Here’s another classic from the archives. This is the first time we’ve released the entire interview of Dr. Paul Reeve. The interview occurred back in January 2017. Paul discusses his amazing book, “Religion of a Different Color.” We’ll discuss the race ban for blacks excluded from the temple & priesthood, Paul’s role with the Gospel Topics essay on race, and his future books he is working on. It’s a must-listen! Check out our conversation….

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(Note this conversation was recorded on January 18, 2017, in Salt Lake City, Utah.)

How Mormons Became a Racial Category

GT:  Welcome to Gospel Tangents Podcast.  I’m here with historian and author Paul Reeve here at the University of Utah.  I appreciate you allowing us to come and let us talk to you today here Paul. Thanks.

Paul:  Thank you, thanks for the opportunity.

GT:  Paul is the author of the book Religion of a Different Color.  I wanted to talk a little bit about the book.  Before I do that, do you have any other books in the works right now?

Paul:  I’m working on a documentary history of the 1852 Utah Territorial Legislature.

GT:  Oh!

Paul:  It’s the territorial legislature that Brigham Young speaks to, and it’s the first known articulation of the prophet/president of the LDS Church of a race-based priesthood restriction and it’s within that context of the legislative debates taking place.  [I’m] working with LaJean Carruth who has transcribed the speeches from that legislative session from their original Pitman shorthand.  Some of them have never been transcribed since 1852 and Christopher Rich who is a legal scholar, the three of us are working on a documentary history of that legislative session.

GT:  That’s exciting, because I actually wanted to talk to you about that today as well.  We’ll go into a little bit more history there.  I did not know that.  That’s exciting.  Paul, you are a—well, as I recall you had a recent promotion.

Paul:  That’s right.

GT:  Can you tell us about that?

Paul:  I was promoted from associate professor to full professor this academic year, July 2016.  [There are] three levels of professors.  Most people aren’t aware, but three levels of professors in academia:  assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor.  I was promoted to full professor.

GT:  You’re also the director of graduate studies I understand.

Paul:  That’s correct.

GT:  That’s a pretty time-consuming thing I guess right now?

Paul:  It is time-consuming.  We’re in the middle of the admissions process and so we get to decide who gets admitted and who doesn’t, as well as financial aid and so it’s just generally keeping track of graduate students.

GT:  Yeah, well I understand.  I really appreciate you taking some time out to talk to us.

Paul:  It’s my pleasure.

GT:  Well let’s talk a little bit about your book, Religion of a Different Color.  It’s kind of an interesting take on that.  Kind of the premise of the book, although correct me if I am wrong, is that Mormons were once too white, and now we’re not white enough, so I’d kind of like to talk a little bit about the evolution of that.  Can you talk about that a little bit?

Paul:  Sure, so just to be clear, the exact opposite of what you said:  not white enough in the 19^th century, and then by the 21^st century too white.

GT:  Oh yes.  That’s what I meant.

Paul:  So that’s the basic arc of the trajectory of the argument for the book, so in the 19^th century Mormonism was actually born into a very charged racial context.  Even immigrants from northern and western Europe were being racialized as not fully white.  There was a racial hierarchy that animated 19^th century thought about where people fit in, and Anglo-Saxons were at the top of that hierarchy, and then Irish immigrants or Italian immigrants were seen as less than fully white somewhere down that racial ladder, and obviously you have Native Americans, Asians, African Americans at the bottom of the racial ladder, and 19^th century observers were trying to figure out where to situate Mormons.

The argument of the book is that they weren’t merely religiously suspect but also racially suspect.  You had medical doctors who actually argued that Mormonism, Mormon polygamy in particular was giving rise to a new race, a degraded, sunken, degenerate race and therefore Mormons and their bodies were denigrated as not white.  Really if you take the argument to the extent that it’s taken in the 19^th century, what’s at stake in the minds of outside observers is American democracy.  John C. Calhoun says on the floor of the United States Senate, democracy is the government of white race.  The fear was that in practicing polygamy, as well as giving their free will over the despots Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, as outsiders viewed it, Mormons were actually reverting away from civilization, backwards into barbarism, and into savagery, and therefore democracy is at stake.

GT:  Hmmm.  I think that’s kind of a strange thing for us to think about, that Italians were a different race, Europeans were a different race.  How did they come about these ideas?

Paul:  It’s a really good question.  I think that what’s important to keep in mind that it’s a very fluid and illogical racial context in the 19^th century.  You have a variety of different thinkers kind of suggesting ideas about what race means.  In the 19^th century a nation could also equal a race, the Irish race was commonly referred to in the 19^th century.  Celts, what we would consider different ethnic groups today were considered different racial groups.  Thinkers in the 19^th century are simply trying to make sense of these various groups of people and try to create a racial hierarchy and in their mind, whiteness equals freedom, blackness equals slavery, and then you have this gradation in between.  Where do you situate everyone else?

That helps you to determine how they’re treated, access to social/political and economic power are bound up in where you’re situated on this racial hierarchy, and so the racialization for Mormons starts before they are openly practicing polygamy, but polygamy gives it simply a new life, especially after Mormons openly practice polygamy.  The argument is that we have this fearful decline away from civilization backwards into barbarism.  The development theory is in operation in the 19^th century.  It simply posited that all societies go through three basic phases:  they develop from savagery into barbarism, and then from barbarism into civilization.  Once you arrive at civilization, you have shed markers of barbarism and savagery, and a couple of those markers were polygamy and adherence to despotic rule.

With Mormons, the fear was, these are people who might look white, right, but they’re not behaving the way that white people are supposed to behave.  They are practicing polygamy and giving their free will over to despots, and therefore the fear was you have this slippage backwards from civilization back into barbarism and into savagery.

GT:  It seems like their kind of combining some sociology with race and creating a strange definition.

Paul:  Yes. Absolutely.  Absolutely.  So people are just sort of casting about, trying to figure out what it means to be white or less than white, what it means to be black, what it means to be Native American.  Religious thinkers long looked to the Bible to understand where the races came from, and they would like to Noah’s sons after the flood:  Shem, Ham, and Japheth and argue that those three sons give rise to Europeans, Africans, and Asians, the three major groups.  But you have what we would consider pseudo-scientists today, but in the 19^th century people who are arguing that in fact that there was more than one genesis, or more than one origin, that the races were so distinct, black and white were so distinct that there must have been separate species.  It’s called the polygenesis theory, more than one genesis.

