Ward Hancock, The Life of Levi W. Hancock, typescript, 2, Perry Special Collections.
15. Martha Pane Jones Thomas, in Daniel Stillwell Thomas Family History, 23.
16. Bathsheba B. Wilson Smith, Autobiography, photocopy of holograph, 1.
17. Manuscript History of the Church, A1, 129
18. Ibid.

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The Saints also saw their associations with the African Americans as reflective
of their condition as struggling colonists. Emily Dow Partridge Young recalled
her gratitude for local blacks willingness to provide housing for the impoverished
Saints. Despite their meager resources, her family could at least have a good fire,
and so kept from freezing.19 When Heber C. Kimball saw blacks in Richmond,
Missouri, he found it a novelty to hear them call the cows sook cherry and see
them tote . . . the pails or tubs of milk on the heads.20 Though the Saints sought
to be friendly, they nevertheless saw the black population as an exotic race living
under conditions unworthy of respectable whites.
The center of Mormonism continued to be in upstate New York. But as
missionaries traveled to Missouri, they established small Mormon communities
along the way, the largest being in Kirtland, Ohio, a village in the wilderness of
the Western Reserve. But after the missionaries left the town, the newly converted
Saints forged their own faith without the guiding influence of Church authorities.
The new communitys version of Mormonism indicated that they drew from
eclectic sources. Lacking the structure that Joseph Smith established in upstate
New York, charismatic preachers took control of the Mormon community. A
leading figure in the newly formed Mormon community was a preacher called
Black Pete. Raised in northern Ohio by a woman named Kino (a name that
suggests a retention of her African heritage and identity), Black Pete riveted
the Kirtland Mormons with visions and song. Reuben Miller recalled that Pete
used to get the power and writhe around in various contortions on the floor.
He r[a]n over the hills and [said] he saw holes of fire. Young white women burst
into ecstasy while listening to his preaching.21 Charismatic and commanding,
Pete wielded considerable influence in defining the lived religion of the newly
converted Kirtland Mormons.
When Methodists began to teach northern blacks like Pete in the late eighteenthcentury, they drew on their tradition of Islam even as they embraced the tenets of
Christianity. After Pete was baptized in 1830, he fashioned a hybrid Mormonism
that reflected both his Islamic heritage and newly embraced Methodist faith. When
Joseph Smith moved his followers to the region in early 1831, he cracked down on
the hybrid Mormonism, declaring that the Lord had revealed it to be the product
of false spirits (D&C 50:2).
Mormon editor W. W. Phelps quickly became the leading voice for the
Mormon community in Jackson County by publishing The Evening and the
19. Reminiscences of Emily Dow Young Partridge, April 7, 1884, typescript, 9, Perry Special
Collections. Her sister, Eliza, expressed discomfort at having to go through the room occupied by
the Negroes in order to get to her room. The Diary of Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman, 2, MSS 1217,
Perry Special Collections.
20. Extract from Heber C. Kimballs Journal, Womans Exponent 10, no. 2 (June 15, 1881): 9.
21. Reuben Harmon, in Naked Truths about Mormonism, 1, no. 2 (April 1888): 201. For a
fuller treatment of Black Pete, see Mark Lyman Staker, Hearken O Ye People: The Historical
Setting of Joseph Smiths Kirtland Revelations, chaps. 14, 8.

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Morning Star. Bombastic and witty, Phelps never considered his rhetoric particularly offensive nor did he take himself too seriously. Most Saints took Phelpss
language in stride. But their Missouri neighbors were less casual.
Missouri had played a central role in the countrys debate over slavery since
its entrance into the union in 1820. Phelps promoted western Missouri as a land
belonging to the American Indians, the Lamanites. Phelpsand presumably
othersdared to embrace Mormonisms anti-slavery impulse publicly. Calling
the abolition of slavery a wonderful event of the age, Phelps exaggerated
Mormonisms anti-slavery impulse. When Phelps tried to urge moderation in
allowing free blacks to enter Missouri, the locals recoiled at the idea of free blacks
coming at all. By summer 1833, it was clear that the Saints had crossed too many
lines for the Missourians to countenance.
Pundits freely assailed Phelps and the Saints with racial epithets, with one
newspaper editor labeling them as Black Mormons whose impulse for race-mixing would incite havoc on the states racial order.22 They have been tampering with
our slaves, and endeavoring to sow dissension and raise sedition among them.23
A Jackson County vigilance committee observed that the Saints had reached the
low condition of the black population and were taking measures to drive us to
emigrate through an indirect invitation to the free brethren of color in Illinois, to
come like the rest to the land of Zion.24 These accusations were serious; the charge
of abolitionism was akin to the charge of terrorism. The Missourians accused the
Saints of conniving . . . with the Indians, and stirng [sic] up the negroes to rebel
against their masters.25 Apostle George A. Smith later observed that when it came
to the cool discretion necessarily intrusted to an editor in control of public opinion, Phelps was deficient. Joseph agreed, laughing that he would be willing to
pay Phelps for editing a paper, provided nobody else should have the privilege of
reading it but myself.26
Slavery was more symbolic than substantive to the residents of Jackson County;
in 1830, the county had only 2,822 residents with but 193 black slaves.27 Church
leaders still warned members to have nothing to say to the slaves whatever, but
to mind our own business.28 Making matters worse, Phelps spoke freely about
Jackson County being the land of Zion consecrated for Gods kingdom. Phelps
longed for the day when this wilderness and desert would become like Eden or

22. Grand Instigators of the New York Riots, Liberator, July 26, 1834, 119.
23. Bruce N. Westergren, ed., John Whitmer: From Historian to Dissident , 104.
24. Regulating the Mormonites, Niles Weekly Register 9, no. 3 (September 14, 1833): 48.
25. Sidney Rigdon, et al., Petition Draft, circa 183839, http://josephsmithpapers.org/
paperSummary/sidney-rigdon-js-et-al-petition-draft-tothe-publick-circa-1838%E2%80%931839#5
(accessed August 11, 2013).
26. History of Joseph Smith, Millennial Star 21, no. 7 (February 12, 1859): 107.
27. Lyle W. Dorsett, Slaveholding in Jackson County, Missouri, 26.
28. The Life and Testimony of Mary E. Lightner, 195.

