Racism in the Mormon war in Missouri

Originally published in 2014 at StandardBlogs

The Mormons’ deadly conflicts with Missouri residents during the 1830s have been covered well by historians. It led to the expulsion of Latter-day Saints from the state. There were faults on both sides, although via sheer numbers and influence, it was a battle the young Mormon church would lose.

The violence is posited — in part truthfully — as the result of native Missourians worried about the mostly emigrant Mormons achieving political power as “abolitionists.” Mormons say it was due to “religious intolerance,” others cite growing political power, arrogance and secretiveness from the Mormon emigrants that worried longtime residents. (This perception was not helped by some incautious meanderings on the state of free blacks by Mormon W.W. Phelps in a church publication.) I think more insight on “the Mormon War in Missouri” has been offered in a fascinating article in the Winter 2014 issue of The Journal of Mormon History. It’s titled “Some Savage Tribe”: Race, Legal Violence and the Mormon War of 1838.”

The author, Brooklyn, N.Y., lawyer T. Ward Frampton, argues convincingly that racism has been overlooked as a major reason for the violence, particularly such savage incidents as the Haun’s Mill Massacre, in which a Mormon boy and elderly Mormon were murdered after the initial shootings. In all, 18 were murdered by the mob of 250.

But getting back to Frampton’s article: He writes that there were three elements of racism exercised by the Missouri opponents of the Mormons. The first is one that other historians have agreed; that the Mormons, being Eastern immigrants, would be favorable toward abolition. These fears, Frampton argues, easily escalated into racist fears that the presence of Mormons would lead to a slave revolt as well as conflict with American Indians, with Mormons as confederates! As Frampton notes, in 1839, prior to the infamous extermination order that was issued, Missouri Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs received letters claiming ‘”there is a deeply laid scheme existing among these fanatics’ to unite with ‘immense numbers of Indians of various tribes … & work the general destruction of all that are not Mormons.” Boggs also received reports that Mormons were actively working with Indians to attack white non-Mormons.

With the Mormons established by Missouri opponents as allies of races the settlers despised, there was a second pernicious type of racism inflicted on the Mormons. As Frampton explains, the Mormons themselves, despite their white, eastern U.S. background, became regarded as “non-white” by their hostile neighbors. (It merits noting, as Frampton does, that the Mormons’ boasting that they were a chosen people, placed by God in Missouri, did not help assuage racist passions during the conflict.)

But, as Frampton shows, there are too many incidents in which Missourians used a racial context in trying to deny Mormons the vote. As the author writes, describing a violent incident in 1838, he quotes early Mormon leader Sidney Rigdon, who stated that Missourian Richard “(Weldon) swore that the Mormons were no more fit to vote than the d–d niggers” (sic). As Frampton adds, “as early as 1833, … the old settlers of Jackson County made clear their intentions to drive the new immigrants from the county, they took pains to cast the Mormons as akin to blacks.” (Frampton notes that the doctrine of Mormons being members of the tribe of Ephraim, and of “Israelite lineage,” as opposed to their depictions of non-Mormons as “gentiles” contributed to the strife that led to racial attacks on the new church’s members.”)

The third element of racism against the Mormons in Missouri is the most violent. As Frampton explains, it involved anti-Mormon Missouri militiamen painting their faces red or black before attacking Mormon settlements. Frampton writes, “these accounts consistently depict the painted Missourians as acting with a special depravity, suggesting that one function of such racial performativity was to open up a broader range of ‘acceptable’ conduct during the brutal conflict.” As Frampton adds, in that era of conflict, “whiteness (in contradistinction to the savagery of blacks and Indians) implied some minimal degree of restraint.” As a result, as one mob violence witness attested, ‘”With their faces painted in horrid Indian Style,’ the mobs suddenly became capable of committing unspeakable acts of violence,’” writes Frampton.

The Haun’s Mill Massacre (spelled Hawn’s in Frampton’s article) provides evidence for this specific racism, in which Missourians dehumanized themselves to kill Mormons who they considered worthy of the same contempt for living as they held for  as Indians and blacks. The murder of Sardius Smith, 10, demonstrates the racism involved. As Frampton notes, witnesses to the murder testified that the boy “Smith was hiding among the bodies of recently slain Mormons when he was discovered by a Missourian. The militiaman placed the muzzle of his gun to the boy’s head, declared ‘Nits will make lice,” and proceeded to blow off the upper part of Smith’s skull.”