Religious thinkers rejected it because they saw it as an attack against the Bible.  The Bible only talks about one creation.  The polygenesis theory suggests there must be more than one creation, giving rise to separate races that were so distinct that they were different species.  So religious thinkers rejected that because they said it attacks the Bible, so Joseph Smith and Brigham Young for example rejected the argument of polygenesis and said we all come from one origin, right?  But then especially with Brigham Young he’ll start to argue that, how do you account for blackness?  He uses the Curse of Cain in the Bible that predates even the founding of Mormonism by 1000 years.  That’s part of the broader Judeo-Christian tradition that’s traceable to the Old Testament.

GT:  Ok, that brings up a few questions.  So Brigham Young pushes it back instead of the Curse of Ham, he pushes it 1000 years beyond to the Curse of Cain.  Wow, I hadn’t realized that.  That’s kind of interesting.  That’s a development that Brigham Young did that most Protestants didn’t do.  They would have just referred to the Curse of Ham?

Paul:  Well, both of them are in operation.  The Curse of Cain predates Mormonism as well.  Genesis says God put a mark on Cain and his descendants, and the idea that the mark was black skin predates Mormonism by 1000 years.  The earliest references are Jewish scribes and it becomes a part of the broader Judeo-Christian that is passed down in the West over almost 1000 years, and it’s in existence before Mormonism is even founded.  There’s a black slave, I think he’s writing in 1828 or 29, he writes a narrative and he says white people are just ready to tell me that I am the descendant of Cain and I am cursed, and that’s a couple of years before Mormonism is founded in 1830 and like I said, there have been some studies of those notions in the broader Judeo-Christian tradition looking way back in European history, sort of the Jewish glosses on the Bible.  They are the ones who are suggesting that the mark that God put on Cain and his descendants is the black skin.  It becomes part of this broader Judeo-Christian that Brigham Young would have been immersed in.  Joseph Smith does talk about the Curse of Ham, but it is Brigham Young gives life to the Curse of Cain and associates it with a priesthood restriction.

GT:  Oh that’s really interesting.  I wanted to just loop back around and talk a little bit about this polygenesis theory, that was kind of interesting to me.  Going back to that, essentially they were saying there was a white Adam and Eve, a black Adam and Eve, an Asian Adam and Eve, and that kind of a thing?

Paul agrees:  Um, Hmm.

GT:  I mean obviously where would they get thieIrish Adam and Eve?   Some of these other race things don’t really make a lot of sense.

Paul:  Yeah they hadn’t really fully kind of worked that out.  The polygenesis group—mostly black versus white, right?  But suggesting that the races are so distinct that there must have been separate origins, separate creations.  {Paul shrugs his shoulders}.  You know, it’s just simply their effort at trying to account for the distinction between the races, and like I said, religious thinkers reject it because they see it as an attack on the Bible, the creation narrative in the Bible.

GT:  That’s interesting.  I remember one of your presentations at the Mormon History Association, you talked about some pseudo-sciences, physiognomy, I think, where you could look at a Mormon, and he had beady eyes, and you could know that he was a Mormon, or something like that. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Paul:  Sure.  Physiognomy, as well as phrenology, are two pseudo-sciences in the 19^th century and both of them turn their attention to the Mormons.  Physiognomy is the study of this notion that you could read a person’s character traits through his or her face and one of the ways in which they attempted to read the Mormon face was through the eyes.  They actually used an illustration of Brigham Young to suggest that he had poly-erotic eyes versus Margaret Fuller Ossoli who was a 19^th century feminist who was so devoted, the story goes, to her lover that when their ship sinks, she had a chance to save herself but would rather drown with her lover than live without him.  That’s the example of mono-erotic eyes.

The illustration in the book is of her eyes in comparison to Brigham Young’s eyes.  She had really wide, round eyes like a dove that mates for life.  Brigham Young had eyes, at least in the depiction, it’s just an artist’s drawing but has eyes that are very narrow and kind of closed, and those were deemed poly-erotic eyes similar to a hog which mates with whoever it wants to.  Those were the ways in which there was an effort at reading Mormon faces.

Phrenologists also played up the distinctions amongst Mormons.  Joseph Smith had his skull read by Phrenologists and other Mormon leaders did as well and the suggestion was there was something distinct that sets Mormons apart.  It’s physical, not just religious in other words, right?  It’s really by the 1840s that outsiders are referring to a Mormon race and you have medical doctors who visit Utah Territory who suggest that there is a new race emerging out of the Great Basin.  There’s actually a conference held at the New Orleans Academy of Sciences in 1860 where medical doctors gather and they have a conference about the supposed new race that’s emerging in the Great Basin.  All the doctors present at the conference buy the argument and actually push it forward except for one.  One doctor argues against that.  He simply says that, Look, it’s only been thirty years since this religion has been around.  We should really engage in an empirical study for thirty more years before we can conclusively say that Mormonism is giving rise to a new race.  Everyone else just simply said that polygamy because it’s degraded, is producing degraded offspring.  Therefore a new race is emerging in the Great Basin.

They actually argue that Mormonism would solve itself if the United States could stem the tide of outside converts, converts from Europe.  It would produce sterility in the next generation because it’s degraded.  The next generation, within a few generations, men are going to become sterile and it will die out of its own force, if they could simply stop immigrants from coming in from Europe and bringing new blood in.  That would perpetuate the problem much further into the future.

GT:  Wow.  These are some strange ideas.

Paul:  They are very strange ideas.

GT:  It makes you wonder what are our strange ideas that in 100 years people will go, I can’t believe they thought that!

Paul:  Exactly.

{both chuckle}

GT:  I have heard the thought that there are some people that say, black-white DNA, it’s 96 or 98% exactly the same and race should be a sociological term.  Even today they say that, instead of there’s some sort of a physical difference.  Yeah we’ve got black skin, white skin, I guess yellow skin with Asians, but what are your thoughts about that?  Is that something we should just do away with race declarations altogether?  What do you think?

Paul:  Well I think one of the conclusions from the book, if you can racialize Mormons then you can racialize anyone.  It really points to the fact that race is not a biological reality, it’s a social construct.  In other words we’ve used it in society to differentiate between different groups.  It’s important to simply understand that.  I don’t know that we’ll ever get rid of its sociological function, but it’s important to understand it’s not a biological reality like you mentioned, right?  The bulk of our DNA is actually the same.  Black people have more melanin in their skin.  End of story, that’s it, right?