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the garden of the Lord.29 He wrote a hymn highlighting the apocalyptic vision that
the Missouri Saints entertained:
When Jesus comes in burning flame
To recompense the just
The world will know the only name
In which the Saints can trust.30

The wilderness will soon blossom as a rose, Phelps promised, and Zion shall
arise and put on her beautiful garments and become the joy of the world.31
By August 1833, the Saints had been evicted from their homes, left to fend
for themselves against the anger of the vox populi. Phelps immediately issued
an extra edition of the Evening and the Morning Star assuring the locals that
he actually had wanted to prevent [blacks] from being admitted as members
of the Church.32 Phelps assured Missourians that the Saints had no interest
in inviting blacks to the area: The introduction of such a cast [sic] among us
would corrupt our blacks and instigate them to bloodshed.33
But it was too late. The mob destroyed the Evening and the Morning Stars
press and forcibly expelled the Saints from Jackson County. The Saints relocated
to Clay County, but the reception was lukewarm, at best, even when they moved
farther north into Daviess County. When Mormon Samuel Brown attempted to
vote in Gallatin, an election worker refused him, snarling that the Mormons had
no more right to vote than the d----d negro.34 After the Saints were finally removed from Missouri in 1838, Apostle Parley P. Pratt denounced claims that the
Mormons supported racial integration: The statement concerning our invitation
to them to become Mormons, and remove to this state, and settle among us, is
a wicked fabrication, as no such thing was ever published . . . by our people.35
Over twenty years later, Brigham Young could still feel the sting: When we went
to Missouri, the government feared that we would set the Negroes freea thing
that we never thought ofour views are known on that point.36
The Saints gleaned many lessons from Jackson County. Not only did they come
to recognize the inhospitality of civil society to religious sects making exceptional
claims; they also learned that they needed to be cautious about becoming too close to
the black community. In summer 1836, Missouri Governor Daniel Dunklin wrote
29. The Elders in the Land of Zion to the Church of Christ Scattered Abroad, Evening and
Morning Star 1, no. 2 (July 1832): 12.
30. New Jerusalem, Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 5 (October 1832): 39.
31. The Gathering, Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 6 (November 1832): 45.
32. W. W. Phelps, Extra of Evening and the Morning Star, July 1833.
33. John Whitmer and W. W. Phelps, Letter to Brethren, July 29, 1833.
34. Samuel Brown, Affidavit, September 5, 1838, in Sidney Rigdon, An Appeal to the American
People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter-day Saints; and the Barbarities
Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri, 17.
35. Pratt, Late Persecutions of the Church of Jesus Christ, 11.
36. John Pulsipher, Notebook, February 18, 1855.

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Phelps: Your neighbors accuse your people . . . of being opposed to slavery. You deny.
Whether the charge, or the denial, is true, I cannot tell. But whether true or false,
Dunklin continued, the consequences will be the same . . . unless you can by your
conduct and arguments convince them of your innocence.37 For the remainder of
Joseph Smiths life, Joseph was forced to perform an awkward negotiation between
his own expansive vision for Zion, the racial prejudices of his own people, and the
real consequences that could come from being labeled an abolitionist. His movement
had attracted a broad coalition: abolitionists, slave-owners, and the indifferent. And
he fielded attacks from all fronts. As a minority religious movement, he feared taking
a strong position on the violently divisive topic of race relations.
Indeed, the Saints had endured their share of racial attacks while settling in
Missouri. Once the Saints had been expelled from Jackson County, a reporter believed that the impoverished Saints had reached the low conditions of the black
population.38 The Saints willingness to harbor antislavery sentiment in Missouri won
them, an overwhelmingly white religious group, the epithet of black Mormons; the
title received so much circulation that it was used to describe some New York City
white antislavery activists who dared come to a respectable establishment with blacks
alongside them. Surely, a New York paper concluded, the sight was intended to
outrage public taste and feeling.39 A local paper feared that the Mormons would
invite degraded and corrupted free negroes and mulattos to be fit companions
for Missourianss wives and daughters. Introducing such a cast [sic], they feared,
would surely corrupt their slave population and instigate them to bloodshed.40
Josephs positions on slavery reflected the immediate pressures he faced. No,
we do not believe in setting the Negroes free, he published in one Church newspaper in 1838.41 Later, he told Orson Hyde that blacks have souls and should be
put . . . on a national equalization.42 But on occasion, Joseph also made black men
the target of jokes.43 He annoyed pro-slavery factions while alienating abolitionists.
During his ill-fated presidential run of 1844, Joseph Smith called for an end to
slavery but still proposed compensating slave owners for their lost property.44
37. Daniel Dunklin, Letter to W. W. Phelps, July 28, 1836, in Manuscript History of the
Church, A1, 748.
38. The MormonitesNullfication, National Gazette (Philadelphia), August 22, 1833, 3.
39. Grand Instigators of the New York Riots, Liberator, July 26, 1834, 119.
40. The Outrage in Jackson County, Evening and the Morning Star 2, no. 17 (February 1834):
128. For a fuller treatment of racialization rhetoric in 1830s Mormonism, see Russell Stevenson, Black
Mormon: The Story of Elijah Ables, chap. 2; and T. Ward Frampton, Some Savage Tribe: Race, Legal
Violence, and the Mormon War of 1838, 175207.
41. Answers to Sundry Questions, Elders Journal of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints 1, no. 2 (May 1838): 29.
42. Hedges, Smith, and Anderson, Journals 2, December 1841April 1843, January 2, 1843, 212.
43. Ibid., April 7, 1843, 344.
44. For Joseph Smiths plan to compensate a slave owner a reasonable equivalent for his
property, see Joseph Smith, General Smiths Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of
the United States, 11.

