Paul wrote this for sharing on Facebook and Twitter, and has given permission to have it posted here as well.
Last week I went into the Family History Library and came out with an unexpected find—the baptismal record of “Tom, Brother Churches black man.” Tom has been on my mind ever since.
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I was already aware of the basic contours of Tom’s life because of the research of Amy Tanner Thiriot and the Salt Lake City Cemetery is preparing to install a headstone to mark his previously unmarked grave.
Cemetery staff had contacted me to ask if Tom was in our research pool for Century of Black Mormons . At the time I told them that Tom wasn’t because we had no indication Tom was LDS.
The Century of Black Mormons database focuses on those who converted to the Latter-day Saint faith between 1830 and 1930. Tom’s conversion to the faith did not make his life somehow more important. It simply meant that he would now be included in the database. It also added another layer of complexity to the contours of Tom’s life and death.
Tom was enslaved to Haden Wells Church, a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Tennessee. Wells migrated to Utah Territory with Tom in 1852 in the Abraham Owen Smoot migrant company.
In 1854, Henry A. Cheever baptized Tom a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Sugarhouse Ward. Sometime thereafter, Tom became enslaved to Abraham Owen Smoot, Salt Lake City mayor, LDS bishop, and future benefactor of Brigham Young University.
On 29 April 1862, Tom died from “inflammation of chest.” His death record described him as “Tom, a Negro, belong’ to Bhp Smoot.” He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Salt Lake City cemetery. Two months later Republicans in Congress passed a law outlawing slavery in the territories—a law that would have made Tom free.
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That is the haunting part of the story for me. Tom’s hope for freedom was reliant upon Republican congressmen in Washington D.C., not his fellow Latter-day Saints. His bishop was his enslaver. His enslaver did not free him, but congressmen in Washington D.C. would have freed him had he lived long enough.
In the 1852 debate over the law which enslaved black men and women brought to Utah Territory by their white enslavers, Latter-day Saint apostle and territorial legislator Orson Pratt argued stridently against passage of the bill. Legalizing slavery in a territory where it did not already exist was “enough to cause the angels in heaven to blush” Pratt said.
Pratt also argued in favor of black male voting rights in 1852. Brigham Young soundly rejected Pratt’s arguments. “[We] just [as well] make [a] bill here for mules to vote as Negroes [or] Indians,” Young said. “What we are trying to do today [is] to make [the] Negro equal with us in all our privileges. My voice shall be against [it] all the day long,” Young insisted.
My point is that Young and Smoot had choices. They were not merely trapped by historical circumstances against their will. There is no easy absolution. Dismissals of their views such as “oh, everyone was racist back then” and “they were merely products of their times,” are thoughtless excuses which fail to grapple with the fact that they chose slavery and white supremacy.
Republicans in Congress and Orson Pratt in Salt Lake City were also products of their times. They rightly defined slavery as evil and argued for its rejection. They were not trapped by historical circumstances. They argued against slavery and white supremacy.
Young, on the other hand, argued in favor of the law that would keep Tom enslaved and Smoot chose to hold a fellow Latter-day Saint as property. They had choices. They made bad choices.
In its Summer 2015 issue, BYU Magazine honored the legacy of Abraham Smoot and helped its readers to know how the administration building on campus came to be named in his honor. It is a laudable legacy. It is a legacy which also includes the enslavement of Tom, a fellow Latter-day Saint who died enslaved to his bishop.
That is a legacy that I, as a BYU alumnus, cannot shake. Tom’s hope for freedom rested with Radical Republicans in Congress, not with his fellow Latter-day Saints. It is, as Pratt suggested, “enough to cause the angels in heaven to blush.”
What are we going to do at my alma mater to honor Tom’s legacy on a campus that currently honors the legacy of his enslaver?
Haden Wells Church is my ancestor and my son is named after him. I am so frustrated that we were raised without such vital information, and we looked up to these pioneer heroes. Haden Wells Church actually brought Tom with him across the plains, and yet his is not listed in the Overland Database as traveling with Church. He is not even named. At age 60, I am going through an existential crisis about all that we learned and believed growing up Mormon (and American).
Janelle, Tom has not yet been added to the Century of Black Mormons database, but he will be as soon as research is complete. I expect he will be added to the Pioneer Database as well. Both databases want very much to list everyone who fits their criteria, and add records all the time as they become available.
History is hard, no doubt about it. Each generation writes and discovers what speaks to the questions and needs of that generation. I have to tell myself regularly that most of the old stories are not wrong exactly (although sometimes they are); most often they are just incomplete. It’s our task to correct and complete — or at least supplement — the old stories with new insights and new characters and new meaning.
