Main Page: Latter-day Saint Racial History
The Church of Jesus Christ and Black People: Historical Context (Pre-1830)
For thousands of years, slavery was a ubiquitous practice in most civilizations throughout the world, almost never questioned or challenged. The Jews, and later Christians, who compiled the Bible were not exceptions to this norm. Kenton L. Sparks noted, "Modern Christianity maintains that the owning and trading of human beings as chattel is immoral and unacceptable in the eyes of God. How is it possible that this modern theological judgment, now so putatively unassailable and certain, was not reached and preached explicitly by the biblical writers themselves, who wrote under the influence of the Holy Spirit and so presumably knew - or should have known, it seems - that slavery was an abominable practice that dishonored human bearers of the divine image?"
Commenting on the New Testament, Tom Wright wrote, "Paul had a problem. It seems a simple one to us, but we don’t live in his world. Like every person of any substance in that world, Philemon owned slaves. To them, this was as natural as owning a car or a television is for people in the Western world today. Indeed, most people would wonder how you could get on without them. To us, of course, slavery is now abhorrent. To them (as we saw when looking at Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3) it was like electricity, gas, or cars. You couldn't imagine society without it. Suggesting you should get rid of it altogether was about as realistic as suggesting today that we should abandon all electric appliances and petrol-fired transport, including cars and planes."
The belief that Africans were descended from Noah's son Ham dates back at least to Hebraic literature from A.D. 200 to 600, but didn't become widespread until the British "discovery" of Africa in the sixteenth century. Because Ham's son Canaan was cursed by Noah to be a "servant of servants" (Genesis 9:25), in the seventeenth century this became a common rationalization for African slavery, which became a profitable trade as warring tribes sold their captured enemies to Europeans. African slavery became a major component in the ongoing settlement of the New World, and like slavery in general it went unquestioned and unchallenged for a long time.
Commenting on the New Testament, Tom Wright wrote, "Paul had a problem. It seems a simple one to us, but we don’t live in his world. Like every person of any substance in that world, Philemon owned slaves. To them, this was as natural as owning a car or a television is for people in the Western world today. Indeed, most people would wonder how you could get on without them. To us, of course, slavery is now abhorrent. To them (as we saw when looking at Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3) it was like electricity, gas, or cars. You couldn't imagine society without it. Suggesting you should get rid of it altogether was about as realistic as suggesting today that we should abandon all electric appliances and petrol-fired transport, including cars and planes."
The belief that Africans were descended from Noah's son Ham dates back at least to Hebraic literature from A.D. 200 to 600, but didn't become widespread until the British "discovery" of Africa in the sixteenth century. Because Ham's son Canaan was cursed by Noah to be a "servant of servants" (Genesis 9:25), in the seventeenth century this became a common rationalization for African slavery, which became a profitable trade as warring tribes sold their captured enemies to Europeans. African slavery became a major component in the ongoing settlement of the New World, and like slavery in general it went unquestioned and unchallenged for a long time.
"Noah Damning Ham" by Ivan Stepanovitch Ksenofontov, nineteenth century.
Europeans had of course long recognized that people from different parts of the world looked different from them, and generally considered those differences to indicate inferiority. Africans had been referred to as "Negro", meaning "black" in Spanish and Porguese, as early as 1442. But this went a step further in 1779 when Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a young anthropologist, suggested that humans could be scientifically divided into five races: the "white" Caucasians, the "yellow" Mongolians, the "brown" Malayans, the "black" Ethiopians, and the "red" Americans. He believed that Adam and Eve had been Caucasians and that their descendants had degenerated into the other races due to environmental factors.
In spite of this, Blumenbach did not believe that the other races were inherently inferior. Of Africans he wrote, "Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro." Nonetheless, his concept of race was weaponized by other academics and lay people alike to further justify slavery and create imaginary divisions within the human family.