From DNA studies, we actually all are Africans.  That’s one of the conclusions DNA has taught us is that origin of man comes from Africa.  Really we all start from Africa.  It’s all sort of evolutionary biology after that in terms of where people spread, and exposure to the sun, lighter skin versus darker skin.  Any notion that there is biological distinction is completely false.  Race just functions as a social construct and I think the book bears that out.  White people, people who are predominantly white, like Mormons in the 19^th century can be viewed or constructed, imagined, as a completely different race, it just points to the lie of race as anything but a social construct.

GT:  Well that’s very interesting.  I’m going to give you a little bit of my background.  I have a masters degree in Statistics, here from the University of Utah, a Utah man I am!

Paul chuckles:  Yay! Yes!

GT:  In some of my epidemiology classes I had, they’ve said there are always three variables you should always consider in any study:  sex, race, and age, because generally there are differences between all three of those.  Older people are different than younger people, men are different than women, and we always include race.  There does seem to be some issues, and I don’t know if those are sociological or physical.

For example, blacks generally do not survive heart attacks as well as whites.  Now the question is, why?  Is there something biological about blacks that is the case, or is it more an issue that blacks have an issue of worse insurance?  Race is more of a placeholder for economic status.  It’s kind of interesting.  I don’t know that anybody has been able to answer that.  From an epidemiological point of view, we always want to keep that in there because it means something.

Paul:  Sure.

GT:  Whether it’s biological or sociological or economic, that’s subject to debate, but that’s something that’s very important I know in medical studies.

Paul:  Sure.  Yeah.  So when I talk about it as a social construct, talking about the way in which it functions in society in terms of access to political, social, economic power, and in those ways, it’s the way we have constructed, you’re not worthy of citizenship within the United States because your skin’s color is different than mine.  The very first Congress , [17]90, establishes conditions for how you can naturalize as a citizen.  You have to be free and white. That’s a social construct regarding race.  Somehow people who are less than white are incapable of democracy.  That’s the argument Congress is making, the argument that the Supreme Court makes.  In those kind of ways, race is functioning to distinguish between white and black and actually elevate whites over blacks and disadvantage one group over the other only out of the social construct, not out of any biological fact that black people are incapable of democracy.

 

 

 

 

How Did Others Deal with Slavery?

GT:  Let’s talk a little bit about Missouri.  I believe it was W.W. Phelps back in 1832 if my memory is correct.  There’s an article in the newspaper, you could probably tell me what it is.

Paul:  The Messenger and Advocate

GT:  Ok, and so that caused a lot of stir.  Can you talk a little bit about what happened there?

Paul:  Sure.  [W.W.] Phelps publishes an article titled Free People of Color in Jackson County, Missouri.  It simply is an announcement that after Jackson County has been defined by Joseph Smith as the gathering place, as the New Zion.  Phelps is concerned about black Latter-day Saints, so he writes this article Free People of Color.  He simply says, Look. If my fellow black Latter-day Saints are going to gather to Zion, Jackson County, you need to be aware that this is slave territory and here are two aspects of the Missouri legal code that will govern your life if you immigrate to Missouri.  He simply quotes from the legal code, tells black Mormons that if they immigrate, they need to make sure they have papers substantiating their free status; otherwise they will be subject to being whipped and expelled from the state of Missouri.  He doesn’t want that to happen to his co-religionists.  He says, as long as we have no special rule in this church as to people of color, let prudence guide.  Just be aware that if you’re going to immigrate to Missouri, it’s a slave state and there are going to be rules that will govern your ability to move about freely in a state and I don’t want you to run afoul of the law, so here are the sections of the legal code in Missouri that will govern your behavior.

Outsiders, non-Mormons in Missouri read that article and get up in arms really quickly. They suggest that the Mormons are inviting free blacks to the state of Missouri to incite a slave rebellion.  Beyond that they also argue they are inviting free blacks to the state of Missouri to steal our white wives and daughters.  Fear of race mixing is always bound up in these charges leveled against the Mormons almost from the beginning, that somehow they are inciting a slave rebellion is one argument, but also race mixing was the other argument.  You’re inviting free blacks, and black men.  There was the myth of the black beast rapist that animates white people’s concerns of who black people are, especially black men.  All black men just simply want white women, and that charge is leveled against the Mormons.

Before the incident plays out, Phelps will issue an Extra Edition where he tries to calm the fears of the Missourians.  They don’t buy it.  They simply say we don’t buy anything you’ve said in your Extra.  We know really what you’re intending to do.  You’re intending to invite blacks here to start a race riot.  They will attack his printing office; they’ll scatter his press into the street.  His printing office and his home were the same basic building.  They destroy it.  They completely level it.  They drag two men, Bishop James Allen and another man into town square and tar and feather them.

GT:  Bishop Partridge I believe.

Paul:  Bishop Partridge, there you go.  James Allen and Bishop Partridge, that’s right.  That begins the expulsion of the Mormons from Jackson County.

GT:  So Mormons really have a complicated history.  Let’s talk a little bit about Kirtland.  A really interesting thing to me was Mormons, it sounds like, tried to walk this really thin line where they were against slavery but they were also against the Abolitionist movement. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that.

Paul:  Sure.  It’s really important to have maybe a more nuanced understanding of what it meant to be an abolitionist in the 19^th century.  There are various degrees of being a member of an anti-slavery institution in the antebellum period.  The majority position is a Colonization Position.  In the minds of the white majority that were against slavery, slavery presented a two-fold problem.  It presented a problem because it violated the founding principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, and this sense that we shouldn’t enslave anyone.

It’s a problem because we have an unfree population.  But the second part of the problem is a racial problem. Just because they’re against slavery doesn’t mean that they are in favor of racial equality.  They’re simply against slavery and then once you free the slaves, what do you do with them?  You certainly don’t want them moving north and living amongst white people; once again the fear that they are going to engage in race mixing.  So the majority position favors actually sending the free black population to Africa.  It’s called the Colonization Position.

