Copyright © 2009 by Mark L. Staker
All rights reserved - fair use excerpts transcribed
[ 175 ]
Chapter 13
A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF THE GIFT OF
TONGUES IN KIRTLAND AND MISSOURI
"...the brethren flocked around him, and asked his opinion concerning the gift..." [1]
Suppression and Reintroduction of Tongues
During the June conference, Joseph Smith identified some of the ecstatic manifestations as ungodly, raising questions about related practices
and their underlying theologies. His firmness imposed a change of direction that required an immediate, complicated, and frequently painful
transition. Some were not willing to make it. George A. Smith, who did not join the Church until later and therefore would have known about
these events only second hand, enunciated his perceptions to a later generation: "In a short time a number of those who had been influenced
by those foul manifestations, apostatized... retired from the Church, and organized the 'Pure Church of Christ,' as they called it, composed
of six members, and commenced having meetings, and preaching, but that was the extent of the growth." [2] The "foul
manifestations" were apparently the ecstatic experiences they could not leave behind.
When Joseph set Lyman Wight apart on Saturday, June 4, he gave him the gift of tongues, the gift of discernment, and a call to preach to the
Indians. Wight's gift of tongues was to be a tool for preaching the gospel to people who spoke other languages. Thus, although the emphasis
was still on Indian tongues, missionaries "ordained to the gift of tongues, would," in Ezra Booth's words, "have an opportunity to display their
supernatural talent, in communicating to the Indians, in their own dialect" as they preached in Missouri. [3] When Lyman Wight and others
arrived in Missouri in the middle of July 1831 they were unable to use their gift because "adverse circumstances" prevented their preaching to
the local population. [4] Wight apparently never had an opportunity to try his gift. By the time the
__________
1 Brigham Young, "History of Brigham Young," 385.
2 George A. Smith, November 15, 1864, Journal of Discourses,
11:4.
3 Ezra Booth, "Mormonism, Letter V, November 7, 1831,"
in Eber Dudley Howe, ed., MormonismUnvailed: or A Faithful Account of That Singular Imposition and Delusion, from Its Rise to the Present
Time,
194.
4 Ibid.
176
Hearken, O Ye People
missionaries returned to Ohio the following month, the gift of tongues had completely disappeared from the Kirtland community.
New members living away from Kirtland relied on information about their beliefs from missionaries and newspapers, and sometimes these
sources lagged behind the rapid receipt of revelation then occurring in Kirtland. [5] Alpheus Gifford, Elial Strong, and Eleazar Miller all lived
in Tioga County, Pennsylvania. Gifford joined the Church and accompanied his friends to Ohio to meet Joseph Smith in Kirtland. Gifford
was ordained an elder and his companions were baptized before they returned to Pennsylvania as missionaries while Joseph Smith went
the other direction -- to Missouri. It is not clear what they learned about the gift of tongues while they were in Kirtland, but the authority
Gifford received in Kirtland apparently included this same gift as that recently bestowed on Lyman Wight. This group of men carried with
them to Pennsylvania an emphasis on speaking in tongues and shared it in the communities where they preached. To their converts,
unfamiliar with what had happened in Kirtland, the practice appeared to be a new thing.
Thus, Brigham Young, who had no exposure to the earlier events, told a Utah congregation in 1858 that "the members of the branch in
Pennsylvania were the first in the church who received the gift of tongues." [6] These same three missionaries who took speaking in
tongues to Pennsylvania brought the gospel to Brigham Young and his family in New York and impressed upon them this gift's importance.
Continuing his 1858 address, Brigham related how "a few weeks after my baptism... while family prayer was being offered up, bro. Alpheus
Gifford commenced speaking in tongues; soon the Spirit came on me, and I spoke in tongues, and we thought only of the day of Pentecost."
As Brigham Young and his associates left for Kirtland, they stopped at various branches to preach on the way. While preaching, Brigham
recalled, "I spoke in tongues; some pronounced it genuine and from the Lord, and others pronounced it of the devil." [7]
The group arrived in Kirtland two days after Emma Smith delivered a son, Joseph III, on November 6, 1832. Levi Hancock had just finished
remodeling part of the N. K. Whitney store to create a translation room where the Prophet could work undisturbed. Joseph Smith invited
Brigham Young and his group to stay at this residence and also to join Hancock and others for dinner. Brigham was called upon to pray
and, as Joseph and the others listened, he prayed in tongues. [8] "As soon as we arose from our knees, the brethren flocked around him
[Joseph], and asked his opinion concerning the gift of tongues that was upon me," Brigham reported in his 1858 address. They clearly
expected Joseph to rebuke Brigham. Instead, he not only validated but valorized Brigham's speech: "He told them it was the pure Adamic
language. Some said to him they expected he would condemn the gift bro. Brigham had, but he said, 'No, it is of God." [9]
Thus, the June conference stopped the use of tongues in Kirtland but, through one of the Pennsylvania missionaries ordained immediately
afterward, the gift was reintroduced almost two years later back in Kirtland. As Brigham Young brought speaking in tongues into the Kirtland
congregation for a second time, the focus shifted from xenoglossia (talking in Indian dialects among themselves) to glossolalia -- speaking
the language of God, identified with Adam in the Garden of Eden. Ann Whitney again became adept at speaking
__________
5 Wilford Woodruff recalled a few years later in the introduction to his journal how in the spring of 1832 he
read in a newspaper that the Mormonites "professed the ancient gifts of the gospel they healed the sick cast out
devils and spoke in tongues." Woodruff, Journal, 1:15. The report he read repeated stories of the early activities
among the Kirtland Mormonites before the June 1831 conference rather than events actually occurring in 1832.
