Thread by @WPaulReeve

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. /1

I was already aware of the basic contours of Tom’s life because of the work of @ancestorfiles and the SLC Cemetery is preparing to install a headstone to mark his grave. Cemetery staff had contacted me to ask if Tom was in our research pool for @c_black_mormons. /2

At the time I told them that Tom wasn’t because we had no indication Tom was LDS. CenturyofBlackMormons.org 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. /3

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. /4

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. /5

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. /6

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. /7

Two months later Republicans in Congress passed a law outlawing slavery in the territories—a law that would have made Tom free. /8

That is the haunting part of the story for me. Tom’s hope for freedom was reliant on Republican congressmen in Washington D.C., not his fellow Latter-day Saints. /9

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. /10

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. /11

Legalizing slavery in a territory where it did not already exist was “enough to cause the angels in heaven to blush” Pratt said. /12

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. /13

“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. /14

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. /15

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. /16

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. /17

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. /18

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. /19

It is a legacy which also includes the enslavement of Tom, a fellow Latter-day Saint who died enslaved to his bishop. /20

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.” /21

What are we going to do at my alma mater @BYU @MI_BYU @BYUReddCenter @BYUKennedyCtr @BYUHistory to honor Tom’s legacy, along with Smoot's other slaves, on a campus that currently honors the legacy of his enslaver? /end