I’m actually glad that there is still something I can contribute to the ongoing story.
Thanks for reposting this here, Ardis.
Janelle, I’m also a descendant of Haden Wells Church. Though I’ve been aware of his slaveownership for several years, I share many of your concerns and frustrations. After learning of Tom yesterday, I’ve begun exploring the possibility of raising funds for a scholarship for (a) black student(s) at BYU in Tom’s memory. If you’re at all interested in such an endeavor, please feel free to email me at chrisjones13 AT gmail.com
What is the source for the Brigham young quote?
That’s from Brigham Young’s 5 February 1852 speech before the Utah Territorial Legislature.
Paul, this is indeed a question that BYU needs to address. I am a double alumnus and an employee of the university. I love BYU. But both its namesake and the namesake of its administration building were terribly flawed in some ways we find hard to fathom today. It is hard to judge from this distance, but as you point out, both Orson Pratt and the radical Republicans were able to rise above their culture and fight for what was right. Is it too much to expect a prophet to be as inspired and forward-looking as some of his contemporaries? If not, what good is a prophet? Maybe BYU ought to change its name to Orson Pratt University, but OPU would be just too funny as an abbreviation.
I would love to see something as simple as a plaque on the Smoot building with the names and contextual information regarding all of Smoot’s slaves or even more ambitious, representative statues of his enslaved people outside the Smoot building to remember them and to remind students of the complexity of the Smoot legacy as they enter the building named in his honor.
Ardis said: “I have to tell myself regularly that most of the old stories are not wrong exactly (although sometimes they are); most often they are just incomplete. It’s our task to correct and complete — or at least supplement — the old stories with new insights and new characters and new meaning.”
I love that so much! Thank you for offering such clarity. I have often approached historical difficulties as the victim — “Why wasn’t I taught!” Your idea makes so much more sense. (Though I have to admit that I was working at my first job after college in St. George when I learned that it wasn’t Mormons massacred at Mountain Meadows. All those massacres just ran together.)
And Christopher, I will contact you regarding a scholarship in honor of Tom.
One question: Do we know the prevalence of slave-owning among early saints in Utah?
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the descendant of one of the Salem witch trial judges, is supposed to have said, “Let us thank God for having given us such ancestors and let each successive generation thank him, not less fervently, for being one step further from them in the march of ages.”
I will endeavor not to give my descendants a reason to say that about me.
Janelle, Amy Tanner Thiriot, who has provided quite a few top-quality guest posts here, has written a book about slavery in early Utah, focusing on the lives of the enslaved, filling in their lost identifications, and correcting so many of the legends that have grown up. I hope we see that from the University of Utah before much longer. If Amy sees this, she might have a few comments, but I won’t try to substitute for her as the expert.
But yes, through the hard work of Amy and others, we do, or soon will, know about the whos and wheres and how manys.
Christopher, Paul, and Roger, Has BYU (including its alumni association) been formally approached about this? One would think that BYU would be totally on board.
Ardis, thanks for the head’s up on Amy Tanner Thiriot. It looks like she’s done fascinating research on the issue.
Thank you again, Paul, and Amy. And thanks to Ardis for the Keepa platform. Truth Will Prevail! There is a lot of work for as all still to do.
I didn’t mean to “yell” my name in all caps. It was an auto-fill error.
Sure, sure, GRANT; we know how that goes!
I agree, Paul. I would love to see BYU work to contextualize and honor people like Tom and Smoot.
BYU would have advantage of the example of the Eastern universities dealing with this in far greater numbers. Even one case at BYU, though, is going to cause as much shock as anywhere else because we’re not used to thinking about slavery in our own history.
Now I understand why my dad usually referred to that building (even during the eight years that he worked there) as the “Smoot Office Building,” or, for short, by its initials, “the SOB.”
I have a similar response whenever I see early 20th century mission president Samuel O. Bennion’s initials on a document, which is surprisingly often.
I’ve even heard it called the “SOB building,” which might be a redundant acronym like “ATM machine” — but it might not.
The news media covered what looks like a lovely ceremony:
KSL
Salt Lake Tribune
Deseret News
And, in answer to questions here and on the news articles, I have documented around 100 enslaved African American pioneers resident in Utah Territory. Yes, they were enslaved; no, they were not free and enjoying the protections of the people listed as their owners. (!) Hopefully the book will be out sooner rather than later; we’re moving ahead as quickly as possible.