6 Young, "History of Brigham Young," 385.
7 Ibid.
8 Levi Hancock, Statement, November 1832.
9 Young, "History of Brigham Young," 385.
A New Understanding of the Gift of Tongues
177
in tongues, singing and uttering in what they called "Adamic." [10] Ann recalled that the Prophet Joseph promised her she would
never lose her gift of tongues if she remained wise in its use. She also sought other spiritual gifts. Her brother-in-law, Samuel Whitney,
later recalled: "Mormon elders and women often searched the bed of the river for stones with holes caused by the sand washing out,
to peep into. N. K. Whitney's wife had one." [11]
Within two months of the arrival of Brigham's group in November 1832, outsiders were aware that the practice of speaking in tongues
was again in Kirtland. E. D. Howespecifically (and skeptically) noted its return: "On the opening of the year 1833, the 'gift of
tongues' again made its appearance at head-quarters, and from thence extended to all their branches in different parts. Wheather
[sic] the languages now introduced, differed materially from those practiced two or three years previous, (and pronounced to be of
the Devil,) we have not been informed." [12] Worshippers believed this practice to be substantively different from the earlier one. It
flourished and spread again out from Kirtland to surrounding communities, including to Missouri where missionaries had previously
not had the opportunity to use it. John Whitmer was in Missouri when the gift arrived and recalled "in the fall of the year 1832, the
disciples at Ohio received the gift of tongues and in June 1833 we received the gift of tongues in Zion." [13] John Whitmer, Oliver
Cowdery, and Thomas B. Marsh "often spoke in tongues in addressing the people on the Sabbath day." [14] No interpretation
was offered during these presentations in Missouri; and most of the congregation went home wondering what had been said.
However, Mary Rollins went home and prayed "that the Lord would give me to understand what was the meaning of their words." [15]
Mary was called on to interpret tongues as her leaders spoke.
Abolitionism and Mormonism
The transfer of the gift of tongues to Missouri in June 1833 came just as the Missouri Saints encountered disputes about slavery
and race -- perhaps exacerbated by the practice of glossolalia sometimes associated with slaves. By this time, however, Black Pete
was already just a memory within the Mormon community. It is not clear if he left immediately after the June conference or later.
Those who arrived in Kirtland after 1834 mention him based only on the descriptions of others.
The potential that black members would continue to play a significant role in the movement, however, remained high as some
proselyting interest among blacks continued. On June 19, almost two weeks after the 1831 conference, Joseph Smith left for
Missouri. There "he preached fervidly to crowds of Indians, squatters, and negroes, some of whom became converts," according to
[an] 1853 magazine article. [16] Isaac Morley and Ezra Booth had been called to Missouri as missionaries at the June
conference. They left at the same time as Joseph Smith. Morley returned to Kirtland in September, promptly sold his Kirtland property
on October 12 to Hercules Carrel, who had once "owned" Black Pete, and moved his family to Missouri, expecting to build Zion, the
city of God of which his "Family" had been a precursor.
__________
10 Ann recalled, "I received the gift of singing inspirationally, and the first Song of Zion ever given in the pure language was sung by
me." Elizabeth Ann Whitney, ''A Leaf from an Autobiography," October 1, 1878, 71. "The Prophet Joseph said that the language
[in which she sang] was the pure Adamic, the same that was used in the Garden of Eden." "Death of Mother Whitney," Deseret
News, February 1882,72.
11 Samuel E Whitney, "Statement of Rev. S. E. Whitney on Mormonism,"
1:3.
12 Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 132.
13 Bruce N. Westergren, ed., From Historian to Dissident: The Book of John Whitmer, 103. Gideon H. Carter, Letter to
W. W. Phelps, May 1833, Evening and the Morning Star 2, no. 14 (July 1833): 108, mentions the gift of tongues and their
interpretation in Kirtland (Phelps was in Missouri) which may have reintroduced the gift to Isaac Morley, Lyman Wight, Titus
and others, also in Missouri, who had abandoned the earlier practice. Chapman Duncan, Autobiography, 1, was baptized in
Independence around the end of December 1832 by Titus Billings. "A short time" after his baptism, he began to "speak with
new tongues and prophesy." This "short time" was likely in June when both members and outside observers note the practice of
speaking in tongues.
14 Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, ''Autobiography,'' 195.
15 Ibid.
16 "The Mormons," Harpers New Monthly Magazine 6, no. 35 (April 1853): 608.
178
Hearken, O Ye People
Joseph Smith returned from Missouri on August 27, 1831, and, on September 12, anticipating the sale of Morley's farm, moved to the
Johnson homestead in Hiram, Portage County, Ohio. There he spent the year of September 1831 to September 1832, broken by a brief
second trip to Missouri in April 1832. A general council in Missouri acknowledged him as "President of the High Priesthood." The
community of Hiram had recently begun to operate a station on the Underground Railroad, moving runaways from Kentucky up
past Kirtland and into Canada. [17] Portage County had more racial conflict than its northern neighbors -- influencing people like
abolitionist John Brown who spent much of his youth and part of his adult years in the county. In fact, Brown left the county only after
his attempt to promote locally issued banknotes in 1837 led to his financial ruin but laid the groundwork for more radical interests.
Meanwhile, the preacher Theodore Weld took the same fiery revival style that his friend Charles Grandison Finney had used in
New York on the road. In Portage County, Weld preached the virtues of temperance, manual labor, education, and the program of
the American Colonization Society -- gradual emancipation followed by the transportation of freed slaves to Africa. Slowly Weld became
a prominent promoter of William Lloyd Garrison's aggressive abolitionism in Ohio and Missouri. As a reader of Garrison's abolitionist
newspaper the Liberator, he joined in condemning the "conspiracy of silence" over slavery, branding the practice a sin and slaveholders
as criminals. Weld left Ohio in the summer of 1832, continuing his social revivals in villages and towns across six hundred miles of
Missouri countryside. He returned to Portage County, on October 12, 1832, and promoted increased agitation until he eventually founded
the Oberlin Disciples, a group which made radical abolitionism an active force in the region. [18]
One month before Weld arrived in Portage County,Joseph Smith moved from Portage County to Geauga County, and settled in Kirtland
on September 12, 1832. Joseph had been brutally beaten, tarred, and feathered in Hiram in March 1832 (see chap. 27) and the issue of
God's impending judgment filled his mind shortly after his return to Kirtland. On December 6, Joseph received a revelation expounding
the meaning of the Savior's parable of the wheat and the tares and the final judgment (D&C 86).