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Still, Joseph took measures to strengthen his black membership while attempting to avoid being pigeonholed. Joseph ordained Elijah Ables to the priesthood in
March 1836, only to applaud black slavery a month later.45 By December 1836,
Ables had been ordained to be a Seventy.46 In 1838, Joseph directed Elijah to serve
a mission to Upper Canada, which had become the largest colony of runaway slaves
in North America. After the mission, Abless missionary associates tried to indict
him for a number of spurious charges ranging from the petty to the outrageous.
Joseph listened patiently and then ignored the complaint.47 In April 1841, Ables
was issued a new certificate attesting to his status as a Seventy.48
Black women joined the Saints as well. As Connell ODonovan has discovered,
missionary Stephen Post baptized the wife of Samuel Francis, a free black living in
upstate New York. This unnamed wife was the first recorded black woman who
joined Mormonism.49 In April 1842, John D. Lee baptized Mark Young as well as
Milla and Cynthia whom he identified as two servants that belong to Young.
They both likely stepped away from the Mormon community when Young returned to Methodism the following month.50
In Connecticut, Jane Manning joined the faith and led a family of free blacks
nearly a thousand miles to Nauvoo in order to join the main body of the Saints.
When Joseph Smith welcomed them, their feet bloodied from the trek, he expressed amazement: Is this not faith? he exclaimed, as he looked at her tattered
band.51 Joseph and his wife, Emma, forged such a strong bond with Jane that they
offered to seal them to her as an adopted daughter. While she initially refused, Jane
never forgot the promise.
Confidants such as associates Orson Hyde and Zebedee Coltrin expressed
alarm; had Joseph forgotten the lessons of Missouri?52 Hyde warned Joseph that problack racial policies could lead to the decline of the white race. Joseph scoffed: The
45. Joseph Smith, Letter to Oliver Cowdery, in Messenger and Advocate 2, no. 7 (April 1836):
22931.
46. Roll, First Council of the Seventy, December 27, 1836, CR 3 123, LDS Church History Library.
47. Meeting Minutes, June 1, 1839, quoted in Lester E. Bush, Mormonisms Negro
Doctrine, 52.
48. Elijah Abel Priesthood Certificate, April 4, 1841.
49. Stephen Post, Journal, September 23, 1836, LDS Church History Library. Many thanks
to Connell ODonovan for directing scholars to this journal entry.
50. John D. Lee, Journal, April 12, 1842, MS 2092, LDS Church History Library. ODonovan
also has been kind enough to make this information available on his blog post, Three Newly
Discovered Early Black Mormon Women, http://rationalfaiths.com/three-newly-discovered-earlyblack-mormon-women (accessed February 11, 2014).
51. Jane Manning James, Autobiography, 1893, transcribed by Elizabeth Roundy, 17, LDS
Church History Library.
52. Later in life, Zebedee Coltrin recalls resisting Joseph Smiths directive to administer ritual
washings and anointing to Elijah Ables; he complied only because he had been commanded by
the Prophet to do so and told himself that he would never again Anoint another person who
had Negro blood in him. Coltrin qtd. in L. John Nuttall, Diary, May 31, 1879, typescript, Perry
Special Collections.

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11

slaves in Washington [are] more refined than the presidents. Shocked at Josephs
position, Hyde emphasized what a black-friendly policy would mean: They will
rise above me. Joseph agreed, but, doubtless to Hydes dismay, expressed sympathy
with aspiring blacks rather than status-conscious whites: If I . . . attempted to oppress you, would you not be indignant, & try to rise above me?53
Soured by the mob violence of Missouri, Joseph had no tolerance for men
seeking to inflict vigilante justice on Nauvoos black population. In the weeks preceding the assassinations of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, a free black named Chism
was accused of stealing approximately $1,500 dollars. A lawless banditti, under
the pretence of a legal process kidnapped him and hurried out some distance into
the woods, where he was tied, stripped, and most inhumanely beaten. One of the
assailants was arrested but for want of evidence . . . he was fined but five dollars and
the [court] cost. Outraged, Joseph stated that he believed that it was a plot . . . [to]
screen the prisoner from the condemnation he justly deserves. Lynch law, Joseph
declared, will not do in Nauvoo. It was no coincidence, Apostle John Taylor editorialized, that the assailant hails from Missouri.54 A week later, Taylor lauded the
Saints willingness to stand up in defence of the oppressed, of whatever country,
nation, color, or clime . . . no matter whether it was an Indian, a negro or any other
man.55 Josephs drew the line at black-and-white intermarriage,56 but Joseph held
firm in his commitment to protect the rights of Nauvoos black residentseven if
they numbered but twenty.57
Race relations had always taken a back seat in the Mormon community; even
Joseph Smith was willing to distance himself from the extremities of contemporary
abolitionism. But his commitment to qualified racial inclusion checked the influence of hardliners Orson Hyde and Zebedee Coltrin. The strength of his will and
personality compelled them to hold their peace, in spite of their disgust.

53. Hedges, Smith, and Anderson , Journals 2, December 1841April 1843, January 2, 1843, 212.
54. Robbery and Lynching, Nauvoo Neighbor, 1, no. 4 (April 3, 1844): 2.
55. Conference Minutes, Times and Seasons 5, no. 13 (July 15, 1844): 1.
56. Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophets Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph
Smith, February 8, 1844, 445.
57. Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Blacks within
Mormonism, 222.