The term “Nits will make lice” is extremely significant. As Frampton explains, it was a “phrase generally reserved for the killing of Indian children.” The militia/mob that attacked the Haun’s Mill settlement, with painted faces, were attacking individuals who they had dehumanized into the same racial prejudice that they assigned Indians. Frampton adds: “A late-nineteenth century Church history based largely on personal accounts, for example, commented that ‘it was openly avowed by the men of Missouri that it was no worse to shoot a Mormon than to shoot an Indian. …‘”

The murder of the Mormon child Sardius Smith, and other militia/mob depravities, support that claim.

Elements of racism cast the Mormon settlers as equal to blacks and Indians in the eyes of their Missouri neighbors. That sentiment eventually extended as far as the governor’s mansion, and to the many militias that overwhelmed the Missouri Mormons, forcing their expulsion from the state. (Photo above of Hauns Mill Massacre is credited to BYU).

-- Doug Gibson

The Spaulding Manuscript as Jeffersonian idealism, and not a Book of Mormon template

Solomon  Spaulding’s “Manuscript Found,” an unpublished novel by the 18th and 19th century minister, is a topic of interest to anti-Mormons. In 1834, Eber Howe, author of “Mormonism Unvailed,” claimed that “The Book of Mormon” plagiarizes Spaulding’s novel. What’s left of the Spaulding manuscript was found in the late 19th century, and cannot support any claim that Spaulding wrote the Mormon scripture. Some still stick to the theory that a lost version of Spaulding’s “Manuscript Found” contains a “Book of Mormon” template.

In the Fall 2012 “Journal of Mormon History,” Adam Jortner, assistant professor of history at Auburn University, posits an alternative reason to value the Spaulding manuscript. (“Solomon Spaulding’s Indians, Or, What the ‘Manuscript Found’ Really Tells Us”) Rather than putting primary emphasis on its relationship to the Mormon scripture, it should be examined as part of a utopian, Jeffersonian vision of assimilating American Indians through moving them from hunting to farming.

Some background on Spaulding. (All information is attributed to Jortner’s article): He was born in 1761, graduated from Dartmouth, and became a minister. He was not a financial success. Late in his life, living in Ohio, Spaulding wrote “Manuscript Found,” which he hoped would make him wealthy. It did not; only one publishing house even had a copy, and that was likely ignored. However, his novel was popular among his neighbors in Ohio. Before dying in 1816, Spaulding often recited, and had friends recite, from his novel. He also apparently produced many drafts of the story, which is why some speculate the one surviving copy is not the finished product.

The novel’s plot involves Romans who are settling to the new world (America). Led by Fabius, the pre-Columbus group lands in America and encounters “the Deliwares” tribe of natives. The Deliwares are described as savages who engage in strange ceremonial dances. Nevertheless, there is little hostility between the settlers and the natives, and Fabius’ group buys land from the Deliwares.

It isn’t long before sex enters Spaulding’s tale. One settler suggests marriage with the Deliware women. The tale becomes infused with racial bigotry. As Jortner recounts, “Fabius and his commander allow this ‘experiment’ to go forward, thus establishing interracial sex as a kind of second-class intimacy, although with considerable reservations and the explicit object of literally ‘whitening’ the resulting children.”

Later in the novel, Fabius travels west and encounters the “Ohons” tribe. The Ohons become more advanced than the Deliware. They have lighter skin, practice farming and animal husbandry instead of primarily hunting, and live, as Spaulding wrote, with an (architecture) “founded upon the true principles of Reason.” The Ohon also have a form of religion traditional to the early 19th century that Spaulding lived in. Much of Spaulding’s novel contrasts the customs, family and religious practices of the Ohon and the Deliware, to the detriment of the Deliwares. Ironically, the Ohon dynasty begins its slow deterioration after an Ohon prince improperly marries a princess from an inferior tribe. The upheavel leads to a more dogmatic theology, that takes reason away from the Ohon culture and beliefs.

What makes Spaulding’s manuscript an example of Jeffersonian idealism is that at the time it was written, there was a theory that American Indians could be assimilated into a western lifestyle through the purchasing of farmland and the subsequent transfer of Indians from hunting to farming.

As Jortner writes, “Much more striking than any parallels to LDS scripture or teachings, however, is the resemblance between the “Manuscript Found” and the idealism of Jeffersonian republicanism. The Jeffersonian dream of assimilation and the fear of prophetic response both appear in “Manuscript Found:” A white man shows up, teaches the Ohons deistic ideas and monogamy , and watches them become civilized — and whiter in color. Jeffersonian assimilation is also the plan of the Romans regarding the Deliware: intermarry, raise the children as Christians, and, in the ugly racist language of the time, ‘wipe clean’ both their savagery and their dark skins.”