[In] 1830, you have a radical new group of immediate abolitionists who start to argue—William Roy Garrison is leading this group.  He founds the Liberator, a newspaper where he starts to argue for immediate abolitionism and full racial equality.  This will touch off anti-abolitionist riots across the north because the white majority, once again, doesn’t want black people living amongst them.  They may be against slavery but they are not in favor of full racial equality.

That’s the difficult racial waters that Mormonism finds itself immersed in.  When Mormons are labeled as abolitionists who are in favor of amalgamation—amalgamation is the pre-Civil War term for race mixing, then Joseph Smith finds it politically expedient to speak out against the immediate abolitionists and amalgamation, race mixing.  He does so in 1836 in this very charged racial context where Mormons have already been expelled from Jackson County because of the fear that they are inciting a slave rebellion and in favor of race mixing.  He speaks in 1836, he speaks out against the immediate abolitionists and against race mixing as well.  It’s important to immerse it within that broader context for it to make sense.

GT:  So I’m trying to see if we can come up with maybe a modern-day equivalent.  Abortion seems to be kind of a hot button issue.  You’ve got abortion bombers on the one side, and you’ve got pro-[choice] people on the other side: a woman should be able to have an abortion any time they want.  I do believe that the [Mormon] Church even today, once again is trying to walk a little bit of a middle line in the fact that, well, we’ll allow abortion in the case of a rape or to save the life of a mother.  Would you say that that’s kind of a similar thing as to what the church was trying to do in the 1830s and 40s?

Paul:  Yeah, that might work as an analogy.  I mean if you go with the church’s position on abortion in the 21^st century, abortion has to be legal for its position to be valid, right?  They simply would like to restrict it to rape, incest, or the health of the mother, but nonetheless it would have to be legal for that to happen, right?  So marking out more of a middle ground, probably more to the right of the middle ground, but more of a middle ground amongst those polarizing positions other people have staked out.

I think Joseph Smith is attempting to do so in 1836.  The interesting thing is that almost every protestant denomination in the 19^th century also speaks out against the radical abolitionists and against amalgamation.  So they’re all speaking out:  Presbyterians, Methodists, even the Quakers denounce radical abolitionists.  Quakers are in favor of gradual emancipation.  They’re against slavery, but what’s the process for doing it?  They are also fearful of the immediate abolitionists and the anti-abolitionist backlash and they also come out against the immediate abolitionism.  It situates Joseph Smith I think within a bigger context where religious leaders are fearful of the immediate abolitionist movement, and Joseph Smith is right on with the rest of those religious groups.

Joseph Smith actually stakes out a really open perspective in terms of who’s allowed within Mormonism and to become a preacher within Mormonism.  You have the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists will either split or experience schisms over those questions.  Mormonism actually allows white slaveholders and black slaves to be baptized and into their religious kingdom, abolitionists, and anti-abolitionists.  They are casting a wide net in terms of who they are accepting within the bounds of Mormonism.  Those questions are causing schisms or splits within Methodism, Presbyterians, and Baptists.

GT:  Since you mentioned the splits, especially with Methodism, I served a mission in South Carolina so I was very familiar with the A.M.E. Churches.  A.M.E. stands for African Methodist Episcopal.  (I always thought, how did Methodist and Episcopal get together?)  Is that a result of these schisms you’re talking about where the black Methodists went to the A.M.E. Churches, and the whites stayed as regular Methodists?

Paul:  I wish I was more up to speed on all the various different groups.  I don’t think that AME is actually a result of this split.  The Southern Methodists are a result of this split.  There’s a split between Southern and Northern Methodists, Southern Baptists are a result of this split, and then there’s a schism within the Presbyterians.

GT:  Southern Methodists are white, and Southern Baptists are white, and how does that…?

Paul:  No it’s just a question of, will you allow slaveholders as preachers or as missionaries in your ordination?  Southern Baptists, for example, were arguing of course we will.  Northern Baptists were saying No.  They should be forbidden.

GT:  This wasn’t a racial division so much as just what’s your position?

Paul:  Right.  What’s your position on the questions of the day, vis a vis, slavery?  Who are you going to allow to be a missionary or a preacher?  Can a slaveholder become a preacher in your group?  Southerners said yeah, of course they should be allowed to.  Northerners rejected that and it caused a split of Southern Baptists.

GT:  So it was a split among whites, not a white versus a black?

Paul:  Correct, correct, based on questions about slavery, and racial issues.  Segregation within these churches was par for the course.  If you’re going to allow slaves, they’re going to have segregated worship.  More often than not, that’s what would lead to them forming their own congregations, so the A.M.E. for their own worship purposes because they’re not allowed full equality, a lot of times within the mainstream churches.

So Mormonism avoids that split altogether simply by casting a wide net and allowing black slaves, white slave masters, free blacks, former slaves, abolitionists, anti-abolitionists.  These are the political positions of the day that at least initially were independent of their Mormonism.  But eventually, those questions will also have to be resolved within the fold and that takes place in 1852 in Utah Territory.

 

 

What were Joseph Smith’s views on Muslims, Chinese, and Indians?

GT:  Let’s talk a little bit about Nauvoo.  I know there was a letter written in 1840s where I believe it was the city council, though correct me if I’m wrong, that welcomed the Mohammedans, or what we would today call Muslims.  As you talked about that, it seems that Mormons were very accepting of all people, blacks, whites, slave owners, non-slave owners.  That was another reason why the rest of white America didn’t like Mormons. Talk about how accepting Mormons were, especially of Muslims, blacks, and even Indians and Chinese.

Paul:  Right.  Yeah so that was one of the things that caused the Mormons problems especially in the first 20 years or so of Mormonism.  They were branded as being too accepting of people that the rest of white America knew should be segregated or even enslaved.  Accusations leveled against them in the 1830s up through the 1840s, they had opened up an asylum for rogues, vagabonds, and free blacks.  Missionaries preaching in the south were accused of conspiring with Indians and walking out with colored women.  In Missouri they were charged with actually promoting black ascendancy over whites, that they would elevate blacks above whites.  That’s how open they were.

There’s actually a British officer, Edward Strutt Abdy, who’s on tour of the United States in the 1830s from Britain.  He’s here to study American institutions and he returns back to Britain and he writes a three volume book about his journey in America and in this three volume book he actually says, he comes across a copy of the Book of Mormon, produced by this new religious sect in America and he reads it.  He actually points out verses in 2 Nephi 26 where it says ‘all are alike unto God, black and white.’  He said Mormons have this radical vision of racial equality, and it’s going to get them in trouble, especially in the state of Missouri.  That’s how radical their vision is.  He points to the Book of Mormon as evidence of this and says, they’re not going to last long because of their open racial vision.