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Part 2

The Documents

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Chapter 8

Making Race in Mormonism,

183347
W. W. Phelps Urges Moderation on Slavery (July 1833)
Historical Context
The early Latter-day Saints first exposure to slavery came as they settled in
western Missouri. When Joseph Smith visited Jackson County, he freely preached
to a respectable number of negroes.1 The following year, Joseph Smith received
a revelation declaring that it is not right that a man should be in bondage to
another.2 While the Saints had not embraced the radical abolitionism of activists
such as William Lloyd Garrison, they generally found slavery to be a shameful
stain on republican government.
More than other Mormons, W. W. Phelps had a long reputation for incendiary rhetoric. As a critic of slavery and a vitriolic anti-Mason, Phelps had few
scruples when it came to the printed word. He openly observed that much is
doing towards abolishing slavery, and colonizing the blacks, in Africa.3 Joseph
Smith realized that Phelpss boldness could backfire. George A. Smith quipped
that he considered Phelps the sixth part of an editor, that was a satirist, but
when it came to the cool discretion necessarily instructed to an Editor in the
control of American public opinion, the soothing of enmity, he was deficient.
George A. would happily pay Phelps for editing a paper, provided nobody else
should have the privilege of reading it. Joseph laughed, agreeing that Phelps had
such severe use of language as to make enemies all the time.4 In the text below,
Phelps attempts to express moderation in support of racial integration.

Citation
Free People of Color, Evening and Morning Star 2, no. 14 (July 1833): 108.
1. Manuscript History of the Church, A-1, 129, in Richard E. Turley Jr., ed., Selected Collections
from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, 2 vols., DVD, 1:2.
2. Revelation, December 1617, http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/revelation-16and-17-december-1833-dc-101?p=9 (accessed February 11, 2014).
3. W. W. Phelps, The Elders Stationed in Zion to the Churches Abroad, Evening and Morning
Star 2, no. 14 (July 1833): 110.
4. History of Joseph Smith, in Millennial Star 21, no. 7 (February 12, 1859): 107.

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Document Excerpt
To prevent any misunderstanding among the churches abroad, respecting
Free people of color, who may think of coming to the western boundaries of
Missouri, as members of the church, we quote the following clauses from the
Laws of Missouri.
SECTION 4. Be it further enacted, That hereafter no free negro or mulatto,
other than a citizen of some one of the United States, shall come into or settle in
this state under any pretext whatever; and upon complaint made to any justice
of the peace, that such person is in his county, contrary to the provisions of
this section, he shall cause such person to be brought before him. And if upon
examination, it shall appear that such person is a free negro or mulatto, and that
he hath come into this state after the passage of this act, and such person shall
not produce a certificate, attested by the seal of some court of record in some one
of the United States, evidencing that he is a citizen of such state, the justice shall
command him forthwith to depart from this state; and in case such negro or mulatto shall not depart from the state within thirty days after being commanded so
to do as aforesaid, any justice of the peace, upon complaint thereof to him made
may cause such person to be brought before him, and may commit him to the
common gaol [sic] of the county in which he may be found, until the next term
of the circuit court to be holden in such county. And the said court shall cause
such person to be brought before them, and examine into the cause of commitment; and if it shall appear that such person came into the state contrary to the
provisions of this act, and continued therein after being commanded to depart as
aforesaid, such court may sentence such person to receive ten lashes on his or her
bare back, and order him to depart the state; and if he or she shall not so depart,
the same proceedings shall be had and punishment inflicted, as often as may be
necessary, until such person shall depart the state.
SECTION 5. Be it further enacted, That if any person shall, after the taking
effect of this act, bring into this state any free negro or mulatto, not having in
his possession a certificate of citizenship as required by this act, [he or she] shall
forfeit and pay, for every person so brought, the sum of five hundred dollars, to
be recovered by action of debt in the name of the state, to the use of the university, in any court having competent jurisdiction; in which action the defendant
may be held to bail, of right, and without affidavit; and it shall be the duty of
the attorney-general or circuit attorney of the district in which any person so offending may be found, immediately upon information given of such offence, to
commence and prosecute an action as aforesaid.5
5. The 1820 Missouri state constitution expressly enjoined the Missouri general assembly to
prevent free negroes and mulattos from coming to, and settling in, this state, under any pretext
whatsoever. This clause was by far the most controversial in the Constitution. New Hampshire
Senator David L. Morril declared that this [Missouris] provision . . . is in direct hostility to the
Constitution of the United States. In 1826, the city of St. Louis established a police force formed
largely to keep an especial eye upon the negro houses, and other places of rendezvous for slaves and

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Slaves are real estate in this and other states, and wisdom would dictate great
care among the branches of the church of Christ, on this subject. So long as we
have no special rule in the church, as to people of color, let prudence guide; and
while they, as well as we, are in the hands of a merciful God, we say: Shun every
appearance of evil.

The Early Racialization of White Latter-day Saints (1834)

Historical Introduction
Being a Mormon in antebellum America meant more than radical theology;
outsiders also assumed that it meant a support for the intermingling of the races.
When abolitionist and Oneida Institute [Whitesboro, New York] President Beriah
Green, read the following 1835 article, he soundly chastised the reporter for insulting some of his most intelligent fellow-citizens and devoted fellow Christians.6

Citation
The Fourth of July, Commercial Advertiser (New York), July 5, 1834, 2.