Frankly, as racist as that seems today, such a policy with Indians was considered, 200 years ago, a progressive alternative to the prevailing, equally offensive, theory that Indians were incapable of change and needed to be conquered by force.

As Jorner writes, “Manuscript Found” … echoes the events in the Ohio country after Spaulding’s arrival in 1809.” These events included efforts to recruit Indian chiefs to follow the Jeffersonian ideal of moving to farmland and becoming “civilized,” which was defined by following the culture and customs of the white, Christian settlers. Not surprisingly, this effort met with strong resistance from many Indian chiefs. It’s probable that Spaulding, while writing his novel, was influenced by conflict between rival Indian leaders who resisted the Jeffersonian idealism, and other chiefs less resistant to the efforts.

As Jortner writes, “Given the context of the time of its creation, it is difficult not to see in “Manuscript Found” an ideological Jeffersonian commentary on the events of the day mixed in with the romance, adventure, and faux-travel narratives of a nineteenth-century novel.” Spaulding, it seems, was an advocate of a Jeffersonian solution for the American Indians.

“Manuscript Found” disproves most of the claims by Mormon opponents, such as Howe. There are no trips from Jerusalem. No “Nephis” or “Lehis” in Spaulding’s work; only the thin claim that lost versions include these “facts.” A far better historical context for Spaulding’s sprawling novel is offered by Jortner in the JMH. As he writes, “… the ‘Manuscript Found’ dreamed a different kind of dream — a frontier narrative that eulogized a utopian vision of Jeffersonian Indians happily engaged in the civilizing process.”

A racist fantasy? Of course, but a common one during  Spaulding’s era. After 180 years of attempting to tie “Manuscript Found” to “The Book of Mormon,” it’s time to place Spaulding’s manuscript, which earned him fame instead of riches, into its proper context.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

Mormon folk tales regarding Cain, Bigfoot abound

As Abel's murderer, Cain was commanded to wander the earth in punishment, a tradition arose that this punishment was to be forever, in a similar manner to the (much later) legends of the Flying Dutchman or the Wandering Jew.

Here’s the best-known LDS folklore regarding Cain as a monstrous figure roaming the earth. In 1835, LDS apostle David Patten was riding a mule in Tennessee. “I met with a very remarkable personage who had represented himself as being Cain … I suddenly noticed a very strange personage walking beside me … for about two hours. … He wore no clothing but was covered with hair. His skin was very dark. … I rebuked him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by virtue of the Holy Priesthood, and commanded him to go hence and he immediately departed out of my sight.“

Patten was killed a few years later fighting anti-Mormons. This account is secondhand, from LDS apostle Abraham O. Smoot. Nevertheless, it is accepted Mormon lore, included in the late Prophet Spencer W. Kimball’s book, “The Miracle of Forgiveness.” That lends it credibility in LDS circles. I recall hearing it often on Sundays as a child. In fact, those outside the LDS Church don’t know that Cain plays a bigger, more malevolent role in the LDS scripture “Pearl of Great Price.”

I read a fascinating essay, “A Mormon Bigfoot: David Patten’s Cain and the Conception of Evil in Mormon Folklore,” by Matthew Bowman in the Signature Books’ anthology “Dimensions of Faith: A Mormon Studies Reader.” Patten’s account is not the only instance of Cain appearing in Mormon folklore. Another incident, as late as 1921, E. Wesley Smith, president of the Hawaii temple, told future church Prophet, apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, “A man came through the door. He was tall enough to have to stoop to enter. His eyes were very protruding and rather wild-looking, his fingernails were thick and long. He … wore no clothing … (I) commanded the person in the name of Jesus Christ to depart. … on being commanded to leave, he backed out the door.” Fielding Smith told Wesley Smith that it was Cain who visited him.

Also, in the 1920s, missionaries in Mexico encountered a large, dark, hairy creature who said he was Cain. Later in the 20th century, missionaries in Georgia were attacked by “a huge black negro,” who chased them away. They were told by their mission president it was Cain.