On December 25, 1832, the Ohio legislature created Carroll County. Although it is not clear if Black Pete took the name of his most recent
owners (an unrelated Carroll family), as sometimes happened with former slaves, a discussion of his status may have been part of a larger
conversation on slavery among Joseph Smith and his associates that same day. Joseph's perspective was broader than that of most of his
contemporaries. According to Brigham Young, Joseph Smith was "reflecting and reasoning with regard to African slavery on this [American]
continent, and the slavery of the children of men throughout the world." [19] His concern about "troubles among the nations" on a global
scale and the "ravages of the cholera" in the world's major cities with plague as far away as India were as much a part of his conversation
as were current political crises in the United States. [20]
Joseph Smith and his associates discussed America's political situation as well, led by South Carolina's threat to pull out of the union due
to anger over tariff laws and Andrew Jackson's threat to use the army and navy to enforce the law if necessary.
__________
17 History of Portage County, Ohio, 528.
18 Benjamin Merkel, The Antislavery Controvery in Missouri, 1819-1865, 2; Stephen B. Oates, To Purge This
Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown, 29, 39; Albert Bushnell Hart, Slavery and Abolition, 1831-1841, 190-91.
19 Brigham Young, May 20, 1860, Journal of Discourses, 8:58; see also Journal History, May 20, 1860.
20 History of the Church, 1:301.
A New Understanding of the Gift of Tongues
179
Such a confrontation, warned the Painesville Telegraph on December 21, could lead to war. On Christmas day, Joseph Smith dictated
a prophecy on war (now D&C 87), outlining the dire circumstances the entire world should expect before the coming of Jesus Christ. Over
the next week, this warning of war was followed by a series of revelations, which Joseph combined into a second document titled "the Lord's
message of peace to us" (D&C 88, headnote).
Joseph's prophecy on war opened with the warning that multiple "wars" would shortly come to pass "beginning at the rebellion of South
Carolina" (D&C 87:1). He did not seem to connect the immediate tariff crisis to these pending wars, since his revelation was cast as a
future event. "The time will come," as he phrased it, that war would break forth upon the nations beginning at South Carolina and "eventually"
cause the death and misery of many people. This initial war was specific to the United States, with northern states fighting the southern.
At that point "war shall be poured out upon all nations" (D&C 87:2). These international conflicts would come "after many days, [when] slaves
[in all nations] shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war. And it shall come to pass also that the
remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore
vexation" (D&C 87:4-5). The grammatical structure of this revelation is difficult, and it is not clear if the slaves would be marshaled and
disciplined for war or if their oppressors would be the trained ones. But the "remnants" of the land surviving from these battles would again
marshal themselves and afflict the Gentiles "with a sore vexation," which connotes irritating them rather than doing physical harm. But the
more subdued conflict did not presage peace. Rather, it would be followed by bloodshed, famine, plague, earthquakes, and numerous
alarming events until "a full end of all nations" (D&C 87:6). The revelation was enough to frighten anyone who believed the day of the Lord
was coming quickly.
Joseph Smith immediately sent a letter to N. C. Saxton, publisher of a religious newspaper in Rochester, New York, warning of the coming
calamity. [21] He did not send a copy of the revelation with the letter. Brigham Young later recalled that "it was not wisdom to publish it
[the text of the revelation] to the world, and it remained in the private escritoire" (desk). [22] Joseph shared copies of the revelation with
some Church leaders, however. For example, he sent a copy to W W Phelps in Missouri; who took it seriously. Two of the earliest manuscripts
of this prophecy are in Phelps's handwriting. One copy occupies the first three pages of his journal.
W. W. Phelps's Influence as Publisher
Phelps came from a prominent abolitionist family in Canandaigua, New York, and had worked briefly on two newspapers, the Western
Courier and the Lake Light before starting his own newspaper the Ontario Phoenix in Canandaigua (1827-28). Phelps's
paper focused heavily on anti-Masonic issues which, in western New York, included a platform opposing slavery. Phelps printed articles in
all these papers critical of issues of slavery. He condemned the "West India Negro whip" used to punish slaves considering it "most appalling."
He also
__________
21 "To N. C. Saxton, 4 January 1833," in Dean C.Jessee, ed.,
Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, 294-98.
22 Brigham Young, May 20, 1860, Journal of Discourses, 8:58; see also Journal History, May 20, 1860.
180
Hearken, O Ye People
received Haitian newspapers -- the Port au Prince Telegraph and Feuille du Commerce -- papers typically reviewed by abolitionists. [23]
Although Phelps printed and reprinted articles in both Trumansburg and Canandaigua that dealt with black oppression, he seemed to distance
himself from these political issues after his conversion to Mormonism. He arrived in Kirtland on June 14, just after the June conference as
Joseph Smith was preparing to go to Missouri. [24] Joseph received a revelation (D&C 55) that same day in which the Lord promised that after
"my servant William" was baptized he was to be ordained an elder and have power to bestow the Holy Spirit on others. Accordingly Phelps
was baptized and presumably ordained two days later on June 16. [25] He left with Joseph Smith and others for Missouri on June 19 and arrived
in Independence on July 14. Phelps returned to Kirtland to retrieve his family and was ordained to the High Priesthood on October 1, 1831. [26]
He also acquired printing supplies and returned with his family that fall to Independence, Missouri, to set up a print shop in the ensuing months.
In June 1832, a year after the revelation sending him to Missouri, Phelps started the Upper Missouri Advertiserand printed the first issue of the
Church's paper, the Evening and the Morning Star. The Star, as its readers often called it, distributed religious material to a wide readership.
His material included revelations, portions of the Book of Mormon text, and letters from missionaries. In the paper's first issue, Phelps published
a revelation noting the "signs" of the coming of the Lord (D&C 45). [27] four months later, he noted under the banner heading "Signs of the Times"
that "our readers will expect from us, some of the signs of the times." [28] As examples, he included reports of plagues, burning buildings,
and a comet.
Phelps received a copy of the prophecy on war during the first few months of 1833; and although he did not publish the revelation -- apparently on
Joseph's instructions to withhold it -- he refocused at least some of the Star's editorial content. The June 1833 issue showed a marked interest
in the plight of blacks throughout the Americas. He published an article about two shiploads of slaves who were healthy when they landed in
Mantanzas, Cuba. Almost all of them died of cholera within a short period, seemingly a confirmation of Joseph Smith's concern about the disease.