Document Excerpt
The only disturbance, if disturbance it can be called, was at the Chatham Street
Chapel.7 We have been at some pains to ascertain the facts, and we give them as
they were, from the relation of a respectable gentleman who was present during
the whole of the performance. The Fanatics, it seems have been holding meetings
for several successive nights, of the past and present week, preparatory to a factitious phrenzy, adapted to the heats of the season, and to their own excited zeal. . . .
coloured people. In 1835, the general assembly cracked down on the free black population even
further, requiring all free blacks to acquire a license for residence in the state. In 1838, St. Louis
implemented a series of ordinances prohibiting racially integrated social gatherings and establishing
curfews for all slaves and most free blacks. Ben Perley Poore, ed., The Federal and State Constitutions,
Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the United States, 2:1108; Abridgement of the Debates
of Congress from 1789 to 1856, 6:691; An Ordinance Establishing and Regulating a Patrol for this
City, February 9, 1826, Ordinances of St. Louis, Revised, 1828, 5962, cited in Daniel Graff, Race,
Citizenship, and the Origins of Organized Labor in Antebellum St. Louis, in Thomas Spencer, ed.,
The Other Missouri History: Populists, Prostitutes, and Regular Folk, 62. See also An Act Concerning
Negroes and Mulattoes, The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri (1835), 41317.
6. Reverend Beriah Green, A Review: The Principles of Reform, 47.
7. Founded by Charles Grandison Finney in 1830, the Chatham Street Chapel was a leading
site for revivalistic religion, political debates, public education reform, and abolitionist meetings.
Finney told his Chatham congregation to expect ridicule for their theological and social radicalism:
Let them say, if they please, that the folks in Chatham Chapel are getting deranged. We need
not be afraid of that, if we could live near enough to God to enjoy his Spirit. Chatham Street,
Commercial Advertiser [New York City], September 11, 1833, 2; David Paul Brown, Spectator
(New York City), June 12, 1834, 1; Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 59.
For a brief history of the origins of the Chatham Street Chapel, see The Broadway Tabernacle,
Frank Leslies Sunday Magazine 4 (July-December 1878): 102.

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Much of the excitement was obviously occasioned by the studied admixture of the
blacks and whites. The row of seats back of the orchestra were filled alternately with
blacks and whitesan earnest of the project [of ] amalgamationand a white man
in a clerical dress with two dingy Desdemonas8 [went] into a pew, and took his
seat between them! These proceedings, so clearly intended to outrage public taste
and feeling, produced the results which the projectors of the excitement probably
intended. It conduced to the notoriety for which they seek. But it is a notoriety not
to be envied. They are less justifiable and more mischievous than the Mormons of
the West. They are the Black Mormons of the East.

W. W. Phelps Responds to Attacks (February 1834)

Historical Introduction
Newspapers throughout the country read Phelpss remarks as they read the
remarks of most abolitionistsas a thinly veiled effort to force racial integration.
The invitation alluded to, the Missouri Republican angrily reported, contained
all the necessary directions and cautions to enable the free blacks, on their arrival
there, to claim and exercise the rights of citizenship. Phelps tried to backtrack. He
immediately released an Extra, which he explained would prevent [blacks] from
being admitted as members of the Church, an explanation that clumsily only made
matters worse since it implied the existence of a previous welcoming policy. The
1838 Manuscript History of the Church reproduces a copy of Phelpss circular.9
However, the Manuscript History redacts major passages from Phelpss original notice. The original reads: Our intention was not only to stop free people of
color from emigrating to this state, but to prevent them from being admitted as
members of the Church. The edited version deletes the exclusionary portions of
the text as follows: Our intention was not only to stop free people of color from
emigrating to this state, but to prevent them from being admitted as members of
the Church. Later in the text, the words and we say, that none will be admitted
into the church were also omitted.10 By the time this history was composed in
1839, Elijah Ables had joined the faith and gained Josephs affection. A probable
explanation for the strikethroughs is that Joseph Smith refused to allow the history to be composed in a way that would exclude Ables and others like him.
8. A racialized reference to Shakespeares character, Desdemona, from Othelloa Venetian
woman who had married an Ethiopian man. In antebellum America, Desdemona had been
generally been depicted as innocent and virtuous. With the rise of abolitionism, Desdemona
came to be seen as an example of a woman who had transgressed racial sensibilities. One popular
story is told of a white woman and black man traveling together. When questioned about the
propriety of the action, the woman confessed that she had been reading SHAKESPEARES
Othello, and fancied herself another Desdemonaher sooty lover another moor of Venice.
Edward Kahn, Desdemona and the Role of Women in the Antebellum North, 23555.
9. Manuscript History of the Church, A-1, 326.
10. Ibid., 332.

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Citation
The Outrage in Jackson County, The Evening and the Morning Star 2, no.
17 (February 1834): 128.

Document Excerpt
Previous to the time when the printing office was demolished, some of the
mob sent their negroes to insult and abuse certain young women, who slept in a
small cabin adjoining the dwelling where the remainder of the family slept.11 After
repeated attempts to commit insults upon these young women, the parents concluded that it would be unsafe to trust them longer in that situation. Accordingly
the young women were put in another bed, and two young men were placed in
their stead. After the young men had retired the man of the house was called to
the door, and informed by a friend, of the determinations of the mob. This friend
also informed him, that as near as he could learn, there would be one or more
negroes sent to molest his daughters that night. This was during the excitement
while the mob were circulating their secret constitution for signatures. Fortunately,
however for the negroes, or their owners, the young men had retired without having this watch-word, and were unprepared with any deadly weapons. In the night
they were awoke by the noise occasioned by the negroes whispering and planning
without. Directly one made his entrance into the room through the way where
the chimney had formerly stood, and was permitted to call the name of one of the
young women, and make known his business and intentions when he was seized by
the young men, and handled so roughly for a few moments that the demi-infernal
when liberated from their grasp, dove head foremost through a wall of stone and
bricks that was then remaining of the old chimney.
That the negro did not send himself, is demonstrated from the fact, that whites
knew it previous to the time he came, and was informed of [it] by the individual just
named. Every person acquainted with the manner in which the blacks are treated in
a slave State, know that an act of that kind would cost the slave his own life in an
instant, were it possible for the individuals suffering the insult to inflict death: this
is no secret among the slaves. And without being encouraged to go, and having a
promise of protection from their masters should they be caught, it would be in vain
to endeavor to convince the mind, that those blacks would ever attempted an act of
so gross a magnitude. And what but an attempt to insult and abuse, could [have] ever
prompted any man to encourage any thing of so shameful a nature? What better can
we think of a man that will urge his negro to commit unlawful acts, than we could
11. Portrayals of African American men as lurking sexual predators circulated throughout
the national press. In Connecticut, one newspaper editor expressly connected abolitionism to
increasing numbers of black-on-white rapes: Since [abolitionists] bowels of mercy began to
yearn for the Negro tribe, . . . offences of this kind are almost invariably committed by black men
upon white girls. If abolitionism persisted, he argued, we may expect to hear cases of this kind
daily announced. A Tappanite, Columbian Register (New Haven, Conn.), August 31, 1833, 3,
and Depravity, Philadelphia Inquirer, December 6, 1830, 2.