As Bowman writes, “It is true that the single most frequent use of the word Cain in the legends and folk doctrine has been in association with the concept of a “curse” of dark skin, a mark of spiritual inferiority, and until 1978 the inability to hold the priesthood.” This begs the question, are the accounts of Cain apparitions an extension of the priesthood-banning prejudice against black skin? Bowman includes a poem that Mormon poet Eliza Snow wrote in 1884: “As seen by David Patten, he was dark – When pointing at his face of glossy jet – Cain said, ‘You see the curse in on me yet’ – The first of murderers, now he fills his post – And reigns as king o’er all the murd’rous host.” In the 19th century, some Mormons believed that the skin of apostates darkened when they renounced the church.

As Bowman explains, a walking “Wandering Jew” type of Cain would seem natural to 19th century Mormons, who saw evil as tangible, walking the earth and combating the Saints. An example cited by Bowman is the discourses of early LDS leader, Heber Kimball, who described his battles in England with “legions of wicked spirits,” with accounts that rival scenes in modern films, such as “The Exorcist.” Kimball added that Joseph Smith told him of Sidney Rigdon being “pulled out of bed three times in one night” by Lucifer.

This yen for the supernatural has not left the culture of the LDS Church. Talk to a dozen long-time, temple-attending members and at least half, if not more, will confidentially, or publicly recount an instance of a spiritual vision or feeling — usually positive, but still occasionally a battle with evil. (I must confess that I am not immune from claiming a positive experience).

However, as Bowman notes, in the past generation-plus there has a move away from a dark Cain and the emergence of film footage of a creature called Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, who replaced the “huge black man” as Cain in many LDS circles. It’s reasonable to assume that the end of policy-driven LDS priesthood and membership prejudice against blacks have soured the previous concept of Cain among many Mormons.

As Bowman recounts, one of the first “Bigfoot” visions occurred in the Top of Utah in 1980, when a South Weber teen and her cousin both reported seeing a large black “creature” or “figure” in the fields. Huge prints were discovered in the snow. The story was pursued by the Standard-Examiner. At that time, Cain was not associated with the sightings, but within 10 years, South Weber residents “had begun associating these local sightings of Bigfoot with Cain.” A 1997 story tells of Boy Scouts in Utah who claimed they were chased by a big hairy man they called Cain who yelped in pain when he climbed through a lit chimney. Another, 1998 story, tells of an animal-like “Cain-beast” who chased two Mormon elders to a car.

Bowman writes that besides the disappearance of being dark or a negro, “Cain’s new activities of stalking barns and running through fields seems far less satanically malicious than Elder Patten’s Cain or the gigantic demon that stalked E. Wesley Smith. … Cain, rather than a supernatural fiend, is more the stock monster of a campfire tale. He is less a damned soul and more Bigfoot.”

As racism seeped out of the Latter-day Saints’ Cain legend, so did much of the malice. Indeed, the idea that Cain wanders the earth is a 19th century one. However, the appeal of adversaries who defy us on the earth has not departed from many Latter-day Saints so long as Bigfoot remains to personify Cain.

This column was previously published as a StandardNET blog.

Elijah Ables: Black Mormon priesthood holder in the 19th century

Elijah Ables is no stranger to Mormon history, although he’s virtually unknown. Ables was a black man who was ordained to the LDS priesthood in the 1830s, and remained a faithful Mormon for the next half-century. In the Spring 2013 Journal of Mormon History, there’s a very interesting account of his life and times by Russell W. Stevenson, who teaches at Salt Lake Community College. Stevenson later published the book, "Black Mormon: The Story of Elijah Ables." 

In "A Negro Preacher: The Worlds of Elijah Ables," Stevenson writes of the persistent loyalty of Ables to the Mormon Church despite repeated offenses derived from the widespread racism of that era. As Ables and the young church aged, the racism directed at the mixed-blood faithful Latter-day saint priesthood holder increased. Eventually, the elderly Ables was told that his ordination to the priesthood decades earlier by Joseph Smith was a mistake. Nevertheless, the priesthood was never taken from Ables, and he died in good standing, after falling ill while on a church mission.

Ables was baptized into the LDS Church in 1832 by Ezekiel Edwards near Cincinnati, Ohio. He was likely a free man at the time. He later received his washing and anointing ordinances from fellow member Zebedee Coltrin. Reflecting the racism that followed Ables’ unique status, Coltin later repudiated his act. Stevenson quotes him as saying “... while I had my hands upon his head, I never had such unpleasant feelings in my life.”

Still, by the end of 1836, Ables was listed as a member of the LDS Melchizedek Priesthood group, the Seventy. He received a patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith Sr. The timing of Ables’ involvement with the Mormons is interesting. It was near the time the young church was expelled from Missouri, largely due to concerns from the pro-slavery forces there that the church was anti-slavery. 