Phelps warned that the plague would ruin the plantations. A second article lamented that the Caribbean island of St. Croix was almost ruined by
drought. A third noted that property had become worthless in Jamaica. A fourth article described earthquakes on the island of St. Christopher,
accompanied by the "distressing cries, and deafening screeches of the affrighted negroes." [29]
Phelps also paid some attention to signs of the times in other areas of the world (rebellion and cholera in Ireland and flooding and starvation in India),
but his focus was dearly on slaves in June 1833. Although the reading public did not know of the revelation predicting warfare, Phelps's selection of
news items showed an unusual interest in slavery. These, particular stories were not reprinted in typical American papers but can be found in
abolitionist newspapers such as the Liberator, [30] The "conspiracy of silence" that amounted to national denial on the issue of slavery had
developed, in part, because any discussions on slavery could quickly turn into a battle. As Weld had traveled through the countryside during the
summer of 1832, slave owners refused to discuss the issue anywhere their slaves might hear. Missouri was still stinging from the earlier battle of
words during 1819-21 that
__________
23 See these articles by Phelps: "West India Negro "Whip,"
Lake Light I, no. 2 (October 1827), 3;
"From Hayti," Lake Light I, no. 1
(October 10, 1827): 3. For additional hints of Phelps's opposition to slavery, see his announcement about a new newspaper: "Ontario Phoenix,
by W. W. Phelps & Co.," Lake Light I, no. 15
January 21, 1828): 3.
24 William Wine Phelps, "Letter to the Editor," Ontario Phoenix 7 (September 1831): 2.
25 W. W. Phelps, "Letter No. 6," Messenger and Advocate I, no. 7
(April 1835): 96-97. Donald Q Cannon and Lyndon
W. Cook, Far West Record:
Minutes of the Church if Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1844, 9, record that Phelps was ordained an elder on June 6. Since he arrived
after the June conference, he was more likely ordained on June 16, the day he was baptized. This would have been in accordance with the revelation
received (D&C 55:2).
26 Cannon and Cook, Far West Record, 13.
27 "A Prophecy Given to the Church of Christ," Evening and the Morning Star I, no. 1
(June 1832): 2.
28 W. W. Phelps, "Signs of the Times," Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 5 (October 1832): 38.
29 W. W. Phelps, "Sr. Christopher," Evening and the Morning Star 2, no. 13 (July 1833): 104.
30 The Liberator covered many of the same stories featured in Phelps's newspaper but did not include some of the details Phelps mentioned,
that another abolitionist paper was his likely source of information."Loss Occasioned by the Late Rebellion in Jamaica," Liberator 3, no. 12
(March 23, 1833): 45.
A New Understanding of the Gift of Tongues
181
had led to the Missouri Compromise. [31] Bitter campaigning by antislavery factions in Cape Girardeau, Jefferson, Lincoln, St. Louis, and Washington
counties in Missouri went down to defeat by a two-to-one margin. The small population in Jackson County supported slavery across the board until
Mormons started settling parts of the county in 1831. In 1832 Weld had one of his "disciples," Baptist minister and legislative Representative William
Carr Lane, introduce a resolution in the Missouri legislature proposing to repeal the clause in the state constitution that forbade the state from
interfering with the importation of slaves. [32] Missourians remained hyper-sensitive as Weld traveled through Jackson County and the surrounding
area promoting his ideas. The resolution started another verbal battle during the year but was solidly defeated. Now, just a year later, Mormons were
indirectly raising the issue of blacks again and, simultaneously, bringing the practice of speaking in tongues into the county from Kirtland.
After the Civil War when people looked on the past with fresh eyes, a newspaper editor asked Thomas Pitcher, the lieutenant colonel who, as acting
commander of the state militia, had led vigilante attacks against Mormon communities, if "the slavery question had anything to do with the difficulties
with the Mormons." Pitcher responded, "No, I don't think that matter had anything to do with it. The Mormons... did not interfere with the negroes
and we did not care whether they owned slaves or not." [33] After years of reflection, Protestant Missourians recognized that the troubles between
them and their Mormon Missourian neighbors centered largely on issues of religion.
However, the concerns they expressed at the time and the impressions they gave to the Mormon community were different. Mary Rollins, who was
thirteen when her family reached Missouri in fall of 1831, acknowledged in her old age that differences in religion played a central role in troubles
as did "our way of doing business" but in 1833, the Mormons were also opposed to slavery: "We did not believe in slavery, and they feared us on
that account, though we were counseled to have nothing to say to the slaves whatever, but to mind our own business." [34] Uneasiness gathered
for more than a year on a variety of issues, although glossolalia and Phelps's editorial focus on slavery seemed to provide the crisis points that
led local citizens to take action. Immediately after Phelps pulled his June 1833 issue off the press, a cross-section of angry neighbors organized
themselves to drive the Mormons from their community.
Citizens of Jackson County produced a manifesto to explain what drove them to decide to rid their community of the Mormons "peaceably if we
can, forcibly if we must." They noted: "More than a year since, it was ascertained that they [the Mormons] had been tampering with our slaves,
and endeavoring to sow dissensions and raise seditions amongst them.... In a late number of the Star, published in Independence by the leaders
of the sect, there is an article inviting free negroes and mulattoes from other states to become 'Mormons,' and remove and settle among us." [35]
The manifesto also condemned the Mormons for openly blaspheming God "by pretending to receive revelations direct from heaven, by pretending
to speak unknown tongues, by direct inspiration, and by divers[e] pretenses." [36] Although the Mormons had been receiving written revelations
from Kirtland since they began settling in the area, speaking tongues in Missouri was a phenomenon no
__________
31 The compromise actually included an important concession to antislavery forces. The constitution of Missouri, adopted in 1820, provided that
anyone who maliciously injured or killed a slave would be punished by law as though they had inflicted the injury on a white person, Alice Dana
Adams, The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America, 1808-1831, 52.
32 Merkel, The Anti-slavery Controvery in Missouri, 6, 8.
33 Colonel Thomas Pitcher, "Interview," Kansas City Journal,
June 19, 1881, 12. My thanks to Max Parkin for sharing this source.
