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Inspired by my recent remarks at FAIR<\/a> about Brigham Young and slavery and my recent article in Meridian Magazine<\/em><\/a> on the same topic, I\u2019m being roundly mocked and attacked over at the Peterson Obsession Board \u2014 and possibly elsewhere. \u00a0Among other things, the Obsessed have labeled me a liar and a sociopath for the argument that I\u2019ve made. \u00a0Some have insisted, despite my repeated, explicit statements that Brigham Young was a racist by \u00a0twenty-first century standards, that I\u2019m claiming that Brigham Young wasn\u2019t a racist by twenty-first century standards. \u00a0My Malevolent Stalker points out that I (supposedly) defend slavery because the desire for a celestial mansion in which I\u2019ll be served<\/em> by slaves is central to my religious faith.<\/p>\n In response to such attacks, I\u2019ve simply told people to read W. Paul Reeve, Christopher B. Rich Jr., and LaJean Purcell Carruth, This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle Over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah<\/em> (Oxford, 2024), and to get back to me when they\u2019ve finished it. \u00a0I\u2019m reasonably confident, however, that none of the Obsessed has done so. \u00a0For that matter, nothing in what they\u2019ve been saying about me suggests that they\u2019ve even listened to my FAIR talk or read my Meridian<\/em> article.<\/p>\n Well, ere I left my room this morning I happened across two parts of a 2024 Gospel Tangents<\/em> interview entitled, respectively, \u201cBusting Utah\u2019s Slavery Myths (Paul Reeve\/Christopher Rich 1 of 3)\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 and \u201cWas Brigham Young Wrong? (Paul Reeve\/Christopher Rich 2 of 3)<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 I offer here some passages from the transcript of the interview that I marked:<\/p>\n It\u2019s time to bust some slavery myths about Utah Slavery. Dr Paul Reeve & Christopher Rich have written a book called \u201cThis Abominable Slavery.\u201d Was Brigham Young making Utah a slave state or a free state? Newly discovered documents from the 1850s are causing us to re-evaluate past narratives. . . .<\/p>\n LaJean Carruth. She\u2019s a co-author on the book. The book wouldn\u2019t exist without her transcriptions. We have a new source base that no prior scholars had access to. . . .<\/p>\n And so Brigham Young, the evidence demonstrates that he always wanted Utah to come in as a free state. . . .\u00a0 Brigham Young made it stridently clear that he was opposed to sending any constitution to Washington that was based on slavery. . . .<\/p>\n Paul:\u00a0<\/strong>So your question was, did Utah apply as a slave state? The answer is no.<\/p>\n GT:<\/strong>\u00a0Absolutely no.<\/p>\n Paul:\u00a0<\/strong>Absolutely no. The Constitution of Deseret is neutral on the question of slavery. And then in 1856, the second time Utah applies, the proposal to apply as a slave state is soundly rejected by the Constitutional Convention that is held in Utah in 1856.<\/p>\n And in 1852, the legislature meets and attempts to address that question. Really, the question they\u2019re attempting to address is can human beings be held as property? According to the law, the answer that they put into law is no. Human beings can\u2019t be held as property. So it elevates those who are enslaved, African-Americans who are enslaved in Utah territory above the condition of property. . . .<\/p>\n So, obviously, we\u2019re making a nuanced argument here. Legally, according to law, yeah. If you grant human beings rights, they\u2019re not mere property. Okay, it\u2019s like an ox cart is a piece of property. It has no rights. Okay? Human beings, like you grant them some rights and they are then above the status of mere property and the legislature passes an Act in Relation to Service that does grant them some rights. . . .<\/p>\n the intent was that the condition of servitude not pass to the next generation, making it then a conservative form of gradual emancipation that, over time, the children born to enslaved parents would not have inherited the condition of their enslaved parents. . . .<\/p>\n Because I\u2019ve also heard that, human slavery and servitude, this is just semantics. Right? They\u2019re really slaves. Utah\u2019s the only slave state west of the Mississippi. Is that true?<\/p>\n Paul:\u00a0<\/strong>False.<\/p>\n Christopher:\u00a0<\/strong>False. False for a couple of reasons. So, the first thing you mentioned is are servitude and slavery the same thing?<\/p>\n GT:<\/strong>\u00a0Right.