So those are the accusations leveled against them by outsiders.  That’s one of the things I tried to do in the book [Religion of a Different Color] was, a lot of times the Mormon racial story has been told only from the inside perspective and I was interested in, well, what are outsiders saying about who Mormon are and how they behave racially.  It was really fascinating to then come across these accusations being leveled against the Mormons that they are too open, too inviting of all people.

Like you mentioned in Nauvoo when they write their vision of religious equality, they simply say everyone’s welcome to worship in Nauvoo.  We don’t discriminate.  There’s no religious discrimination and there’s a whole long list of Christian denominations that are welcome in Nauvoo.  The only non-Christian group mentioned were Muslims, and they simply say yeah we welcome Muslims here as well.  So Joseph Smith was branded as an American Mohammad very early on in his religious career yet he is open and accepting of into his religious community in Nauvoo and simply says religious freedom should be for everyone.  An attack against religious liberty against one group is an attack against all groups, so we should be at the forefront defending religious freedom and religious liberty.

GT:  That’s cool.  In your book I think you spent a chapter both on Native Americans as well as on Chinese. Can you tell us the comments from outsiders that had problems with those two groups?

Paul:  Sure.  Obviously Mormons have a bit of a theological, distinct understanding of who Native Americans are, fallen descendants of ancient Israel.  Mormonism is founded in 1830, the same year that the United States passes the Indian Removal Act which simply stipulates that Native Americans east of the Mississippi are to be rounded up and removed to Indian Country designated west of the Mississippi.  That’s supposed to solve the Indian problem, simply round them up, get them out of the way of white settlements and let whites simply fill in the land where the Native Americans had been living.

So that’s what’s going on in the U.S., and then Mormonism comes along and says well we have a new book of scripture and it purports to be a history of this group of people.  They actually have a divine destiny, and this does not set well with a lot of the American population.  Mormons will be accused of conspiring with Indians against true, white Americans, with intermarriage amongst them which they in fact do engage in.  They have no problem intermarrying amongst the Indians.  By the time they arrive in Utah Territory, or the Great Basin, Brigham Young will actually encourage missionaries amongst Native Americans to take Native American wives.  But the earliest interracial marriage that historians are aware of is actually a Native American man and a white woman in Nauvoo, sealed together in Nauvoo.

So [Mormons were] very open in attitude and see a divine destiny of Native Americans and actually believe that Native Americans are going to convert en masse to Mormonism and join with Mormons in ushering in the Millennium.  Now really naïve in their vision of this kind of way that they perceive Native Americans to embrace their message because it never happens the way that they had hoped.  But nonetheless they do have this vision of uniting with Native Americans and strength in these sort of marginalized groups coming together.

But in the minds of outsiders, that’s just evidence that Mormons are attempting to conspire with Native Americans to wipe out the rest of white America.  So there are all kinds of really heightened rumors that circulate.  Mormons have thousands of Indians at their behest.  The Indians are just waiting for the signal from their Mormon overlords to go on the warpath and wipe out the rest of us.

The way that it plays out, Mormons are just sometimes branded as more savage than the savages.  They’re described sometimes as white Indians, white people who  have actually given themselves over to savagery, and because you have denied your racial identity, you actually sink to a level of depravity worse than the Native Americans was the argument, and so Mormons become worse than the Indians whom they go to live amongst, some of the accusations leveled against them.

GT:  You had a chapter I know on the Chinese.  I guess the Chinese helped build the railroad and at first it seems like Mormons embraced the Chinese, and then I believe it was the 1880s or so they said, well we want to become more white so we’ll push the Chinese away.  I wonder if you could talk about that.

Paul:  Mormons are also conflated with Asians, Muslims, Turks, Chinese.  The fear was that Mormons represented a second Oriental problem on American soil.  Some actually argue that Mormons will combine with the Chinese immigrants and you have them mixing together and have them creating this, once again, Oriental problem that shines in the face of democracy.  Democracy is for the white race, the yellow horde is incapable of democracy.  Mormons are a version of Orientalism because they’re practicing polygamy, they’re giving their free will over to despots.  In all of those ways the argument was that they are more like the Chinese than they are like white Americans, like Anglo-Saxons.  Therefore they are suspect.

The same Congress that passes the Chinese Exclusion Act also passes the Edmunds Act and newspapers across the nation argue that America has now solved both Oriental problems.  Some of them say, well Chinese should be allowed to stay but the Mormons are the ones that should go, so they are conflated in editorials across the nation with the Chinese problem.  There’s the Mormon problem, and there’s a Chinese problem, and we’re trying to solve both Oriental problems at once.

GT:  Ok, some people might not be familiar with the Edmunds Act.  What was the Edmunds Act?

Paul: The Edmunds Act was a piece of legislation passed in 1882, like I said, the same Congress that passes the Chinese Exclusion Act.  They are debating these within a few weeks of each other, which defines a new crime, unlawful cohabitation.  The problem up to this point legally, at least in the minds of Congress was that they had outlawed polygamy in 1862, but were not very successful in actually convicting anyone because it’s very difficult to prove that a plural marriage has taken place.  Mormons aren’t leaving paperwork hanging around and so how do you actually prove that there’s been a plural marriage that has happened?

Congress in 1882 simply defines a new crime, unlawful cohabitation.  No longer then do you then have to prove that a marriage has taken place, you just simply have to prove that a man has unlawfully cohabited with more than one woman.  That will lead to the conviction of over 1,000 men and some women and really ratchets up the pressure on the Mormons.  So that law passed really quickly in conjunction with the Chinese Exclusion Act, which leads to the conflations of both Oriental problems.

GT:  So cohabitation is just a euphemism for sex, right?

Paul:  Yeah, or you didn’t even have to prove that sex had happened.  I mean if a man spends the night with one wife, so the marshals might hang outside of wife #1’s house, and then the next night or another time with another wife, that’s cohabiting.  They didn’t have to see sexual relations happening.  They just simply have to prove that they’re cohabiting.

