It’s time to bust some slavery myths about Utah Slavery. Dr Paul Reeve & Christopher Rich have written a book called “This Abominable Slavery.” Was Brigham Young making Utah a slave state or a free state? Newly discovered documents from the 1850s are causing us to re-evaluate past narratives. Check out our conversation…
Don’t miss our other conversations with Paul Reeve! https://gospeltangents.com/people/paul-reeve/
Copyright © 2024
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Meet Paul & Chris
GT: Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have two amazing historians. Chris, you’re new to the show. Tell us who you are and you’re almost a doctor now. Right? Give us your background a little bit.
Christopher: Almost. I’m a PhD candidate right now, actually a student of Paul’s. In a previous life, well, I still am an attorney. I was active duty military for 11 years in the Army JAG Corps.
GT: Oh, wow.
Christopher: I came out of there, switched over to the reserve side and started going down the history track here at the University of Utah.
GT: Wow.
Christopher: So we’ve been working with Paul for little over 10 years now on this book.
GT: But can you handle the truth?
Christopher: I actually had somebody ask me that one time during a deposition. It was really [strange,] and yes, yes, I can.
GT: Do you feel like Tom Cruise cross examining Jack Nicholson?[1]
Christopher: There have been some moments like that where I’ve gone away afterwards and said, yeah. I could be in a movie.
GT: Well, great. Well, Paul, could you go ahead and reintroduce yourself. You’re a three-time guest here on Gospel Tangents.
Paul: Yeah. I’m Paul Reeve. I’m currently chair of the history department at the University of Utah and Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies.
GT: Yeah. And tell us about the book you two as well as your third co-author, which we couldn’t get here unfortunately. Tell us about your new book that just released.
Paul: This Abominable Slavery. The title is a quote from Orson Pratt.
GT: Go ahead and show it.
Paul: It is based upon a variety of newly transcribed speeches from the 1852 Legislative Session and the 1856 Utah Constitutional Convention that were captured in Pitman Shorthand and LaJean transcribed them.
GT: LaJean Carruth.
Paul: LaJean Carruth. She’s a co-author on the book. The book wouldn’t exist without her transcriptions. We have a new source base that no prior scholars had access to. And so, we tell the story of Utah’s answer to pressing national questions, can human beings be held as slavery?
GT: And at one time the answer was yes. Well, very good. So, I think I told Paul this earlier, but for my audience, some of you may not know that Paul was my either second or third guest here on Gospel Tangents.[2] And I remember at the beginning of the interview, I said, so are you working on any other books? And you were working on this book. So I think that was eight years ago. I think, I can’t remember. But , so I’ve been waiting for eight years for this book, so I know you guys have been working hard on it, but I’m very excited that this book’s out finally.
Paul: Yeah, we are too. It’s taken a long time, but happy that it’s finally here.
GT: All right. Well, great. Chris, I we got to get a Mormon myth out of the way right off the bat. I remember, when was MHA in San Antonio? Was that seven years ago?
Christopher: 2012, I believe.
GT: Oh my goodness. Was it that long ago? That’s 12 years.
Christopher: Yeah.
GT: Oh, wow. You two, I don’t remember who else, but I know you two were giving a presentation and there’s a well-known apostle, Charles Rich, who held slaves. Are you an apologist for Charles Rich?
Christopher: You had mentioned this, I believe, and a few times when I have been discussing our research, the implication has been that I am an apologist for Charles C. Rich. I am not related to Charles C. Rich. It’s a different Rich family. I am a Kimball. I am a Woolley. I can go back to some of those early families, but we are not related at least, well, probably through polygamous marriages, but otherwise [not related.]
GT: All right. So we can put that to bed.
Christopher: Yes, fortunately.
GT: You’re not representing Charles Rich here.
Christopher: All my ancestors were northerners so far as I know, so
GT: Oh, wow. All right. Well, give us a little bit about your background. Where did you get your bachelor’s, your JD, and then you’re currently working on a PhD in history here, right?
Christopher: Sure. I actually started at the University of Utah studying history, I don’t know how long ago. I did my first two years here, but ultimately got my BA at Brigham Young University.
GT: Boo.
Christopher: I got my JD at the University of Virginia School of Law.