<\/p>\n Christopher:\u00a0<\/strong>From a modern perspective, it\u2019s hard for us to tell the difference. For somebody living in the early 19th<\/sup> century, however, servitude and slavery would have been quite different from each other. As Paul was mentioning, one of the main things is the ability to consent, certain rights that are inherent. Within a service relationship, servitude, you are a human being. You have rights just like any other human being would, but you exist in what\u2019s called unfree labor, meaning that you\u2019ve entered into a legal relationship with your master where you\u2019re not free to quit that employment relationship until certain conditions are fulfilled. So, examples of servitude are apprenticeship, for example, which is usually minor children enter into this relationship with their masters to learn a particular skill. Indentured servitude, when immigrants would come to the United States, they would be held in servitude for a certain period of time until they\u2019d paid off the price of their passage across the ocean. So you have a number of these forms of servitude, which are in between what we might call absolute freedom on one end of the spectrum and then chattel slavery on the other end of the spectrum where an individual, him or herself, is considered property, can be bought and sold, has no consent over any of that at all. And so, again, so for people like Brigham Young, men of his generation, would have seen a difference between servitude and slavery. They honestly would have viewed them to be different things. Now, that\u2019s changing in this period. The United States is slowly moving towards a free labor system. And so, you have some men like Orson Pratt who are not seeing that distinction. They do believe that servitude and slavery are the same thing. And that\u2019s really what this battle in the legislature is all about. It\u2019s not should we legalize slavery? But is there a difference between servitude and slavery? . . .<\/p>\n Brigham Young really believes that what the legislature passes is not chattel slavery. They haven\u2019t created a law that places human beings as property . . .<\/p>\n So, this is actually something that happens in a lot of places where a nominally free jurisdiction will allow enslavers to bring enslaved people into that jurisdiction insofar as their status is legally transformed from slave to servant, and then certain legal protections will apply to them. So, this happened in Illinois, for example. It happened in Indiana. And this is probably where Latter-day Saints became familiar with those type of laws. They likely encountered something like an Act in Relation to Service while they were living in Illinois during the 1840s. . . .<\/p>\n Paul:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Well Oregon passed a law that simply said you can\u2019t bring Black people into Oregon territory.<\/p>\n GT:<\/strong>\u00a0Period.<\/p>\n Paul:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Period. Right. Some states and territories did this in the 19th<\/sup> century. Right? Even free Black people are not allowed to migrate into territories with these laws. Utah does not pass a law. It welcomes everyone. Right? It\u2019s a part of the Latter-day Saint gathering. So, they have this religious notion they\u2019re going to gather everyone into Utah territory. They have a theological vision of conversion. So, they never pass a law like Oregon that says that Black people are not allowed into the territory. And Oregon also comes close. Right? What was the bill that they voted on or they were really close to passing, but it didn\u2019t pass? . . .<\/p>\n In Utah, you see the same thing. You see a relatively small number of pro-slavery Latter-day Saints, who are asking for Utah to protect slavery in the constitution. And men, like Brigham Young and Orson Pratt, say, no. We\u2019re not going to do that. And ultimately, a very large majority of the Constitutional Convention say absolutely not. We are not going to do that. Moreover, we\u2019re not going to bar free African Americans from coming here. And that\u2019s something that should be said as well. We don\u2019t deal with it as much in the book. But while there were enslaved African Americans, there were also a sizable number of free African Americans in early Utah territory, many of whom were Latter-day Saints. . . .<\/p>\n GT: <\/strong>Can we talk a little bit about\u2014so 1852. Is it fair to say that Utah legalized slavery in 1852? Because that\u2019s what I\u2019ve heard. Would you say that\u2019s a fair statement?<\/p>\n Christopher: <\/strong>No. At the very least, it\u2019s complicated. From the perspective of the legislators, they would say no. From the perspective of Brigham Young and the majority of the legislators, they would say we have legalized servitude. And they would have argued this is, in many ways, different from chattel slavery and was intended to be so. And from a purely legal standpoint, that argument has weight from the perspective of 1852. . . .<\/p>\n\n