Interracial marriage was thus taboo and uncommon. Black men in particular were stereotyped as having heavy libidos and lusting after white women, so that most white people saw a union between the two as frightening and repulsive, with white men especially feeling threatened that their wives would be stolen away. Because people had little firsthand experience with interracial marriage, and believed that the physiological differences between "races" went far deeper than they did in reality, some scholars even maintained that the offspring of such marriages would be sterile like mules and other animal hybrids. White people then had the additional worry that such marriages could threaten their race with extinction.
In spite of this, Blumenbach did not believe that the other races were inherently inferior. Of Africans he wrote, "Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro." Nonetheless, his concept of race was weaponized by other academics and lay people alike to further justify slavery and create imaginary divisions within the human family.
Interracial marriage was thus taboo and uncommon. Black men in particular were stereotyped as having heavy libidos and lusting after white women, so that most white people saw a union between the two as frightening and repulsive, with white men especially feeling threatened that their wives would be stolen away. Because people had little firsthand experience with interracial marriage, and believed that the physiological differences between "races" went far deeper than they did in reality, some scholars even maintained that the offspring of such marriages would be sterile like mules and other animal hybrids. White people then had the additional worry that such marriages could threaten their race with extinction.
Very Slow Change
Historian Craig Harline wrote, "Maybe the best reason not to argue that an idea or practice should continue just because it’s been around a long time is slavery. Slavery had been around seemingly forever when some Western Christians began to oppose it in the eighteenth century, setting off a debate in the United States that lasted into the Civil War. The most striking thing about the debate to us might be that those in favor of slavery had the best biblical arguments.
"Both Old and New Testaments assume the existence of slavery and never condemn it. They condemn only masters who treat slaves badly. The Bible taught 'clearly and conclusively that the holding of slaves is right,' said advocates of slavery, who could cite numerous passages specifically saying so. The Baptist minister Thornton Stringfellow wrote in 1860 that God approved slavery not only in the Bible, but in the 'only National Constitution which ever emanated from God.' And since God was the same God yesterday, today, and forever, then it followed that slavery had to be the same too. In fact, anyone in favor of freedom and equality for all, as the Declaration of Independence declared, was essentially rejecting the Bible itself, said Stringfellow, because the Bible was full of sanctioned inequality.
"Those against slavery weren’t simply going to ignore the Bible, of course, any more than Galileo or Calvin would have. They knew they didn’t have any passages on their side to specifically condemn slavery. Their strategy instead was to emphasize passages about human relationships in general, such as the Golden Rule, or Acts 17 (God has made of one blood all nations), or God created all in his own image, and other 'Family of Man' sorts of texts that might be derived from the Bible or from widely accepted principles of the Enlightenment. They also might use the historical approach: biblical passages in favor of slavery reflected the understanding of past societies rather than of some enduring practice. Or they relied on 'the general tenor of scripture.' That’s where lasting principles were to be found, not in specific rules for a specific place and time. Some Christians went even further and said slavery had never been right to begin with but was simply allowed by God because of human weakness."
The belief that Africans were descended from Ham had fallen into disuse for a time but was revived in the nineteenth century to answer criticisms from evangelical abolitionists. While sharing this belief, abolitionists argued that Africans were descended not from Canaan but from one of Ham's other sons, Cush, or from all four, and that Noah's curse therefore didn't apply to them. Advocates of slavery thus formulated another argument: that Africans were also descendants of Cain, who was cursed for murdering his brother Abel and for loving Satan more than God. Hence they were cursed one way or another.
"Both Old and New Testaments assume the existence of slavery and never condemn it. They condemn only masters who treat slaves badly. The Bible taught 'clearly and conclusively that the holding of slaves is right,' said advocates of slavery, who could cite numerous passages specifically saying so. The Baptist minister Thornton Stringfellow wrote in 1860 that God approved slavery not only in the Bible, but in the 'only National Constitution which ever emanated from God.' And since God was the same God yesterday, today, and forever, then it followed that slavery had to be the same too. In fact, anyone in favor of freedom and equality for all, as the Declaration of Independence declared, was essentially rejecting the Bible itself, said Stringfellow, because the Bible was full of sanctioned inequality.