GT: Okay.
Christopher: Then I got an LLM from the Judge Advocate General’s School, and now I’m back at Utah getting my PhD.
GT: What’s an LLM?
Christopher: A Master of Law.
GT: Oh, okay. So I’m just trying to get more letters after my name. That’s what it comes down to.
Christopher: Wow. Because doesn’t [JD stand for] Juris Doctor? Right? So, you got a masters after you got a doctorate?
Christopher: Yeah, it’s usually not necessary. Most people just get the JD. In the JAG Corps, we go through and we have a year where we take various courses and we get an LLM out of it. Some people go on to get a civilian LLM and I ended up leaving the JAG Corps before I had that opportunity. But the LLM is in military law with an emphasis in national security law. So, the last few years that I was active duty, I was doing a lot of national security law issues. My last job was Chief of National Security Law for First Special Forces Command. I still work with special forces.
GT: Okay. Well, very good. Well, and Paul, I was joking with you last week. I couldn’t remember where your office was. And so I looked it up on the University of Utah website and I was very disappointed to find out that you had two degrees from the school down south as Urban Meyer used to say.
Paul: I do. I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from BYU, and then my PhD is from the University of Utah.
GT: And you’ve repented of your ways and you’re a true Ute now.
Paul: Yes. Yes.
GT: That was a good answer.
Did Utah Try to Become Slave State?
GT: All right. Well, let’s dive into the book. Chris, I know you’re the law expert, and I know a lot of people have said, and Paul, jump in as well, but a lot of people have said, and I and I want to bust a myth if this is a myth. Even I have said this, so correct me. When Utah was applying for statehood, there’s a story out there that California was trying to come in as a free state, and New Mexico, I think was coming in as a free state, and that Utah needed to come in as a slave state in order to keep the balance of power in Congress. True or false?
Christopher: So there were a lot of proposals about how to organize the Mexican Cession after the US-Mexican War. And a lot of the questions had to do with the spread of slavery. So it was always pretty much understood that California was going to come in as a free state, but there were actually proposals that California and what is now Utah would come in together as one great big state, that ultimately after several years, they would be separated and so forth.
GT: And it was like the size of Texas, right?
Christopher: It is an enormous [size.] I mean yeah. Utah territory was pretty big on its own.
GT: Deseret Territory, right?
Christopher: Oh, well, Deseret would have been absolutely enormous. So there were a lot of these questions and Zachary Taylor, the president had done that on purpose to try to avoid congressional debate over the question of slavery. But what you ultimately have happen is because the debates go on so long, California, Utah and New Mexico all send in their own proposals to enter into the union as states. Ultimately, California is accepted as a free state. New Mexico and Utah are organized as territories under the principle of popular sovereignty, the idea being that the citizens of those territories would be able to decide for themselves whether slavery would be legal or not. Now, there was a lot of question about what that actually meant. It was purposely vague. Some people argued that state legislature or excuse me, that territorial legislatures could immediately make that determination. Some people said that you can only make that determination when you’re actually going to become a state. And that question wasn’t actually answered until the infamous Dred Scott decision in 1857, which ultimately said that neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can bar slavery in a US territory. But for quite a few years, there were a lot of questions about what would actually happen in the territories. As a practical matter, nobody in Congress believed that Utah or New Mexico would legalize slavery. They believed that the climate was not conducive to slavery. They believed that slavery could only exist in places like the south, which were conducive to plantation agriculture.
GT: Okay. So the idea is, it was we’re going to let the states decide what they want to be, not that—because I’ve heard a quote that I I swear was attributed to Brigham Young, but maybe not. You guys are the experts that said, we must be a slave state in order to enter the union.
Christopher: And so Brigham Young, the evidence demonstrates that he always wanted Utah to come in as a free state. Now, there was some discussion about whether they needed to cozy up to Southerners. And there is at least one Latter-day Saint, Almon Babbitt, who went to Washington D C and his feeling was that in order for Deseret to be admitted to the union, they had to make friends with the South. So he went to Washington and was telling people that there were 400 slaves in Utah and that people in Utah were ultra pro-slavery. And really, he was embarrassing to John Bernhisel who was out there, and to Thomas Kane, who was an individual. He was not a Latter-day Saint, but he was working as for the Latter-day Saints; not working for them, but was trying to help them.