The Mormon response to this is, well are the marshals following our good senators and congressmen around and finding out, following who they’re cohabiting with?  Is this being applied equally?  Obviously the answer is no. It’s being applied exclusively towards the Mormons, but nonetheless that opens up for the prosecution and conviction of Mormons under the unlawful cohabitation.

GT: Huh.  That’s interesting.  So adultery was just fine as long as you were not Mormon.

Paul chuckles:  Right, right.  Yes.

So in terms of Mormon attitudes towards Asians, that was a part of your question.  Very early on, Brigham Young sends missionaries to China and there’s just simply a desire to convert them.  There’s no kind of racial restriction, they’re also welcomed in.  The problem is they just don’t have much success, very little success in the mission to China runs into the Taiping Rebellion so there’s political turmoil going on and the missionaries themselves complain.  There’s the language barrier.  There’s no one wants to listen to them.  They return rather quickly.

There are some converts in Hawaii, also some proselyting efforts amongst Chinese immigrants in California.  By the 1880s when you have actual Chinese presence in Utah, Mormons don’t really make an effort to missionize amongst them when they’re right here.  I think by that point, they’re fully aware of the way that they’ve been conflated with the Chinese and I think there’s more than an effort for claiming whiteness for themselves.  Sometimes that means distancing themselves from the other suspect groups to make the distinction because outsiders are making the conflation so Mormons attempt to create distance.

 

 

The Black Mormon Scandals

GT:  In some research that I’ve done on Warner McCary, as I understand it, Warner was, well he claimed to be part Indian, but most people, I believe thought he was black.  He actually married the stake president’s daughter {pauses}…

Paul:  Lucy Stanton

GT:  Lucy Stanton, and I believe it was Orson {pauses}…

Paul:  I think it was Orson Hyde.

GT:  Yes, Orson Hyde married them, as an apostle, so Warner McCary’s interesting because he claimed to be, I believe it was Choctaw Indian and he was known as the Lamanite prophet.  On the one hand he had blessed Israelite heritage, or at least it was believed—that wasn’t true, but on the other hand, a lot of people thought he was black, so you’ve talked a little bit about amalgamation and how interracial marriage wasn’t a problem.  Warner was a really interesting person.  Are you very familiar with that story?

Paul:  Yeah I am.  You want me to kind of talk about it?

GT:  Sure.

Paul:  I’m not completely convinced that Warner is ordained to the priesthood and I know some people have suggested that he is.  The only evidence is coming from well outside of anyone who would have been close to what happened.  the suggestion is, I think it is Orson Hyde who performs the marriage.  I’ve never been able to verify that marriage taking place at the hands of Orson Hyde, being sealed, or being ordained to the priesthood.

So for me there is still a bit of a question mark there, but regardless, they present themselves as a married couple.  They’re in Winter Quarters, [Nebraska] and McCary complains to Brigham Young that he’s not being treated well because of his racial identity, so this prompts the meeting between McCary and Lucy Stanton, Brigham Young, and every present member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles.  There are a couple of members who aren’t there, but everyone who is at Winter Quarters, and a member of the Quorum of Twelve are in that meeting.

This is really an unprecedented kind of event and the minutes of the meeting really kind of describe McCary in very rambling statements, trying to ferret out his racial identity.  He presents himself as a Native American, but like you said, the accusation amongst Mormons in Winter Quarters is that he’s black.  In fact as best as historians can tell, he’s black.  He’s a former slave, and has this long interview.  He also says that he’s Adam, the Ancient of Days and he’s missing a rib, and so Willard Richards in this meeting kind of examines his body, looks for the missing rib and reports that there’s no rib missing.  Everything seems to be in place. Brigham Young comes out as McCary is complaining, he says I’m not being treated well because of my racial identity.  Some people call me the N-word.  What does it matter if I’m Native American or African American or Adam the Ancient of Days?  I should be treated well.

Brigham Young really tries to calm him and simply says, we don’t care about the color, and he actually refers to Q. Walker Lewis who is another black priesthood holder in Lowell, Massachusetts.  He cites him as evidence that Mormons don’t care about the color.  We have a fine elder, an African in Lowell, Massachusetts he says to McCary in that interview, citing him as evidence that Mormons don’t discriminate in terms of priesthood ordination.  Brigham Young goes on record in March 1847 as favorably aware of a black priesthood holder.  That’s why I think that meeting is so important.

But Brigham Young will leave Winter Quarters.  They seem to resolve.  McCary leaves the meeting feeling fine about things, but Brigham Young then leads a group into the Great Basin.  McCary stays behind in Winter Quarters and actually starts a schismatic group of his own.  He’s attracting followers and performing sealings to white women in a sexualized ritual that comes to the attention of Parley Pratt who is at Winter Quarters.  Pratt will speak out against McCary.  Eventually McCary and his followers will be excommunicated.  McCary and Lucy Stanton will leave Mormonism and actually reinvent themselves as Native American performers and they perform in all kinds population centers on the East.  He describes himself as a Native American prophet and her as his Native American wife even though she’s white.

GT:  “A Delaware Princess.”

Paul agrees:  A Delaware Princess, to large audiences.  They can never fully escape their racial background.  They eventually split.  Lucy Stanton will eventually make her way back to Utah Territory, Springville, and reunite with her family but after like 20 years.  It’s a pretty amazing story.

Brigham Young will return from Great Basin in 1847 and he is met with news of McCary’s exploits and race mixing and also news that Enoch Lewis in the Lowell, Massachusetts branch, who is Q. Walker Lewis’s son.  Enoch Lewis, black married Mary Webster, a white member of the Lowell, Massachusetts branch, and William Appleby, who had been appointed to survey the condition of the branches on the east coast, arrives in Winter Quarters and gives his report to Brigham Young.

Did you know that we have an interracial couple in our branch in Lowell, Massachusetts?  Appleby is clearly against race mixing.  In his personal diary, he speaks out strongly against it. He records meeting them and said I can’t believe that they are members of my church and that we allow this in Mormonism.  So he meets with Brigham Young December 3, 1847 and gives his report.  There are only 13 lines of that meeting that are recorded and they all center on race mixing. Brigham Young speaks strongly against race mixing, actually advocates capital punishment as the penalty, but he doesn’t ever mention priesthood at least in the surviving minutes.  The meeting goes on like 4 hours and we’ve got 13 lines.  It’s really hard to know the full extent of the conversation but what gets recorded seems to center on Brigham Young, ok I’ve had enough.  We’ve got McCary who was performing sexualized sealing rituals to white women and then he’s met with news of this interracial marriage in Lowell, Massachusetts.  He speaks out strongly against it.  I think that pushes him in a different direction.