34 Lightner, "Autobiography,'" 195.
35 History of the Church, 1:375; see Jan B. Shipps, "Second-Class Saints," 185, for a discussion of the editorial.
36 History of the Church, 1:375-76.
37 Ibid., 1:378-79.
182
Hearken, O Ye People
more than a few weeks old when the manifesto was written, but it already become a bone of local contention.
Subsequent events confirmed that this threat against the Mormon community was not idle. Phelps responded in the next edition of the paper under
"Free People of Color" that the Mormons had not invited free negroes and mulattoes to join the Church and dismissed the accusation as a "wicked
fabrication." [37] Colonel Pitcher's post-Civil War statement conceded that Phelps was right. Parley P. Pratt argued in 1839 that "one dozen free
negroes or mulattoes never belonged to our society in any part of the world, from its first organization to this day." [38] His argument was moot since
the charge was only that they had been "invited" to join. Pratt was also specifically addressing the law against free people of color coming into
Missouri and did not address proselyting among slaves at all. Missouri slaves obviously attended some of the preaching services where they were
treated as potential converts. Pratt's argument that fewer than one dozen free blacks had joined their movement meant little since there were scarcely
a dozen free blacks total in Jackson County, Missouri, and Geauga County, Ohio, where the Church was established; and he left the question of
converts among slaves entirely open.
Pratt made free blacks his focus because the compromise worked out between abolitionistsand Missouri over the previous decade included a
legislative provision making it illegal to bring free blacks into Missouri. The laws gave teeth to the accusations made against the Mormons. Because
the response focused on this legal issue, slaves who were listening to sermons in western Missouri were not part of the discussion, although they
were likely part of the eoncern. Since the Star encouraged Mormons in general to gather in "Missouri and since they had a specific commandment
to convert "both bond and free" (D&C 43:20), it was beyond debate that Mormons had not only been commanded to proselyte among blacks but
also that these black converts would gather to Missouri. The Mormon doctrine of gathering placed a high premium on moving to designated locations
while complex laws from state to state made it difficult for black converts anywhere in the nation to do so with ease. The doctrine of gathering as it
was developing could not be easily introduced in a nation marked by racial bigotry and oppression.
Local slaveholders reading of Phelps's "gratifying" and "marvelous" feelings about the "gathering of the Indians" taking place as the "remnants of
Joseph gather by hundreds and settle west of the Missouri" quite understandably saw this statement as an invitation to gather people of all races
to the Mormon Zion. [39] This impression would only have been underscored by the large portion of the June Star devoted to issues concerning
blacks and the fact that Phelps had recendy published the revelation commanding Mormons to do missionary work among both slaves and the free
(D&C 43:20). If local slaveholders read the Book of Mormon, they would have also found Nephi's words more radical than anything William Garrison,
Theodore Weld, or Fanny Wright were currently saying. Nephi claimed that the Lord "inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness;
and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike
unto God" (2 Ne. 26:33). Since even some of those opposed to slavery sided with slaveholders in agreeing that blacks did not have souls, [40]
__________
38 Parley P. Pratt, History of the Late Persecution lnflicted by the State of Missouri Upon the Mormons, 27.
39 William Wine Phelps, "The Indians,"
Evening and Morning Star 1, no. 5 (October [sic - Dec. ?] 1832): 54.
40 Basil Hall, Travels in North America, 1:29 30, 140 141.
A New Understanding of the Gift of Tongues
183
Nephi's assertion that "all are alike unto God" was strong doctrine in Missouri (2 Ne. 26:33; see also Moroni 8:17).
Even as Phelps vehemently denied breaking the law by inviting free black Mormons to gather to Missouri, he implied that his Missouri neighbors'
slaves were still targets for conversion. In the next issue of the paper, which came out in July, Phelps responded: "As to slaves, we have nothing
to say; in connection with the wonderful events of this age much is doing towards abolishing slavery, and colonizing the blacks in Africa." [41]
Those who had heard Weld the year before preaching the virtues of abolition and transporting freed slaves to Africa and had watched the resulting
battle in the state legislature must have been disturbed all over again by this Mormon editorial. Phelps's claim that abolishing slavery was to be
among "the wonderful events of this age" would have only confirmed these fears. Moreover, he even back-pedaled on the issue of free blacks,
arguing, "So long as we have no special rule in the Church as to free people of color, let prudence guide." [42] It did not require a vivid imagination
to see where prudence would lead Mormons from New England who "did not believe in slavery" and looked forward to its abolition.
The attempt of Mormons to establish a religious community in western Missouri's rough frontier was fraught with sharp religious competition,
imprudence, bravado, and numerous complex issues of cultural difference by both believers and non-believers. The tension between these two very
different groups in the community was like a keg of gunpowder beside a campfire. Phelps's enthusiasm for Joseph Smith's revelations and his
excitement about the community they sought to build in western Missouri influenced his choice of articles in his paper. July's edition has no day of
issue but came out early in the month. This issue of the Star was the spark that ignited the gunpowder of rising animosity.
Although the newspaper likely had a limited circulation among non-Mormons, its contents were apparently passed on as second-hand information
at intersections, smithies, and churches where details were easily exaggerated. The backlash was immediate and strongly negative. Phelps sensed
the anger of his neighbors and immediately attempted to soothe their feelings by printing the Evening and The Morning Star Extra on July 16, 1833.
This small handbill was designed to circulate widely so readers could have their own copy rather than rely on word of mouth. In it Phelps emphasized
his previous assertion that Mormons were law-abiding citizens who understood that it was against the law to bring free blacks into Missouri. He also
reversed the claim he made just days before that there was "no special rule in the Church as to free people of color" and articulated a new Church
policy without input from Kirtland. He insisted that "our intention" (speaking without authorization for the whole Latter-day Saint community) "was not
only to stop free people of color from emigrating to this state, but to prevent them from being admitted as members of the church." [43] This statement
contradicted his assertion made within the previous two weeks. Furthermore, this new policy wobbled inconsistently, since he again quoted his earlier
statement in the July Star. "In connexion with the wonderful events of this age, much is doing towards abolishing slavery." In other words, Phelps
indicated they were "determined to obey the laws and constitutions of our country" but that he had not been misunderstood about his opposition to
slavery. [44]
__________
41 William W. Phelps, "Free People of Color," Evening and Morning Star 2, no. 14,
(July 1833): 109.