In fact, Joseph Smith followed a position that was consistent among many anti-slavery advocates of that era. He favored moving blacks from America to other areas where they were assured freedom. Two areas frequently mentioned as migration points were Liberia (in Africa) and Upper Canada (or the Ontario area). This relates to Ables’ life because he was soon called to be a missionary to Upper Canada. Ables was a natural choice for Smith. Living in the Ontario area at that time were an estimated 10,000 fugitives from slavery, writes Stevenson. He further supposes, likely correctly, that Smith wanted his black missionary to look at the possibility of setting up a black LDS congregation.

Whatever Ables’ ability to be a bridge between races for the Mormon Church, he faced a lifetime battle trying to maintain acceptance in a church with attitudes on race that were slowly hardening against blacks. This may have been due initially to the conflicts in Missouri. In 1839, LDS apostle Parley P. Pratt wrote, cites Stevenson, “that one dozen free negroes or mulattoes never have belonged to our society in any part of the world, from the first organization to this date.”

Obviously, Ables — and others — participation in the early LDS Church prove Pratt’s claims wrong. But the intemperate remarks underscore how difficult typical 19th century racism made it for early Mormon leaders to have the collective Gospel-oriented society they were preaching. Smith’s solution was to move blacks to their own collective societies. This was likely a key reason for Smith calling Ables to another mission, to Cincinnati, where there was a large population of free black workers.

As Stevenson notes in his article, Smith’s appointment of Ables shows he must have had great trust in the elder. The Concinnati branch of the church was unstable, and prone to apostasy. Outside the church there were race riots between free blacks and white settlers.  This area was to be Ables’ home for nearly a decade, long past Joseph Smith’s murder in 1844. During that time, Ables was a stabilizing force there, remaining a church member under Brigham Young but staying on good terms with members of divergent branches, including followers of Sidney Rigdon, James Strang, David Whitmer, William Smith and those who formed the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Eventually, Ables, his wife, and family decided to migrate to Utah. Unfortunately, as mentioned, racial attitudes hardened under Brigham Young’s leadership. As Stevenson notes, Young allegedly opined that the “curse of Cain” remained because Cain had once been a mighty captain in the pre-existence. After he killed Abel, Cain’s followers in the pre-existence still respected him enough to take the curse and come to the earth with black skin. This curse of dark skin, Young allegedly claimed, wuld last until all of Captain Abel’s spirits could come to the earth.

This kind of suppositions by Young led him to say in 1852, as Stevenson notes from Wilford Woodruff’s journal, “If a man has one drop of Cain in him (he) cannot receive the Priesthood.” (He further stated that if a Caucasian) “mingles his seed with the seed of Cane (sic) the ownly (sic) way he could get rid of it or have salvation would be to come forward & have his head cut off & spill his blood upon the ground.” (The penalty for interracial marriage “would also take the life of the children,” Woodruff records Young as saying.

Despite this rhetoric, appropriately regarded as horrendous, there is no evidence that Ables was physically harmed in Utah. He worked as a arpenter and hotel manager in Salt Lake City, and spent a few years in Ogden. His family performed minstrel shows for LDS wards in Utah, writes Stevenson.

His attempts to receive temple endowments for himself, his wife, and his children were rebuffed by Young. In 1853, Young framed his racism with an expectation that the “curse of Cain’ would be removed one day by the order of God, and, as Stevenson quotes him, ”all the races will redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have.“

After Young’s death, Ables, now a widower, again petitioned the new church president, John Taylor, for temple endowment privileges. Again he was denied. As Stevenson writes, ”Taylor and the Twelve decided that Joseph Smith had erred in ordaining Ables to the priesthood. ... nevertheless, (he was) allowed to remain.“

It was a final insult to Ables’ reasonable request after a lifetime of service to his church, but the longtime member took it in stoically, remaining an active member of his Seventies quorum, notes Stevenson. Soon after leaving for another mission to Cincinnati, Ables took ill, returned to Salt Lake City, and died on Christmas Day 1884. He was likely born between 1808 and 1810.

As late as 1908, Stevenson writes, Mormon president Joseph F. Smith was claiming that church founder Joseph Smith had declared the late Ables' priesthood "null and void." Yet in the same contradictions that Ables dealt with all his life, Joseph F. Smith also declared that Ables had been a "staunch member of the church." In 2002, a gravestone for Ables was placed in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. His church accomplishments, including his priesthood status, are summarized.

-- Doug Gibson

This post was originally published in StandardBlogs.