GT: Advocating for them.
Christopher: Advocating for them in in Washington; And even the folks in Congress felt that Babbitt didn’t know what he was talking about. They basically ignored him when he was making these claims.
Paul: Well, and I would just add that the book talks about two different proposals for statehood. Right? So there’s 1849, where the constitution of the state of Deseret is sent to Washington D.C. It’s neutral on the question. Right?
GT: Okay.
Paul: So your question was, did Utah apply as a slave state? The answer is no.
GT: Absolutely no.
Paul: Absolutely no. The Constitution of Deseret is neutral on the question of slavery. And then in 1856, the second time Utah applies, the proposal to apply as a slave state is soundly rejected by the Constitutional Convention that is held in Utah in 1856.
GT: Utahns rejected the constitution? Is that what you’re saying?
Paul: No. There was a Constitutional Convention in 1856 to write a constitution for a second application for statehood.
GT: Right.
Paul: Okay? And a Southerner, Seth Blair proposes that that application should go to Washington DC as a slave state.
GT: Okay.
Paul: A slave application.
GT: Okay.
Paul: The delegates at that convention rejected that proposal. They voted it down 26 to 5. So only five delegates at that convention voted in favor, 26 voted in opposition. Brigham Young made it stridently clear that he was opposed to sending any constitution to Washington that was based on slavery.
GT: Okay. So that’s interesting. I know in some previous conversations we’ve had, the I well, and also Sally Gordon, she’s a professor at Penn. We’ve talked a little bit about how the Act in Relation to Service in 1852 was a form of a gradual emancipation. So, would you agree with that? Is that true, Paul?
Paul: Well, so the other part of your other question is a difference between being a territory and a state.
GT: Okay.
Paul: And remember, Utah was not admitted into statehood until 1896. Slavery is no longer a question.
GT: Okay.
Paul: So what happens on the ground as a territory is really what this book is about, right? So two applications for statehood, neither one of them as a slave state. Okay? But what do you do with the slavery that exists in Utah territory? And in 1852, the legislature meets and attempts to address that question. Really, the question they’re attempting to address is can human beings be held as property? According to the law, the answer that they put into law is no. Human beings can’t be held as property. So it elevates those who are enslaved, African-Americans who are enslaved in Utah territory above the condition of property…
GT: Okay.
Paul: …by granting them some rights, but it frees no one then enslaved.
GT: Okay. So there are step above slaves.
Paul: According to the law.
GT: Or a half step, maybe?
Paul: According to the law, but we also have a chapter that says from their perspective, would this have made any difference? [No.] So, obviously, we’re making a nuanced argument here. Legally, according to law, yeah. If you grant human beings rights, they’re not mere property. Okay, it’s like an ox cart is a piece of property. It has no rights. Okay? Human beings, like you grant them some rights and they are then above the status of mere property and the legislature passes an Act in Relation to Service that does grant them some rights. So your question is, is this gradual emancipation? Well, the language they draft is pretty loose in terms of answering that question. The original draft of the bill would have passed on the condition of servitude to the next generation. We believe, because Orson Pratt stridently opposes the piece of legislation, the bill that finally passes, they remove 18 words from the original draft versus the draft that passes. And those 18 words would have passed on the condition to the next generation. They remove those words, and we believe then, the intent was that the condition of servitude not pass to the next generation, making it then a conservative form of gradual emancipation that, over time, the children born to enslaved parents would not have inherited the condition of their enslaved parents.
Differences between Slavery & Servitude
GT: Okay. So this is really interesting because [I have] another [question.] Is this MythBusters here? It might be. Because I’ve also heard that, human slavery and servitude, this is just semantics. Right? They’re really slaves. Utah’s the only slave state west of the Mississippi. Is that true?
Paul: False.
Christopher: False. False for a couple of reasons. So, the first thing you mentioned is are servitude and slavery the same thing?
GT: Right.