42 Ibid.
43 W. W. Phelps, The Evening and the Morning Star Extra,
July 16, 1833.
44 Ibid.
184
Hearken, O Ye People
influenced his previous two issues of the newspaper but which had not yet been published. "We fear, lest, as has been the case, the blacks
should rise and spill innocent blood." This statement was a reinterpretation of the revelatory statement that read "after many days" (D&C 87:4)
to apply to the current situation. He apparently intended this statement to reduce the Missourians' concerns about how the Mormons might
influence blacks in western Missouri, but his praise of abolition and returning blacks to Africa as "wonderful events of this age" overshadowed
anything else he could say.
Phelps's hurried backtracking did not dampen rising opposition. He never even addressed speaking in tongues as an issue. Parley Pratt, who had
earlier had such a difficult time with religious enthusiasm in Kirtland, was now puzzled that others would be upset by this new manifestation of
"the doctrine of the New Testament." [45] Opponents did not confirm or deny that speaking in tongues was a part of New Testament Christianity;
but if they had exposure to the practice before June, it would have been limited to slaves in western Missouri who had brought religious enthusiasm
with them from the East. [46]
Four days after Phelps printed his attempt at a retraction in the Extra on July 16, a group of citizens estimated at three to five hundred gathered
in Independence, entered the newspaper office, seized all of the copies of the handbill and July issue still in the office, threw them into an old log
stable, and added the printed sheets of the revelations that would become the Book of Commandments, the fonts of type, and the press itself.
Twenty-one-year old member John Taylor (not the future Church president) reached through cracks between the logs and saved some of the printed
commandments at the risk of his own life. Two teenage sisters, Mary Elizabeth and Caroline Rollins, slipped into the printshop, gathered up additional
copies and hid in the nearby cornfield until their pursuers abandoned the search. None of them saved copies of the other materials. [47] The fact that
the slavery sympathizers destroyed the issue of the Evening and the Morning Star containing "Free People of Color" and the Extra handbill
intended to clarify Phelps's statements provides definite evidence that they did not find Phelps's explanations persuasive. Nor did this action relieve
tensions. Over the next four months, Jackson County's citizens drove 1,200 Mormons from their community.
The National Scene
According to one historian of the anti-abolitionist backlash in America, during this explosive summer and fall of 1833 "not only the abolitionists, but
also their contemporaries were convinced that a spirit of riot descended on the country." [48] Mob violence over slavery spread across the country
that year as tension over anti-slavery efforts increased. [49] In 1834, a "riot and outrage" broke out in Palmyra, New York, that one historian of slavery
has identified as a watershed event in the antislavery movement. [50] This "spirit of riot" even spread within the religious community. Among the
Methodists "the question of slave holding disturbed the peace and quietude of the Church as well as that of the State." [51] By 1840 this
__________
45 Pratt, History of the Late Persecution, 26.
46 Glossolalia appeared in white American communities during the 1840s, laying a foundation for the establishment of pentecostalism in the United
States in the 1870s. During each major expansion of the movement in mainstream America in the 1840s, 1870s, and finally in the 1910s, the practice
declined significantly within the LDS tradition, finally disappearing as a practice.
47 John Taylor, Statement, April 15, 1858; Lightner, "Autobiography," 196. No attempt was made to save copies of the handbills also being printed.
48 Leonard L. Richards, Gentlemen of Property and Standing: Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America, 7. Milton V. Backman,
The Heavens Resound: A History of the Latter-day Saints in Ohio
1830-1838, 332-33, documents several of these conflicts near Kirtland. Max H. Parkin, "The
Nature and Cause of Internal and External Conflict of the Mormons in Ohio between 1830 and 1838," 193-97, explores Kirtland's anti-abolitionist
stance and notes that conflicts with abolitionists became a regular part of local Ohio politics.
49 According to Richards, Gentlemen of Property and Standing, 10, abolitionists and their opponents "agreed that the upsurge of violence was the
inevitable result of organized antislavery. The abolitionists, it was commonly assumed, not only directly provoked slave insurrections, race riots, and
anti-abolitionist mobs, but also indirectly produced the tension that led to the mobbing of Mormons, Catholics ... and other outcasts."
50 John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans, 523, considered this riot of sufficient significance to note it in the
first edition of his monumental work but removed it from later editions. Marjory Allen Perez, Wayne County, New York historian, is currently writing
the definitive history of this event.
51 Isaac Lane, Autobiography of Bishop Isaac Lane with a Short History of the C. M. E. Church in America and of
Methodism, 31.
A New Understanding of the Gift of Tongues
185
conflict had grown so divisive that Methodists, meeting that year in their annual conference in New York, split into northern and southern factions.
In Ohio, Theodore Weld's ardent abolitionism also polarized his audiences. E. D. Howe claimed that Painesville town leaders unjusdy accused Weld
of sowing discord and anarchy. However, as Weld promoted radical abolitionism in Painesville in the late summer of 1835, Howe documented the
resulting backlash: Mobs and riots became "fashionable against the promulgation of anti-slavery sentiments." [52] The judge, local sheriff, and other
prominent Painesville town leaders felt compelled to ask Weld to leave town to preserve the peace. He went to Chardon where he was refused
permission to speak. Weld became involved with the Lane Seminary in Cincinnatti where Harriet Beecher Stowe lived with her father, Lyman Beecher.
Weld encouraged Stowe to draw on her experiences in Ohio to eventually write her influential Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).
In January 1836, Oliver Cowdery, who almost certainly had heard some of Weld's lectures in Painesville if not in Kirtland, attended the Democratic
Party Convention in Columbus, Ohio, as a delegate. There he found even more diverse approaches to slavery. Benjamin Tappan, a sixty-two-year-old
lawyer, led out in his speech about banks, slavery, and other burning issues in Ohio. In public, Benjamin Tappan took a tolerant stance toward slavery.
