I was somewhat dismayed to hear Elder Quentin L. Cook's remarks concerning Mormons and slavery at the Saturday afternoon General Conference. Elder Cook said:
Quentin L. Cook wrote:In our early Church history, the vast majority of our members were opposed to slavery. This was a significant reason, along with their religious beliefs, for the hostility and mob violence they experienced, culminating in the extermination order issued by Governor Boggs in Missouri. In 1833 Joseph Smith received a revelation stating, “It is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.” Our commitment to freedom of religion and treating all people as sons and daughters of God is central to our doctrine.
There are several problems with Elder Cook's claims.
Were the "vast majority" of early church members opposed to slavery?Many of them were on a personal level. However, this stemmed more from the fact that the majority of Mormon converts hailed from the Northeastern region of the United States, where anti-slavery sentiments were prevalent and slavery was not a significant economic factor in their way of life. Had the church drawn more converts from the South, early Mormonism almost certainly would have had a larger pro-slavery faction.
Even if members on an individual level were personally opposed to slavery, they were seldom active in the abolitionist movement. As Thomas M. Spencer notes, "Few among the Mormons were committed abolitionists and the Book of Mormon suggested that those with darker skins were considered inferior in the eyes of God."
[1] Furthermore, the position of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and the institutional church was usually much more ambivalent. At certain times, both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young made statements supportive of slavery and critical of the abolitionist movement while echoing Protestant sentiments that slavery was the natural result of the curse of Cain. A small number of members owned slaves as the church had no policy against it. Joseph Smith did become more critical of the institution of slavery towards the end of his life and developed a moderate abolitionist position, but this was several years after the flight from Missouri.
When Utah was organized as a territory, it was designated as neither free nor slave-holding; that choice was left up to its residents. Though it had some of the kindest slavery laws in the nation, slavery was not abolished in Utah until 1862.
Was Mormon abolitionist sentiment a significant factor leading to the Extermination Order?Cook is the first person I've ever heard to make this claim. None of my general Mormon history books say anything about Mormon abolitionism being a "significant factor" in the Mormon expulsion from Missouri. In 1833, W. W. Phelps published a rather anti-slavery editorial in
The Evening and Morning Star which ignited some bad blood with Missouri locals. Phelps quickly published an "extra" clarifying that the LDS stance on slavery was neutral, and the church issued other statements to the effect of "we're neutral" in the years between 1833 an 1838.
More responsibly, Spencer agrees that "a defense of slavery" was part of the reason for the actions of the Missourians; however, "some religious bigotry," "land hunger," "a tragically misguided sense of paternity" and "a desire for political control" were all factors as well.
[2] Since Mormons were not actively opposed to slavery, I would say that Missourian sentiments in this regard were at least partially based on a misunderstanding of the Mormon position. To portray actual Mormon abolitionist sentiments as a "significant factor" in Missourian hostility is to overstate the case.
D&C 101:79It is true that D&C 101:79 ("it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another") was written by Joseph Smith in December 1833. It was published as section 97 in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine & Covenants and I could not locate an earlier publication date. However, as already noted, I see little evidence that this revelation ever translated into infusing Mormons with a yearning for racial justice. What anti-slavery sentiment existed was probably a product of the cultural upbringing of its Northeastern converts, not a religious desire to treat all people as sons and daughters of God. The official Mormon stance on slavery was ambivalent to the end, and of course, the LDS church had one of the worst records on institutionalized racism and remains unapologetic about its racist history.
Slavery in Protestant Church HistoryThe struggle over slavery made for one of the most painful chapters in the history of evangelicalism in America. Secular critics often point to the religious convictions of Southern Protestant slaveholders as evidence of the evils of religion, while evangelicals uphold people like William Wilberforce
[3] and Sojourner Truth---people whose belief in God passionately moved them to opposition of slavery---as proof of the fruits of faith, but the truth is, neither side is correct. Religious passion did motivate people into opposition of slavery in ways that we might not have otherwise seen. At the same time, many Southern slaveholders were deeply pious Christians, often reaching for biblical and theological justifications in their quest to maintain the institution of slavery.
[4] Some of the greatest evangelical leaders in our nation's history, such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, were slaveholders.
The slavery question deeply divided the Protestant world. Questions that Protestants wrestled with included: Was it acceptable to evangelize slaves, particularly if their masters were not Christians themselves? Should slave-holding converts be required to emancipate their slaves? If slavery is a sin, how can slave-holding converts truly be considered regenerate? Is it better to gain converts in areas that will not tolerate abolition at the expense of propagating the slave trade, or should these souls be abandoned in favor of a "zero tolerance" policy? How can we be intolerant of Christian slaveholders when Paul was apparently tolerant of them in the Bible?
In the permanent denominational divisions that took place over the matter, and in the bloodshed as American took up arms against American in the Civil War, slavery left a scar on the face of both evangelical and American history that remains to this day. In the end, while evangelical Christians may have been part of the problem, they were also undeniably part of the solution.
[5] Mormons were none-of-the-above.
ConclusionMy dismay at Elder Cook's remarks should be apparent by now. Many critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints try to portray Mormons as having been historically pro-slavery, and this is certainly unfair and inaccurate. However, it is just as inaccurate to depict Mormons as abolitionist martyrs driven by religious conviction to a progressive view of blacks when their attitude toward slavery during the first thirty years of their church's history was largely one of "live and let live." Furthermore, few Mormons participated in the Civil War, staying nearly as aloof of that issue as they did of taking a stance on slavery. We can debate whether LDS reasons for avoiding the Civil War were just, but the take-home message is this: Mormons have very little historical claim in the victory over slavery. They did not earn it.
I personally see it as disrespectful to the memory of the men and women who did fight, suffer and die to end slavery to suggest that Mormons were a part of that. Elder Cook's comments are unfortunate in that regard.
See Also:"Race and the LDS Church (Part I)" by Kaimi Wenger at
Times & Seasons"An Introduction to Mormon Participation in the Civil War" by Brant E at
Juvenile InstructorNotes:[1] Thomas M. Spencer, "Persecution in the Most Odious Sense of the Word,"
The Missouri Mormon Experience, ed. Thomas M. Spencer (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 2010): 6.
[2] Ibid, 17.
[3] Cook himself mentioned Wilberforce just prior to these remarks in his talk.
[4] One of the books I read last year that covers this topic is
The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
[5] For a summary of the religious nature of evangelism among blacks and slaves in America, I recommend Douglas A. Sweeney,
The American Evangelical Story: A History of the Movement (Grand Rapids, Mich.: BakerAcademic, 2005), Chapter 5, "Crossing the Color Line without Working to Erase It: Evangelical History in Black and White," 107-31. The central argument of Sweeney's summary (p. 108-9):
"It is important not to forget the utter enormity of this evil or the extent to which evangelicals condoned it. But it is also important not to forget that evangelicals played a greater role than any other group in taking the gospel to the slaves and treating them as their spiritual equals. Paradoxically, while many leading white evangelical ministers owned slaves (Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield), defended slavery (Charles Hodge and James Henley Thornwell), and preached to segregated crowds (Charles Finney, D. L. Moody, and Billy Graham), some of these people also pioneered black evangelization, education, and even economic uplift. Many other, more progressive evangelical reformers played a major role in the rise of antislavery agitation. Further, evangelicals have contributed more than most white groups to the development of African American worship, doctrine and practice. Conversely, African Americans have exerted extensive influence on the worship, doctrine, and practice of white evangelicals."