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210 For the Cause of Righteousness

were he to attempt the same himself? But these are the men who make such pretensions to virtuous principles, as to complain that the Mormons were about to corrupt their society, by the introduction of free negroes and mulattoes into that country.
. . . Here is a set of men in danger of having their public morals corrupted, who
make a pretence to religion, and are so far beneath every thing heretofore extant on
earth in the form of wickedness, that they will set their Afric colored population to
steal into the dwellings of peaceable neighbors and defile the virtuous! They said,
We will ravish your women!12 No promise of mercy, ever so solemnly made, has
been observed a moment when they saw an opportunity to abuse the persons of
their hatred. But on the other side, every act of abuse which they swore to commit,
when ever a possibility presented, it was done or attempted. An attempt was made
by a gang of these lawless miscreants to abuse a lady who was in the most delicate
situation in life, when a part were pursuing her husband to take his life, and others were engaged in pulling down his dwelling round her in the dead hour of the
night! These are facts which will stand recorded upon the pages of the history of the
inhabitants of the nineteenth century! A century proud of its liberal laws, and its
advance in science and religion! Which is entitled to the appelation, Civilized? We
talk in our country of savages, whose customs and habits, we say, are such that it is
necessary that missionaries should be sent immediately to convert them from their
idolatry, and teach them the blessings of civilized life. Is it color that constitutes a
savage, or is it the acts of men that appear disgustful, and awake in our breasts feelings of pity and compassion for them?

Elijah Abless Priesthood Certificate (March 1836)

Historical Introduction
As the Saints struggled to adapt to the heated Jackson County environment,
prospects looked a little more promising in Kirtland for black Mormons. In
September 1832, Elijah Ables, an African American living in Cincinnati, joined
the Mormons after hearing the preaching of a local resident, Ezekiel Roberts. He
moved to Kirtland where he was ordained an elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood
under the hands of Joseph Smith.13 Some resisted Joseph Smiths openness.
Zebedee Coltrin, one of Josephs close associates who officiated for Elijahs ritualistic washings and anointings at the Kirtland Temple recalled more than thirtyfive years later that he had never experienced such unpleasant feelings in his life.
12. The 1825 Missouri state code provided the following punishment for alleged rape by slaves:
If any negro or mulatto shall . . . commit, or attempt to commit a rape on a white female, he
would not be imprisoned but sentenced to castration, to be performed under the direction of the
sheriff, by some skillful person. The law remained in force at the time the Saints were in Missouri.
Other crimes would be punished, at the discretion of the court before whom the conviction shall
be had. Laws of the State of Missouri, 1:31213; The Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri, 171.
13. Eunice Kinney, Letter to Wingfield Watson, July 5, 1885, photocopy, Perry Special
Collections.

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He decided that he would refuse to perform any further ordinances for African
Americans unless specifically directed by the Prophet to do so.14
By 1838, Elijah Able had won Josephs affection. It seems likely to me that he
ordered his scribe, James Mulholland, to strike out Phelpss exclusionary passages
from the Manuscript History. From Joseph Smiths perspective, Elijahs ordination to the Melchizedek Priesthood marked a rejection of Phelpss overreaction in
the heat of persecution. The language of Elijah Abless priesthood certificate uses
language identical to other certificates of priesthood ordination. In other words,
Ables was ordained to the same priesthood office as Frederick G. Williams,
Thomas B. Marsh, and even Joseph Smith himself.15
The idea of having a black preacher in a predominantly white congregation
was, at the very least, unusual. In 1841, runaway slave Samuel Ward received a
Congregationalist preachers license and directed an all-white congregation in
South Butler, a township that was a days journey from Palmyra, New York.16
Ward later recalled that his congregation was far removed from the allurements
and deceptions of fashion. . . . They heard a preacher: they supposed and believed
that he preached Gods truth. The mere accident of the colour of the preacher
was to them a small consideration.17

Citation
Kirtland Elders Certificates, CD, CR 100 41, 75, LDS Church History
Library; left justification added.