He promoted banking as the real issue that could change American life and provide solace to slaves and other oppressed groups. [53] Nevertheless,
this is exactly the perspective that Tappan promoted; it was also the position accepted by many of the Democrats at their national convention. Oliver
Cowdery apparently adopted a similar approach as that of his fellow politicians. (See chap. 33.) Ultimately, Benjamin Tappan's public stance was an
argument of reason, making the case that his abolitionist brothers would do more good by pushing for progressive improvement for all rather than
trying to abolish slavery.
Tappan's private views were very different. His younger brothers, Arthur and Lewis, were leading abolitionists whose writings were read widely across
the country. Benjamin considered the Bible "all damned nonsense" and took a more violent approach to ending slavery than his ministerial brothers.
When Benjamin Peers, a member of the American Colonization Society, came stumping through Ohio to gather signatures for a petition to urge
Congress to send blacks to Africa, he found Tappan in Steubenville. Peers was able to get the local congressman, editors of both newspapers, four
clergymen, two physicians, and all the leading lawyers to sign his petition. Tappan not only refused to sign but chastised Peers and announced "with
an oath he wished the negroes would cut the throats of every rascal of their masters." [54] Tappan had even applauded the 1831 uprising of Nat Turner
that had resulted in the massacre of fifty-five white men, women, and children. Most whites, regardless of their stance on the issues of slavery, flinched
with horror at the event, but Tappan offered to provide guns to slaves who would try again. [55]
Benjamin Tappan's explosively violent private stance to abolition becomes even more complicated when exploring the motivation behind various positions
toward slavery. The motives of abolitionists among Ohio's Democrats "have been mercilessly dissected," by modern historians, according to Daniel
Feller, "and found to be less antislavery than antisouthern, antislaveholder, and antiblack." Feller notes that George Fitzhugh, an antebellum Virginia
__________
52 E. D. Howe, Autobiography and Recollections of a Pioneer Printer,
49-51.
53 Daniel Feller, "A Brother in Arms: Benjamin Tappan and the Antislavery Democracy," 53.
54 Address Delivered by Benj. Tappan, Esq., on the Celebration of the Eighth of January, 1828, at Columbus, Ohio, frames 275-76.
55 Ibid.
186
Hearken, O Ye People
lawyer, argued in 1857 that "'hatred to slavery is very generally little more than hatred of negroes,' and many historians today would incline to
agree." [56] Oliver Cowdery found himself among Jacksonian Democrats that modern scholars see as hoth anti-black and overtly anti-Indian:" [57]
While Oliver Cowdery's religion encouraged proselyting among the "bond," it centered on pro-Indian relations; and Oliver had spent years concerned
with the cultural and religious world of Native Americans. The convention seemed to strengthen Oliver's uneasiness with the radical position of
Benjamin Tappan and some other abolitionists.
It is not clear which views Oliver Cowdery heard at the convention -- whether he encountered only the public stance that ended up in newspapers
and political declarations or whether he also knew something of his political colleagues' private views. However, coming on the heels of violence in
Missouri and his recent experience in Ohio's Democratic Party Convention, Oliver Cowdery's return from Columbus coincided with a noticeable
shift in policy in Latter-day Saint writings on slavery from those of Phelps's earlier Missouri articles. In October 1835, three months before he left
for Columbus, Oliver Cowdery, as editor of Kirtland's newspaper, the Northern Times, had announced: "Abolition does hardIey belong to law or
religion, politics or gospel, according to our idea on the subject." [58] This almost dismissive statement toward the issue was similar to the public
stance of most of his colleagues at the Democratic Party Convention.
Oliver left on January 3, 1836, for the Democratic Party Convention in Columbus and returned less than two weeks later. [59] His experience had
been so confrontive that he immediately published an editorial on abolitionism "to prevent any misunderstanding on the subject." Although the
Northern Times was independent from the Church newspaper in Kirtland, the Messenger and Advocate, Cowdery's opinion still carried heavy
weight as he stated flatly: "We are opposed to abolition, and whatever is calculated to disturb the peace and harmony of our Constitution and
country." [60] This editorial marked an explicit rejection of Weld, Tappan, and others promoting increased agitation; but it also marked a rejection
of milder antislavery efforts in the region.
Oliver Cowdery feared the pending violence that Joseph Smith's revelation had prophesied, that Phelps had warned about, and that Oliver's associates
at the convention had encouraged. He noted in his journal on February 2, 1836: "I finished the selections for this week's [Northern] Times, and wrote
a short article on the present agitating question of Slavery and antislavery. There is a hostile spirit exhibited between the North and South, and ere
long must make disturbances of a serious nature. If the North says that slavery is unjust the South says, you are endangering our lives, and we
will not endure it." [61]
The serious disturbances that Oliver foresaw concerned him enough that he wrote another editorial on slavery two days later. After recording that
activity in his journal, he added a short prayer: "Our country is agitated, & many look with anxious eyes for coming events. May the Lord preserve
his people. Amen." [62] The pending troubles foreseen in Joseph Smith's December 1832 prophecy on war seem to have influenced general concerns
about the role abolitionism would play in those coming troubles. Cowdery's concern about issues of slavery disturbing the peace apparently influenced
his perspective about the future of the nation and his approach to the issue. It would soon divide whole religious communities.
__________
56 Feller, "A Brother in Arms," 49.
57 See Michael Paul Rogin, Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subugation if the American indian; Edward Pessen, Jacksonian
America: Society, Personality, and Politics; Leonard L. Richards, "The Jacksonians and Slavery," 99-118.
58 Oliver Cowdery, "Abolition," Northern Times 1, no. 28
(October 9, 1835): 2. By "our," he was using the
editorial "we," not speaking for all Mormons.