"Those against slavery weren’t simply going to ignore the Bible, of course, any more than Galileo or Calvin would have. They knew they didn’t have any passages on their side to specifically condemn slavery. Their strategy instead was to emphasize passages about human relationships in general, such as the Golden Rule, or Acts 17 (God has made of one blood all nations), or God created all in his own image, and other 'Family of Man' sorts of texts that might be derived from the Bible or from widely accepted principles of the Enlightenment. They also might use the historical approach: biblical passages in favor of slavery reflected the understanding of past societies rather than of some enduring practice. Or they relied on 'the general tenor of scripture.' That’s where lasting principles were to be found, not in specific rules for a specific place and time. Some Christians went even further and said slavery had never been right to begin with but was simply allowed by God because of human weakness."
The belief that Africans were descended from Ham had fallen into disuse for a time but was revived in the nineteenth century to answer criticisms from evangelical abolitionists. While sharing this belief, abolitionists argued that Africans were descended not from Canaan but from one of Ham's other sons, Cush, or from all four, and that Noah's curse therefore didn't apply to them. Advocates of slavery thus formulated another argument: that Africans were also descendants of Cain, who was cursed for murdering his brother Abel and for loving Satan more than God. Hence they were cursed one way or another.
"Cain Flying Before Jehovah's Curse", Fernand Cormon, 1880. Based on the description in Victor Hugo's La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Ages), a volume of poems covering humanity's history and evolution.
The actual curse on Cain was being cut off from the presence of God, but it also came with a mark so that people would recognize him and not kill him. The Bible is silent on what this mark was and never claims that it was passed on to his descendants. Even if it was, that wouldn't necessarily mean they were under the same curse forever. But pro-slavery Christians began to argue that this mark was black skin and that the curse justified slavery. In her poem "On Being Brought from Africa to America", eighteenth-century slave and poet Phillis Wheatley wrote:
"Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eyes;
'Their color is a diabolic dye.'
Remember Christians; Negroes black as Cain,
May be refined, and join the angelic train."
England abolished its slave trade in 1807, largely thanks to the efforts of an alliance of evangelicals and Quakers led by William Wilberforce. They continued fighting to end slavery altogether, and by 1830 were only three years away from victory. In the United States, however, large swathes of the economy were heavily dependent on slave labor and many refused to give it up. Even some of those who personally opposed the practice distanced themselves from full abolitionists, viewing them as dangerous extremists. And virtually no white people, whether for or against slavery, believed that black people were their intellectual or spiritual equals.
This is the context in which all early Latter-day Saints were born and raised, and this is the context in which the Church of Jesus Christ was restored in 1830. Joseph Smith and everyone else accepted as common knowledge that Africans were descended from Cain and Ham and that humans were divided into races. And most of them, consequently, also took for granted the inference that "black" people were inferior and cursed.
Next: The Church of Jesus Christ and Black People 1830-1837
"Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eyes;
'Their color is a diabolic dye.'
Remember Christians; Negroes black as Cain,
May be refined, and join the angelic train."
England abolished its slave trade in 1807, largely thanks to the efforts of an alliance of evangelicals and Quakers led by William Wilberforce. They continued fighting to end slavery altogether, and by 1830 were only three years away from victory. In the United States, however, large swathes of the economy were heavily dependent on slave labor and many refused to give it up. Even some of those who personally opposed the practice distanced themselves from full abolitionists, viewing them as dangerous extremists. And virtually no white people, whether for or against slavery, believed that black people were their intellectual or spiritual equals.
This is the context in which all early Latter-day Saints were born and raised, and this is the context in which the Church of Jesus Christ was restored in 1830. Joseph Smith and everyone else accepted as common knowledge that Africans were descended from Cain and Ham and that humans were divided into races. And most of them, consequently, also took for granted the inference that "black" people were inferior and cursed.
Next: The Church of Jesus Christ and Black People 1830-1837