Document Excerpt:
To Whom It May Concern
This certifies that Elijah Able has been received into the church of the Latterday Saints organized on the sixth of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred & thirty, & has been ordained an Elder according to the rules &
regulations of said church, and is duly authorized to preach the gospel equally
to the authority of that Office.18 From the satisfactory evidence which we have
14. Zebedee Coltrin, qtd in L. John Nuttall, Diary, typescript, May 31, 1879, Perry Special
Collections.
15. Elders Certificates for W. W. Phelps, John Whitmer, and Joseph Smith, Kirtland Elders
Certificates, CD, 1, 2, 4, 57.
16. Samuel Ward, Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro: His Anti-Slavery Labours in the United
States, Canada, & England, 31.
17. Ibid., 8283.
18. When Joseph Smith founded the Church, he (or those acting under his authority) did not
ordain all men as Elders in the priesthood but also as teachers and priests. For instance, he
ordained Christian Whitmer to be a teacher of this Church of Christ established & regularly
organized in these last days. Joseph Smiths father was ordained to be a Priest of this Church
of Christ. John Whitmer, however, was in fact ordained to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, an
Elder of this Church of Christ. See Michael H. McKay, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, Grant Underwood,

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212 For the Cause of Righteousness

of his good moral character, & his zeal for the cause of righteousness, & diligent
desire to persuade men to forsake evil & embrace truth, we confidently recommend him to all candid & upright people as a worthy member of society. We,
therefore, in the name & by the authority of the Church, grant unto this, our
worthy brother in the Lord, this letter of communication as a proof of our fellowship & Esteem: Praying for his success & prosperity in our Redeemers Cause.
Given by a direction of a conference of the Elders of said church Assembled in
Kirtland, Geauga County, Ohio, the third day of March, in the year of our Lord,
one thousand eight hundred <thirty six>.
Joseph Smith Jr., Chairman
F. G. Williams Clerk.
Kirtland, Ohio, March 31, 1836

Joseph Smith Defends Slavery (April 1836)

Historical Introduction
The explosive events in Jackson County that resulted in the Saints expulsion in the summer of 1833 placed Joseph Smith in a political bind. Should the
Latter-day Saints continue to be friendly to the black population, or should they
attempt to distance themselves from blacks to avoid the resistance and even violence experienced by abolitionists? April 1836 was only days after Joseph Smith
had ordained Elijah Ables to the Melchizedek Priesthood. Josephs decision was
to walk a difficult linepublicly endorsing slavery while continuing to support
Elijah Ables in his priesthood calling.

Citation
Joseph Smith, Letter to Oliver Cowdery, Messenger and Advocate 2, no. 7
(April 1836): 28891.

Document Excerpt
Brother O. Cowdery:
Dear SirThis place having recently been visited by a gentleman who advocated the principles or doctrines of those who are called abolitionists; if you deem
the following reflections of any service, or think they will have a tendency to
correct the opinions of the southern public, relative to the views and sentiments
I believe, as an individual, and am able to say, from personal knowledge, are the
feelings of others, you are at liberty to give them publicity in the columns of
the Advocate.19 I am prompted to this course in consequence, in one respect, of
Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley, eds., Documents: Volume 1, July 1828-June 1831,
14850. See also Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 5:357.
19. After Phelpss print shop and press for The Evening and the Morning Star in Missouri had been
destroyed in 1833, the paper moved to Kirtland, Ohio, under the editorship of Oliver Cowdery.

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many elders having gone into the Southern States, besides, there now being many
in that country who have already embraced the fulness of the gospel, as revealed
through the book of Mormon,having learned, by experience, that the enemy
of truth does not slumber nor cease his exertions to bias the minds of communities against the servants of the Lord, by stiring up the indignation of men upon
all matters of importance or interest.
Thinking, perhaps, that the sound might go out, that an abolitionist had
held forth several times to this community, and that the public feeling was not
aroused to create mobs or disturbances, leaving the impression that all he said was
concurred in, and received as gospel and the word of salvation[,] I am happy to say,
that no violence or breach of the public peace was attempted, so far from this, that
all except a very few, attended to their own avocations and left the gentleman to
hold forth his own arguments to nearly naked walls.
I am aware, that many who profess to preach the gospel, complain against
their brethren of the same faith, who reside in the south, and are ready to withdraw the hand of fellowship because they will not renounce the principle of
slavery and raise their voice against every thing of the kind.20 This must be a
tender point, and one which should call forth the candid reflection of all men
and especially before they advance in an opposition calculated to lay waste the fall
[sic] States of the South, and set loose, upon the world a community of people
who might peradventure, overrun our country and violate the most sacred principles of human society, chastity and virtue.
After having expressed myself so freely upon this subject, I do not doubt but
those who have been forward in raising their voice against the South, will cry out
against me as being uncharitable, unfeeling and unkindwholly unacquainted
with the gospel of Christ. It is my privilege then, to name certain passages from
the bible [sic], and examine the teachings of the ancients upon this nature, as the
fact is uncontrovertable, that the first mention we have of slavery is found in the
holy bible, pronounced by a man who was perfect in his generation and walked
But Cowdery was planning to terminate the paper since it had been designed to be published at
Missouri. The newspaper continued from December 1833 until September 1834, when Cowdery
ceased production and replaced it with the Latter-day Saints Messenger and Advocate, a title assumed
because the name of this church has lately been entitled the church of the Latter-day Saints. Oliver
Cowdery, Address to the Patrons of the Evening and Morning Star, 1.
20. Joseph Smith is probably referring to stalwart missionaries such as Abraham Smoot and
Charles C. Rich. Smoot was born in Owenton, Kentucky, in 1815 and baptized in 1835. In 1820,
Owen County was home to just under 200 slaves out of a population of 2,031. By 1840, the slave
population had multiplied in accordance with white immigration and totaled over 1,200 out of
8,232. Charles C. Rich was born in nearby Campbell County, Kentucky, where also slaves made
up a tiny fraction of the overall population as late as 1847. For the 1820 totals, see William Darby,
Darbys Edition of Brookes Universal Gazetteer, 770. For the 1840 totals, see Daniel Haskel and J.
Calvin Smith, A Complete Descriptive and Statistical Gazeteer of the United States of America, 506.
For the Campbell County total, see James McCulloch, A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical, and
Historical of the Various Countries, Places, and Principal Natural Objects in the World, 1:525.