GT:  Ok, I guess there’s one other important event that I just want to highlight.  Are you familiar with Joseph Ball and what happened in Massachusetts as well?

Paul:  Yeah so I’m also kind of suspicious of Joseph Ball’s racial identity.  I’ve not seen any documents that describe him as black, so I’d like to do some more research on him to try to ferret that out.  I’m not quite sure what to make of Joseph Ball yet.

GT: Oh, that’s very interesting.

Paul:  Yeah.  I know that other people have written about Joseph Ball as the first black High Priest and leader in Massachusetts and I’m just kind of waiting to get a chance to try to research that a little bit more and figure out what’s going on because it’s just odd to me that those who are visiting aren’t describing him as black.

GT: Oh really!

Paul: Yeah.

GT:  So I guess it’s my understanding that he was the first black High Priest and served as branch president there, and I believe it was in Q. Walker Lewis’s same branch.  Is that right?

Paul:  Yeah it was Boston so I’m not sure if it’s the same branch or not.  It may have been.  I’d have to check that out to make sure.

GT: That’s my understanding.  There was some issues with the branch there with William Smith.  Are you familiar with that story?

Paul:  Well just maybe the basics.  William Smith, who was an apostle, is going to Lowell, Massachusetts and engaging in extramarital sexual exploits.  So there’s some question about his behavior there and how that kind of impacts his increasingly erratic behavior and his eventual split from Mormonism.

GT:  Alright, so let’s go back.  We’ve got Warner McCary doing some sexualized sealing rituals with white women, we’ve got Enoch Lewis with his mixed race child.  I’ve kind of wondered, it seems like this is about the time where Brigham who, in 1846 is impressed with Walker Lewis back in Boston and then in 1852 as he’s explaining about slavery, which I want to talk a little bit about slavery being legalized in Utah, that’s where he talks about one drop as I recall.  Am I telling that right?

Paul: Well if you go with Wilford Woodruff’s very truncated attempt at capturing Brigham Young’s speech in his journal, then Woodruff will insert the language of one drop into Brigham Young’s speech but if you go with George Watt, who captures the speech in Pitman shorthand, George Watt does not have Brigham Young using the one drop language.

GT surprised:  Oh!  That’s an important distinction.

Paul:  Yeah.

GT:  I know you’ve warned me about that before and I keep having a problem with that.

Paul chuckles:  Yeah.  So for the book [Religion of a Different Color] I was able to get back to the Pitman shorthand version of Brigham Young’s speeches for the legislative session, and I believe that we shouldn’t rely upon Woodruff’s very shortened, truncated version.  I mean imagine kind of capturing our conversation, trying to capture it in longhand versus a court stenographer trying to capture it. Pitman shorthand isn’t as precise as a court stenographer but nonetheless more precise than trying to capture it in longhand and Woodruff captures around 800 words, and Watt captures something like 2400 words, so three times as many, and I think much more precise in capturing what Brigham Young is saying, and Watt does not include the language of one drop, and so in the documentary history we will be producing, we try to make the case that scholars should rely upon the Watt version over the Woodruff version.

GT:  I can’t tell you how excited I am to see that book.

 

 

 

Becoming a Fanboy of Orson Pratt

GT:  I want to jump back to 1840s, 1850s time period.  You gave a presentation at Mormon History Association a year or two ago, I don’t remember when.  I think it was with LaJean Carruth and…

Paul:  Christopher Rich.

GT:  Christopher Rich.  That was a fascinating presentation and I have to tell you that following that presentation, I became a fanboy of Orson Pratt.

Paul chuckles:  Uh huh.

GT:  I think this is one of the not well-told stories of his opposition to Brigham Young concerning slavery and even black voting which I think would blow most people’s minds.  Let’s talk a little bit more about slavery in Utah.  You’ve got this debate in 1851 I believe in the Utah legislature about whether we should allow slavery in Utah.  I believe Charles Rich, one of the apostles in Utah had some slaves, so obviously there were some apostles who wanted to do slavery, but you have Orson Pratt who, it didn’t seem like he was in favor of that.  Can you talk a little bit about that debate and how it turned out?

Paul:  Sure.  Orson Pratt gives a speech in opposition to what comes to be called the Servant Code that’s being debated by the legislature in 1852.  What laws will govern the black slaves who have been brought to Utah Territory by their white slave masters?  That’s what they’re trying to determine in the [18]52 legislative session.

In doing research for the book, I came across these speeches that had never been transcribed from Pitman shorthand and so haven’t been a part of historical record as historians have written about these events in the past and the LDS Church History Library was kind enough to have LaJean Carruth transcribe them and allow me to use them in research for the book.

Orson Pratt gives a speech where he simply speaks out very strongly against the bill the legislature is debating.  He speaks out strongly against slavery.  He says if the Utah Territory legalizes slavery it will put a black mark on the territory.  A variety of countries were emancipating their slaves, outlawing slavery.  The British Empire had already done so, obviously the U.S. had not, but Pratt said this will harm our missionary efforts when we go abroad if people become aware that as countries are getting rid of slavery, we’re legalizing it.  He says we should reject the bill outright and says that if Utah Territory does this the angels of heaven will blush.  He’s very strong in his notion of why this is wrong.

He argues that curses are not multi-generational, so God may very well curse a people but it’s only that people.  It doesn’t pass down from generation to generation, so he’s rejecting the notion of a multigenerational curse might impact if black people truly are the descendants of Cain, that doesn’t matter to Orson Pratt because curses are not multigenerational.  It would only apply to the generation that God cursed, not to however many generations later, so it’s a very singular kind of position he stakes out in Mormonism and ultimately he doesn’t win the day but he is speaking out against Brigham Young and they are butting heads in that legislative session.