Christopher: From a modern perspective, it’s hard for us to tell the difference. For somebody living in the early 19th century, however, servitude and slavery would have been quite different from each other. As Paul was mentioning, one of the main things is the ability to consent, certain rights that are inherent. Within a service relationship, servitude, you are a human being. You have rights just like any other human being would, but you exist in what’s called unfree labor, meaning that you’ve entered into a legal relationship with your master where you’re not free to quit that employment relationship until certain conditions are fulfilled. So, examples of servitude are apprenticeship, for example, which is usually minor children enter into this relationship with their master’s to learn a particular skill. Indentured servitude, when immigrants would come to the United States, they would be held in servitude for a certain period of time until they’d paid off the price of their passage across the ocean. So you have a number of these forms of servitude, which are in between what we might call absolute freedom on one end of the spectrum and then chattel slavery on the other end of the spectrum where an individual, him or herself, is considered property, can be bought and sold, has no consent over any of that at all. And so, again, so for people like Brigham Young, men of his generation, would have seen a difference between servitude and slavery. They honestly would have viewed them to be different things. Now, that’s changing in this period. The United States is slowly moving towards a free labor system. And so, you have some men like Orson Pratt who are not seeing that distinction. They do believe that servitude and slavery are the same thing. And that’s really what this battle in the legislature is all about. It’s not should we legalize slavery? But is there a difference between servitude and slavery?
GT: And it seems like there were different answers to that question. Can you talk about that, Paul?
Paul: Yeah, well, that’s the title of the book. Right? So, Orson Pratt calls the proposed bill “this abominable slavery.” And he will make a very similar statement about the proposed bill that will govern Native American enslaved people who are in Utah territory. Utah goes with an indenture bill for the answer to that question, and it includes the language of apprenticeship, and they can be indentured up to 20 years. And Orson Pratt, even though there’s a 20-year time limit put on the Native American indentures, still calls it slavery for 20 years.
GT: Okay.
Paul: So, we’re saying in the 19th century, there’s a spectrum of unfree labor categories. And Brigham Young and the rest of the legislature represent a group that are hearkening back to the unfree labor categories they were aware of and familiar with when they were coming of age in the nation. And Orson Pratt represents a forward-looking member of the legislature who represents this new free labor ethic that is sweeping its way in across the nation. And he says, look. If it’s unfree in any way, it’s still slavery. And he’s arguing for free labor ethic. So yeah, the legislature and the debates that take place, they are debating the definitions of these terms themselves. Right? So, Brigham Young really believes that what the legislature passes is not chattel slavery. They haven’t created a law that places human beings as property, but they haven’t freed anyone who is enslaved either. Right? And so you have this spectrum of unfree labor categories. It does grant them some rights. And maybe we should just articulate what those rights are. Right?
GT: Okay.
Paul: So, you are supposed to arrive in the territory of your own free will and choice. If you have free will, you’re not property. We recognize fully, and we acknowledge in the book itself, what does that mean in practice? How can an enslaved person give their own free will and choice? But in a 19th century legal term, this is arguing for consent.
GT: Well, and just because I read a little bit in there, there was a story in your book about a three-year-old that consented to, I believe it was an indentured servitude. And our modern sensibilities would be like, how could any three-year-old [consent?] I mean, they can’t even write. How could they consent? But in the 19th century, somehow consent was okay.
Paul: Well, so that particular case is a Native American indenture bill. Right? So the law that passes to govern Native American enslavement in Utah territory requires anyone who purchases a Native American child to take them to a probate judge and register them as a servant. And so, we found two of those registrations, and we include both of them in our analysis in the book. And one of them was a three-year-old girl, and the probate registration for that three-year-old girl suggests that she entered into that indenture contract voluntarily.
GT: Wow.
Paul: And we simply point out that we don’t believe that that’s true that a three-year-old, especially with the language barrier on top of the fact that she’s three, could voluntarily enter into that contract. The other indenture doesn’t make that claim. Okay. The other Native American indenture that we found does not make the claim of voluntarily entering into this. okay?
GT: I mean, what judge could say, “Oh yeah, sure. A three-year-old can consent.” I mean, it just seems bizarre.
Paul: Right. So, that’s the Native American bill. I’m going to set that aside for a minute. Right?
GT: Okay.