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214 For the Cause of Righteousness

with God.21 And so far from that predictions being averse from the mind of God it
remains as a lasting monument of the decree of Jehovah, to the shame and confusion of all who have cried out against the South, in consequence of their holding
the sons of Ham in servitude!
And he said cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his
brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his
servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem and
Canaan shall be his servant.Gen. 8:25, 26, 27.
Trace the history of the world from this notable event down to this day, and
you will find the fulfilment of this singular prophecy. What could have been the
design of the Almighty in this wonderful occurrence is not for me to say; but I can
say that the curse is not yet taken off the sons of Canaan, neither will be until it is
affected by as great power as caused it to come; and the people who interfere the
least with the decrees and purposes of God in this matter, will come under the least
condemnation before him; and those who are determined to pursue a course which
shows an opposition and a feverish restlessness against the designs of the Lord, will
learn, when perhaps it is too late for their own good, that God can do his own work
without the aid of those who are not dictated by his counsel. . . .22

A Non-Mormon Describes Elijah Abless Preaching in Canada (1838)

Historical Introduction
Probably in the spring of 1838, Elijah left Kirtland to serve a mission in
Upper Canadamodern-day Ontario. Known for its large population of former
slaves who had run away from U.S. owners, abolitionists boosted the region as
Freedoms Colony in Canada. However, it was also a site of political and military conflict. Since the fall of 1837, Canadian rebels had been organizing against
21. Joseph Smith is referencing Noah and his curse of his son Ham that Hams descendants
would be the servant of servants, an interpretation common to nineteenth-century biblical
exegesis. For the best treatment of American Christianitys views of Ham, see Sylvester Johnson,
The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-century American Christianity: Race, Heathens, and the People of God.
22. Antislavery gradualismthe argument that slavery ought to be abandoned gradually
rather than eradicated immediatelyhad dominated antislavery discourse since the late
eighteenth century. By 1836, however, most American antislavery associations had eschewed
gradualist thought. Gradualist thought assumed the inevitable progress of man and the
reliability of divine Providence for human betterment, while supporters of immediate
abolitionism believed that human society was unpredictable and its future therefore malleable.
Joseph Smith argued that emancipation would be a dramatic act of divine Providence, not the
product of hubristic abolitionists who felt they could dictate the will of the Lord. In January
1836, leading abolitionist James G. Birney, the abolitionist presidential candidate in 1840
and favorite of Mormon abolitionist Rees E. Price, lectured in Cincinnati on the influence of
slavery on the church and the insufficiency of gradualism. Anti-Slavery Lectures, Cincinnati
Weekly Herald and the Philanthropist, January 1, 1836, 6. For a good scholarly treatment of
antislavery immediatism, see David Brion Davis, The Emergence of Immediatism in British
and American Antislavery Thought, 20930.

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the British government. By the time Ables arrived in Canada, supportive vigilante groups in upstate New York were beginning to smuggle arms across the St.
Lawrence River to assist some Canadians rebels who were seeking to secede from
the British Empire. The rebels ardently embraced the American political system,
making it dangerous to be an American who came to the attention of British authorities in Upper Canada. Mormon branch president William Burton recalled
that the rebellion gave anti-Mormons a good opportunity to persecute them.
As peculiar Americans that had fixated on talk of an American promised land,
the Mormons were ideal political targets for supporters of the Crown. Widely
seen as the far west, Detroit served as a strategically important location for
the British, the Patriots (rebels), and the American vigilantes who supported
them. According to William Burton, they were charged as rebels, and some were
imprisoned [or] brought before magistrates.23
John Broeffle, a resident of Williamsburg, Ontario, had several family members who became Mormons and associated with Elijah Ables. In a letter to his
aunt, Broeffle describes the activities of this negro preacher and relates a close
call with a local mob.

Citation
John Broeffle, Letter to Catherine Beckstead, September 19, 1838, LDS
Church History Library.

Document Excerpt
I wrote you that Old Uncle Sandy and Francis24 with some of their families
had become Mormons with some others. They started last June for their Zion
in Missouri, a journey or pilgrimage of near two thousand miles. . . . If you remember old William Riley in the eighth concession,25 you know the last minister
left of that society. He was ordained last Spring by Gurley26 and a negro who was
about here to be a preacher for the few left. There are forty some odd of men,
women and children gone out of the Becksted connection (as many as 45) and in
23. William Burton, Autobiography, 3, MS 1508 1, LDS Church History Library.
24. Alexander (Sandy) Beckstead (b.1769) was of old upstate New York stock and married
Sarah Reddick in 1794/95. They moved with his brother, Francis Beckstead, from New York to
Williamsburg, Ontario, in 1807. Alexander and Francis left Williamsburg for Missouri before the end
of June 1838. Andrew Jenson, De Witt, Historical Record (Salt Lake City) 7, no. 7 (July 1888): 603.
25. William Riley was a captain in the British military. The eighth concession refers to his
200-acre land holdings in the area. His biography is included in J. Smyth Carter, The Story of
Dundas: Being a History of the County of Dundas, from 1784 to 1904, 438.
26. Born in Bridgewater, New York in 1801, Zenos Gurley joined the Mormons in April 1837
after hearing the preaching of fellow New Yorker James Blakeslee and Truman Gillett. Gurley
helped with the relief of the poor Saints driven out of Missouri after the 1838 extermination
order of Governor Lilburn H. Boggs. He also collected funds for building the Nauvoo Temple.
Biographical Sketch of Elder Zenos H. Gurley, Senr, The True Latter-day Saints Herald 19,
no. 1(January 1, 1872): 13. See also Manuscript History of the Church, C-1, April 9, 1838.

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Available December 17, 2014 in

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