I think they butt heads again over the election bill, so the election bill is also being debated that legislative session.  We know that Orson Pratt speaks February 4^th because the evidence within one of Brigham Young’s speeches tells us that he does but unfortunately that speech is not recorded.  We’d love to know what Orson Pratt says on February 4^th because Brigham Young will say on February 4^th, no one got up to speak until Pratt got up to speak and he only got up to speak to stick his thumb me.  So we know that Pratt spoke on February 4^th and we know that he was aiming at Brigham Young because Brigham Young tells us that that’s the case.  Then Brigham Young, and they’re debating the election bill.  Who’s going to be able to vote in the Utah Territory?

GT:  Let me just interrupt you for a second.  So Brigham Young at the time was serving as governor in Utah.  What was Pratt’s position?

Paul:  So Brigham Young is serving as prophet as well as governor, and Pratt is serving as apostle as well as legislator.  So you have these obviously mixed roles taking place and they’re butting heads.  They’ve butted heads before, they’ll butt heads again, but they’re diametrically opposed in this legislative session.

Brigham Young will give a speech the morning of 5^th of February and it’s his most fully articulated race-based priesthood restriction but it also is really helpful to know that he’s arguing about the election bill because within that race-based priesthood restriction, he’s simply saying blacks will not rule over me in Utah Territory, so we’re not going to give them the right to vote and they will not rule over me in this church.  We’re not going to give them the priesthood, so those are the positions that he’s staking out and I really believe that he is speaking in opposition to Orson Pratt’s speech February 4^th, the day before.  We don’t have the speech, but when Brigham Young says in his 5^th of February speech, if no other prophet said it before now, I say it.  Black people are the descendants of old Cain and are barred from the priesthood.  He actually says he’s striking out on his own that if no other prophet said it before, I’m saying it now.  So I am starting a new trajectory.  I’m distinguishing myself and when I hear him say that I imagine Orson Pratt the day before saying, no other prophet said this before, and this is Brigham Young’s response: Well if no one ever said it before, I’m saying it now! That’s the context.

Obviously I can’t prove it because we don’t have Pratt’s speech but I imagine that Brigham Young is obviously speaking to Pratt, and we know that in the context of the speech that he did in fact he is.  We know that Pratt spoke the day before and they are in a heated debate, so how does Pratt push back?  The minutes of the legislature tell us that that afternoon of February 5^th, after Brigham Young has given this very strong speech, there are two bills that are introduced that are just innocuous bills, like who cares?  It’s the Cedar City and Fillmore municipal bills where they’re just approving them as legal municipal entities, but within the bills are the voting rights for Fillmore and Cedar City.  Who gets to vote in Fillmore and Cedar City?  They stipulate that white men over 21 get to vote, and that’s par for the course for the nation in 1852.

Pratt votes against both of those bills and the minutes tell us that he does so because they don’t allow black men to vote and I believe that’s his effort at again, pushing back against Brigham Young, so Brigham Young got to have his say in the morning and this is Pratt’s way of responding.  I’m going to vote against these two municipal bills to make my point that I believe black men should be allowed to vote in Utah Territory.

GT:  To me that is absolutely astonishing because this is the year 1852.  This is pre-Civil War.

Paul:  That’s right.

GT:  I mean how did Pratt fit in with the rest of America as far as a black man should be allowed to vote because I can’t imagine that’s a popular position?

Paul:  It’s really not.  I mean there are a few people who are arguing for this, you know radical abolitionists but like I said this is just a radical minority.  To stake out that kind of position, you would be branded as a radical minority, marginalized from the mainstream.  It really is kind of a distinct position and for him to be making it in Utah Territory really is quite unique for 1852.  Not many are advocating for black suffrage in 1852.

GT:  I mean when were blacks allowed to vote?

Paul:  Well remember you have the 15^th Amendment which is passed following the Civil War and I don’t remember.  [chuckles]  That’s going to make me look bad.  I don’t remember what year that’s actually ratified, but it’s one of the three amendments that come out of the Civil War, the 13^th Amendment eradicates slavery, 14^th Amendment Civil Rights, and then the 15^th Amendment is black suffrage.

GT:  So 1860s, 1870s?

Paul:  Yeah.  Exactly.

GT:  That’s good enough.  But even still blacks still have the problem with voting because we still have the 1962 Voting Rights Act.

Paul:  Right.

GT:  Can you just fill me in there?  What was going on in that 80 years or whatever?

Paul:  Sure, so Reconstruction.  How do you put the nation back together sort of dominates American politics after the Civil War and you have radical Republicans in Congress who are in favor of black suffrage and that is finally passed with the 15^th Amendment and there is a period of time where blacks enjoy that right to vote and you have the first black senator is elected to the United States Senate during that Reconstruction period.

But then there’s going to be the backlash in the South, the reassertion of white supremacy and the KKK becomes really the paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party, and if you vote the Republican ticket you’re subject to intimidation by the KKK, you’re subject to violence and subject to death, especially black people.  So in essence the KKK and then black codes that start to be written, poll taxes, a variety of ways, literacy tests start to be incorporated in the South, strip that right away from blacks in the South.

You have Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896, black codes being written across the South.  Obviously federal troops are all withdrawn from the South in 1877 so as historians we see that as the end of the Reconstruction Era and when the troops are gone, you have no one left to enforce the laws that have been passed, so southern whites just simply regain white supremacy, regain control, segregate blacks in every way possible, strip rights that were granted to them as a result of the 14^th and 15^th Amendments, strip them from them and you have the Supreme Court that puts its stamp of approval on that in Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896 and so racial segregation then takes over and therefore you need the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and ‘60s and the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s as a result.

GT:  Wow.  That’s great.  So going back to Orson Pratt like I said there, I am just so amazed that in 1852 he is making such an amazing thing.  From what I understand, this speech has not been known until a year or two ago, is that correct?

Paul:  That’s correct.

GT:  At least among historians.

Paul:  That’s right, that’s right because George Watt never did transcribe it himself so it stayed in his papers only in Pitman shorthand form and there are a few people left on the planet that can read Pitman shorthand and one of them works for the LDS Church History Library, LaJean Carruth and she’s been going through a lot of these Pitman speeches and transcribing them but it takes a long time, and it was only when I made a request for my book to see if there was a Pitman shorthand version of Brigham Young’s speech, because I wanted to get as close to his original words as possible that it led to the discovery of these other speeches from the legislative session.

GT:  Wow.  So do you wish Orson Pratt was more well known among modern Mormons?

Paul:  Well of course for that speech especially.  I mean obviously there may be some things Orson Pratt did and said that might cause us pau