Paul: For the Act in Relation to Service that governs the African Americans who are enslaved in Utah Territory, you’re supposed to arrive of your own free will and choice. The others that, we can look to and say, okay, there are ways in which this would offer them some protection: you cannot be sold to another enslaver unless you offer your consent. And it’s supposed to be given to a probate judge outside the purview of your enslaver. And you have to give your consent for you to be sold to another enslaver. Okay? You can’t be removed from the territory against your will. So, once again, you have to be able to give your consent. If you have consent, you’re not mere property. You’re elevated above the condition of chattel.
Paul: Okay. So these are these are different from chattel slavery laws that are passed in the South. We are not trying to say these are wonderful and we’re just trying to analyze what the legislature passed. Right?
GT: What were they trying to do?
Paul: What are they trying to do? We’re trying to understand that. And they are elevating those who are enslaved above the condition of mere property because it does grant them some rights. And the rights that they are granted does offer them some protection. We found one court case in which the right to not be removed from the territory against your will actually plays out. Okay? So it does grant an enslaved person the rights to testify in his own behalf, like he testifies in a preliminary hearing, right? So, those are things that are distinct from chattel slavery laws that are passed in the South. It also requires that the enslaved be educated. Both the Native American indenture bill and the Act in Relation to Service have clauses that specify education as a requirement for these contracts.
GT: So, for blacks and for Indians both?
Paul: Correct. Exactly.
GT: I thought there was a difference there but, maybe not.
Paul: There is in terms of the amount of education.
GT: Okay.
Paul: Yeah. But both require education.
GT: Okay.
Paul: Native Americans got more education than blacks.
Christopher: Correct.
GT: Okay.
Christopher: Correct. But you have to remember that in the South where chattel slavery is practiced, laws expressly prohibited black people from getting an education. Knowledge is power. Right? And if you give them an education, they’ll want out of their condition of slavery as if they wouldn’t if they didn’t have an education, right? But those were enforced in the South.
GT: Yeah. Well, and they couldn’t testify either.
Christopher: Right. Correct.
GT: Right. Yeah.
Christopher: Right. So we’re simply saying there are distinctions in the laws that Utah passes that elevate those who are enslaved, African Americans who are enslaved above the condition of mere property. And the law also includes Euro American people in the first couple of clauses. So if you arrive using Perpetual Emigrating Funds, you’re in debt to the person that gave you the money to come to Utah territory. And the law says you have an obligation, you will be a servant to them until those funds are paid off. Okay? So it’s also making servants out of European immigrants who have arrived using someone else’s money.
GT: Okay, so that’s interesting. I’m a little bit of a genealogy nerd, but when we go back to census records, “domestic servant,” we think, oh, it’s a housekeeper, cook, or whatever. But that really was a little higher elevated slightly than a slave. Right? Was that what we’re saying?
Christopher: So, so servitude was designed to be that way. So, for a long time, you had had this hierarchy within American society, with enslaved people being at the very bottom. As Paul has been saying, they were property. Servants were above them, and then various free people. But the idea, and we are trying to say that in Utah, it’s not clear that any person that was held in servitude, who is legally defined as a servant, that their life was markedly better than had they been called a slave. However, the legislature genuinely desired to give them rights, which brought them above the level of property. While there are definitely idiosyncrasies in Utah territory due to religion and a variety of other things, the Latter-day Saints, we try and show in the book, are part of a national conversation that’s been going on for several generations at this point about what constitutes acceptable forms of work in the United States. And this is a debate that’s going on not just about slavery, but the whole category of unfree labor itself. In the colonial area, many people of all races were in various forms of servitude. After the Revolutionary War, some of these remained acceptable, others became less acceptable over time. And that’s what Brigham Young and Orson Pratt are trying to navigate is changing ideas within the nation at large about, again, what constitutes acceptable forms of work. Today, we would simply not find it acceptable that you cannot quit employment at will.
GT: Right.
Christopher: That, to us, is a basic, inherent right. It took a long time for us to get there, however. Even after the Civil War, you had apprenticeships for children. It took a long time before people got to that free labor system. Those debates are going on as the Utah legislature is debating these same questions.