59 Leonard J. Arrington, "Oliver Cowdery's Kirtland, Ohio 'Sketch Book,'" 414.
60 Oliver Cowdery, "Abolition," Northern Times 1, no. 42 (January 13, 1836): 1.
61 Oliver Cowdery, Diary, February 2, 1836; emphasis his.
62 Cowdery, Diary, February 4, 1836.
A New Understanding of the Gift of Tongues
187
A year later on May 30, 1837, a Latter-day Saint in Kirtland wrote a letter summarizing what appears to have become a widespread perception
that slavery was bad but that the potential destruction that would accompanying opposition to it was worse: "Slavery!!! This curse will wipe [sic]
our nation, but why complain while we, we are but slaves to bad legislation. Better that the black should remain slaves than to have Civil War,
the horror of war!!" [63] Ohio became a hotbed of turmoil during this same period. Inconsequential issues seemed to set off a firestorm that
could quickly threaten lives. James Birney, a thirty-threeyear- old Kentucky printer, began his abolitionist paper, the Philanthropist in Cincinnati,
Ohio, in January 1836. It quickly reached a circulation of 12,000. [64] During the summer of 1836, an angry mob threw his newspapers into
the streets and his press into the river. That same year, Missourians, who had already suppressed Phelps's Mormon paper, drove Presbyterian
printer Elijah Lovejoy out of the state. He had been publishing articles urging gradual abolitionism since the summer of 1833 when the
Mormons were expelled from Independence. Lovejoy responded with a brief lecture tour, which included Kirtland. He moved to Illinois and
adopted a harder line, promoting immediate abolition. Mobs destroyed three consecutive presses, then killed him in November 1837.
In the wake of Elijah Lovejoy's agitation in Kirtland, Joseph Smith wrote a letter to Oliver Cowdery published in the Messenger and Advocate
in April 1836. Joseph Smith stresses that his response is principally due to a desire to protect members and missionaries in the South "having
learned, by experience, that the enemy of truth does not slumber nor cease his exertions to bias the minds of communities against the
servants of the Lord, by stiring up the indignation of men upon all matters of importance or interest." [65] The experience Joseph mentions
was principally the response in Missouri in which slavery issues became a pretext for violence on larger religious issues. Joseph Smith feared
that, if it became known that Lovejoy spoke in Kirtland, the Latter-day Saints might be targeted for the same kinds of violent response that they
had received earlier and which was even then building to a crescendo that would lead to Lovejoy's death eighteen months later. Joseph was
concerned "that the sound might go out, that 'an abolitionist' had held forth several times to this community, and that the public feeling was not
aroused to create mobs or disturbances, leaving the impression that all he said was concurred in, and received as gospel and the word of
salvation." [66]
Although Joseph acknowledged that they had not mobbed Lovejoy, he also added they had primarily gone about their business and that the
visiting gentleman spoke to "nearly naked walls." Joseph Smith then recapitulated scriptures showing that righteous individuals such as Shem
and Abraham had bond servants nor did the New Testament apostles condemn slavery among early members. His argument did not support
slavery. Joseph acknowledged that he did not know the "design of the Almighty" in allowing slavery among his early worshippers but concluded:
"This people [anciently] were led and governed by revelation and if such a law [allowing slavery] was wrong God only is to be blamed, and
abolitionists are not responsible." [67] Joseph expressed considerable concern that missionaries not be "found stirring up strife and sedition
against our brethren in the South" by preaching on slavery. "All men are to be taught to repent; but we have no right to interfere
__________
63 George Wilson, "Letter, May 30, 1837."
64 W. Sherman Savage, The Controversy over the Distribution of Abolition literature, 1830-1860, 96.
65 Joseph Smith, "Brother O. Cowdery," Messenger and Advocate, 11, no. 7 (April 1836): 289.
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid.
188
Hearken, O Ye People
with slaves contrary to the mind and will of their masters. In fact, it would be much better and more prudent, not to preach at all to slaves,
until after their masters are converted." [68]
The violence foretold in Joseph Smith's revelation on war suggested to Kirtland's residents that the resolution on slavery would not be as
easy as the gradual emancipation that New York had legislated in 1827. Mormon concern about rising violence in the wake of their own
expulsion from Missouri and their fear (at least among those who knew about it) that Joseph Smith's prophecy on war predicted a coming
civil war over slavery does not excuse the Latter-day Saints for increasingly distancing themselves from such a significant political and
humanitarian issue as slavery; however, it helps explain their muted response. Joseph Smith's editorial urging a withdrawal from preaching
to slaves (but not from addressing free people of color) was intended to protect members and missionaries alike from violence, thus allowing
the gospel to go forth despite the rising tide of violence on the issue of slavery.
Although Joseph Smith's Christmas 1832 revelation was the only one to address slavery specifically, Black Pete's presence in the Mormonite
community raised numerous other questions about gifts of the Spirit and discerning the things of God that provided a revelatory response.
These revelations continue to provide spiritual insight and answer additional questions within the Latter-day Saint tradition today. After modern
revelation had completely transformed the Morley Family in Kirtland, Black Pete disappeared from the community sometime between 1831
and 1834. On March 3, 1837 Joseph Smith Sr., father of the Prophet, ordained a former slave, Elijah Abel, an elder. [69] Abel continued to
play a role in the community for the rest of the century and was probably its best-known black Latter-day Saint. Other black Latter-day Saints
also contributed to the early development of the Restoration. However, it seems likely that none of them had as much influence on the early
development of the movement as Black Pete.
__________
68 Ibid., 290.
69 For insights into Elijah Abel's life and ministry, see Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The
Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism. Any attempt to understand the Book of Mormon and early Latter-day
Saints in terms of perceptions of race must be done within an increasingly complex understanding that
virtually all whites in Jacksonian America of whatever political persuasion held racist notions. The historiography
of white anti-slavery over the past several decades has dramatically shifted our understanding of motives.
According to teller, "A Brother in Arms," 49-50, as new data surfaced, "scholars recoiled from their discovery
of unaltruistic and impure motives, including sectional and partisan resentments, economic self-interest, and
racism .... Our understanding of white antislavery has metamorphosed from affirming its moral and humane
wellsprings to qualifying them to denying them outright. We have gone from conceding that the aims of a David
Wilmot or an Abraham Lincoln or even a William Lloyd Garrison were not all we might have thought to avowing
that they were not at all what we thought. Whiteness, not antislavery, now becomes the legitimizing
construct connecting Jackson's Democracy to Lincoln's Republicanism. Republicans in 1860 meant to defend
whiteness rather than challenge slavery."
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