GT: Well, and it brings up another thing. Just a few years ago here in Utah, there was an election. We finally got rid of prison slave labor in the Constitution. And I didn’t realize, I read your book, and a prison could actually sell a prisoner’s labor to another prison to do labor. Can you talk about that? I thought that was bizarre. But it made more sense why, up until, do you remember what year that was? Was it 2018?[3]
Paul: Well, so Utah’s constitution simply included the language of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude across the nation, except, there’s that exception in the 13th Amendment.
GT: For prisoners.
Paul: Right, for someone that’s been convicted. So you have convict leasing that takes place, especially across the South. Right? So, yeah, just a few years ago, Utah repealed that portion. It was just borrowed from the 13th Amendment, which was standard for states to borrow something that already was included in the US Constitution. Utah doesn’t get statehood until 1896. All kinds of tension [exist] between Utah and the rest of the nation. They just cookie-cutter/copy the language of the 13th Amendment and put it in Utah’s constitution. Right? But in the South, in particular, convict leasing takes place. Some historians have simply argued that in the wake of the Civil War, one way that you get the labor you need is through those who have been convicted of crimes. And African Americans are convicted of crimes at higher rates than their proportion of the population. Some of them in those convict labor units in the South are put to work on plantations.
GT: Yeah, that’s crazy to me.
Slavery in California
GT: I also want to talk a little bit about slavery in the West. I remember reading, correct me if I’m wrong. I think California, even though it was a free state, had 1,500 slaves in the state because they recognized that Southern slave owners could still have slaves even though they were a free state. Is that right?
Christopher: So, we talked before about the Mexican Cession. So that part, which is now part of the United States, that had been part of Mexico, which transfers to the United States after the US-Mexican War. So, throughout that Mexican Cession, which includes Utah, New Mexico, California, you had had a number of forms of unfree labor which existed while it was a part of Mexico: Peonage, for example, native, various forms of Native American servitude. And then, with the California Gold Rush, a lot of Southerners went to California, bringing enslaved people with them. So, I’ve seen different estimates, some as low as low as 400, but I’ve seen up to 1,500 enslaved people laboring in the gold mines. And there were a large number of Southerners, pro-slavery advocates, who were in the state legislature. So, despite the fact that it was a free state, the legislature came up with ways to allow enslavers to maintain the labor of enslaved people. So they passed one statute, which functionally allowed slavery to exist into the mid-1850s or so. In addition, enslavers would enter into contracts with enslaved people, which essentially transferred them into indentured servitudes, or excuse me, indentured servants, where the enslaved person would promise to labor for the enslaver for a specific amount of time. It could be up to several years, and in consideration for this, they would be freed afterwards. And those were viewed as legal contracts in California. So, this is actually something that happens in a lot of places where a nominally free jurisdiction will allow enslavers to bring enslaved people into that jurisdiction insofar as their status is legally transformed from slave to servant, and then certain legal protections will apply to them. So, this happened in Illinois, for example. It happened in Indiana. And this is probably where Latter-day Saints became familiar with those type of laws. They likely encountered something like an Act in Relation to Service while they were living in Illinois during the 1840s.
GT: Because Illinois was a free state, but still had slaves there as well.
Christopher: Correct. I’ll say it shortly. So, the Northwest Ordinance in the 1780s prohibited slavery north of the Ohio River. But you had a number of slave owners that were in this large territory, which included Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and so forth, who brought slaves with them. And the question is, well, what do we do now? Slavery is prohibited, but we want to maintain their labor. So they created these laws, which allowed enslaved people to go in, but eventually, their children would be freed. So, again, it’s a form of gradual emancipation. It’s not set up exactly the same way as gradual emancipation was in New York or in Pennsylvania, but it was still a way in which the enslaved would gradually be freed over time with these types of servitude serving as an in-between phase between chattel slavery on the one hand and absolute freedom on the other.
GT: Hmm. Very interesting. Anything to add there, Paul?
Paul: No. I think Chris explained that really well.
Oregon Banned Blacks from State!
GT: Okay. It seems like there was something that happened in Oregon as well with regards to slavery. Can you guys talk about that?
Paul: Well Oregon passed a law that simply said you can’t bring Black people into Oregon territory.
GT: Period.
Paul: Period. Right. Some states and territories did this in the 19th century. Right? Even free Black people are not allowed to migrate into territories with these laws. Utah does not pass a law. It welcomes everyone. Right? It’s a part of the Latter-day Saint gathering. So, they have this religious notion they’re going to gather everyone into Utah territory. They have a theological vision of conversion. So, they never pass a law like Oregon that says that Black people are not allowed into the territory. And Oregon also comes close. Right? What was the bill that they voted on or they were really close to passing, but it didn’t pass?
GT: Yeah.
Paul: I’m trying to remember exactly the specifications of that.
Christopher: Yeah, they were attempting to come in as a slave state is my recollection.
GT: That’s what I thought.
Christopher: As they were drafting the constitution, there were a number of these places in the West. We typically think of the West as being a free labor area. And one of the things that we find, we do a lot of comparisons looking at how Utah handled these questions as opposed to other states and other territories. And the thing that we find is there’s a number of places with very strong pro-slavery sentiment. In Oregon, it wasn’t enough to actually create a pro-slavery constitution. Oregon comes in as a free state, but it was enough to pass laws to bar free African Americans from entering the state. In Utah, you see the same thing. You see a relatively small number of pro-slavery Latter-day Saints, who are asking for Utah to protect slavery in the constitution. And men, like Brigham Young and Orson Pratt, say, no. We’re not going to do that. And ultimately, a very large majority of the Constitutional Convention say absolutely not. We are not going to do that. Moreover, we’re not going to bar free African Americans from coming here. And that’s something that should be said as well. We don’t deal with it as much in the book. But while there were enslaved African Americans, there were also a sizable number of free African Americans in early Utah territory, many of whom were Latter-day Saints.
GT: Jane Manning James.
Paul: Right, Jane Manning James, but also her family. She didn’t immigrate alone. She had two children and a husband. Yhey migrate as a family arriving September of 1847. So, there are 1847 pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley. And then other free Black Latter-day Saints follow after them. Then some of the enslaved who are in Utah territory are also baptized Latter-day Saints. For the Century of Black Mormons project, we have identified at least 26. There were probably more. Record keeping was really spotty in the 1830s and ‘40s, but at least 26 enslaved people who were baptized. Not all of those migrate to Utah territory. They don’t have a choice if they’re enslaved and unless their enslavers do. But at least 26 before 1865, 26 African Americans who are baptized are enslaved at the moment of baptism.
GT: Wow. That’s crazy.
Paul: And some of those are in Utah territory. Yeah. And remember, three enslaved men, that’s what we start the book with. Three enslaved men arrive in the Salt Lake Valley, July 22nd, 1847, two days ahead of Brigham Young.
GT: Right.
Paul: And two of those three are baptized Latter-day Saints. And both of those: Oscar Smith and Green Flake will be re-baptized after they arrive in the valley as a second show of their recommitment to their faith. Right? It’s a symbol of their recommitment after they arrive in the valley, which is typical for 19th century immigrant trains to be re-baptized after they arrive. And, and those two enslaved Latter-day Saints are also re-baptized.
GT: It was cool to see a picture of Green Flake in your book. I thought that was really cool.
Paul: Yeah.
GT: Yeah.
Paul: Yeah. Well, he’s honored for the rest of his life as an original 1847 pioneer. So he has special status. Right? But the point that we make in the book is that by the time he dies, after the turn of the 20th century, all of his obituaries, and he’s mentioned in the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune and the Ogden Standard-Examiner. All these newspapers are commemorating him, but none of them mentioned that he was enslaved. They only mention him as an 1847 original pioneer in the valley. So slavery, by that point, has faded from public memory. They commemorate him. They mention his race. They mention him as a pioneer, but don’t mention that he was enslaved.
GT: Right. Right.
Paul: So that memory has faded by that point.
[1] There is a famous scene in the movie “A Few Good Men.” Tom Cruise plays a military lawyer cross-examining Jack Nicholson who plays a colonel involved in ordering the death of a member of the military. See https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gvypKtPhRU0
[2] Paul was my second guest.
[3] The law was repealed in the election of November 2020. See https://ballotpedia.org/Utah_Constitutional_Amendment_C,_Remove_Slavery_as_Punishment_for_a_Crime_from_Constitution_Amendment_(2020)
Copyright © 2024
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:57 — 41.2MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Email | | More
