As part of #BlackHistoryMonth, we continue our conversation with Margaret Young and she tells about her attempts to get her play about black Mormon Pioneer Jane Manning James televised, (don’t forget to check out part 1 of our conversation), but the project was quashed as some executives were concerned about the topic, despite Jane’s faithfulness to the end of her life.

Margaret also discusses ways she and her family have tried to combat racism in her life, including a disappointing experience with a seminary teacher.  She talks about her experiences learning about the lifting of the ban in 1978, and, when asked about what we can learn from Jane’s life, says

“I want Jane’s story to be certainly an example how far we still need to come.  If there are people who regard blacks as less than, their hearts must change.  Jane is an example of one who persevered through trials that we could hardly imagine, and did it through her relationship with God and praised God throughout.”

Listen in, and find out who we will be talking to next!

If you’re interested in a transcript, click here!  (You can also get one for your Kindle at Amazon.com!)

I’m excited to post our first podcast!  I interviewed Margaret Young, a professor of English and Literature at BYU on the life of black Mormon Pioneer Jane Manning James.  Listen to Margaret describe Jane’s conversion in Wilton, Connecticut, Jane’s travel by foot to Nauvoo, and her intimate relationship with every prophet from Joseph Smith through her death under President Wilford Woodruff.  Especially interesting is Jane’s unusual sealing to the Prophet Joseph.  It’s a truly inspiring tale, and I thank Margaret for sitting down with me to discuss Jane’s life.  I hope you’ll come back when I post part 2 of our discussion with Margaret about her experiences dealing with race.

I’d also like to invite you to support our work.  This podcast is just a part of what we’re trying to put together here at Gospel Tangents.  We’d like to put together some high quality documentaries about Mormon history, and need your support.  You can support us in a few different ways:

* Become a monthly subscriber at our website, GospelTangents.com. This will help us put together high quality interviews for documentaries on Mormon History.  We’re trying to follow the admonition in Doctrine & Covenants 88:18 to teach “out of the best books … by study and also by faith.”  Donate any amount you feel comfortable.

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* If you are an artist or a musician, we’re looking for artwork and music to describe the stories you’re hearing on this podcast for future documentaries. Please reach out to us.  We’d love to partner up to create multimedia resources to better learn our wonderful Mormon History!

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Thanks again for listening, and we hope you’ll continue to support our work here at Gospel Tangents!  Do you have any questions for me or Margaret?

As we mentioned before, the Danites were initially aimed at dissenters within Mormonism.  When did they turn outward toward Missouri troubles?  Historian Steve LeSueur answers that question.

https://youtu.be/GoQg5uki2PQ

Missourians Worry about Danites

Steve: On the one hand, although we can't pinpoint, for sure, "Well, this is the point." In August, at the Gallatin Election Battle, as we call it, that's where the Danites, in Daviess County, come together to fight the Missourians. There was a man by the name of William Peniston, who was running for office. He was a Whig running for a state representative. He wanted the Mormons vote. He campaigned heavily among the Mormons to get their vote. I think the Mormons maybe had about a third of the votes in in Daviess County, so, it was important to get them.  But the Mormons were by and large Democrats. So, they weren't going to support him. Once he figured that out, that he wasn't going to get it, he and some of his supporters went to Gallatin and tried to stop the Mormons from voting there.

GT:  Because, they were supposed to stay in Caldwell County.

Steve:  Yes. I'm sure he would have been fine with the Mormons staying in Daviess, had they voted for him. I mean, that's my opinion.

GT:  Right.

Steve:  The sticking point, at least for him, right then, was, he wasn't getting their votes.

GT:  So, "I don't want you voting for my opponent."

Steve:  In any case, before the vote started, and it appears that they had a voting booth, a building they went into.  They probably went in and by voice vote, just said who they were going to vote for. So, before the poll opened, he liberally passed out the drinks to his supporters and then started bullying one of the Mormons, or one of his supporters did.  When a couple of Mormons tried to step in, then more Missourians started clubbing them and then John Butler, seeing this, gave the Danites' signal of distress and recognition and said, "Come on Danites. I've got a job for you." John D. Lee, who was there, a Danite, said he didn't know who John Butler was, but he recognized the Danite signal of distress there. And all of a sudden, all of these Mormons converged and, although they were outnumbered, were able to essentially hold their own and drive the non-Mormon brawlers from the field.

Check out our conversation….

Following the Kirtland Bank failure in Ohio, Joseph Smith fled Kirtland and came to Missouri. Then things started to fall apart there as well.  Historian Steve LeSueur talks about both Missouri vigilante mobs, as well as the Danites, an extra-legal force with at first was designed to keep Mormons in check.

https://youtu.be/HQ-vH4ysDtQ

Danites

GT:  Well, that's why I want to get my time period right. So, Joseph came to town. The Danites form. [They] kick Oliver, and the Whitmers out, basically. So, at this point, the Danites were only going after former Mormons, like Oliver.  Is that right? They weren't going after Missourians yet.

Steve:  Correct. They were strongly encouraging Mormons, so not dissenters, but, they were encouraging all the other Mormons to comply with Joseph's revelations and directions. So, throughout July, this is what they were doing, this encouraging, which, again, some Mormons felt was a little too strong.

GT:  But, this was raising concerns among Missourians.

Steve:  Yes, it was starting to.  At what point it started to, I don't think, to my knowledge, not in July.

---

Steve:  Alright, the Danites form. To our knowledge, Joseph has nothing to do with the forming of the Danites. But the question is, does he approve or disapprove of what they did? This is the first thing to look at. As we know, the Danites formed. They drove the dissenters out of Far West. He had no problem with that, and, in fact, this was in June, that they're driven out. At the Fourth of July celebration in Far West, the Danite generals, Sampson Avard and, I think, Elias Higbee, and maybe another, they sat on the reviewing stand with Joseph Smith, as honored guests. They were identified as Danite generals. The Danites marched in the parade. So, clearly, Joseph approves of who they are and what they're doing. Some of his most loyal followers joined the Danites, both in Far West and then later in in Adam- ondi-Ahman. So, does Joseph have any reason to disapprove of these people there? They are his loyal followers. They are enforcing orthodoxy. Among the things that the Danites tried to do was to get the Mormons to obey the law of consecration.

Steve:  Then, later, in the election, they [the Danites] went to the First Presidency to draw up a list of candidates to vote for and then after the First Presidency chose the list. The Danites went out and distributed the ticket to the Mormons in Caldwell County. So, was Joseph the leader of them, telling them that? To our knowledge, or rather from sources, just about every source agrees that in these early days, it was Sampson Avard, who was the main leader, and that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, went into one or two meetings, and spoke to them and endorsed what the Danites were doing. So, was he the leader? Well, their purpose was to obey Joseph.  Their purpose was to enforce his policies. So, the question of, was he the leader? Did he direct them on everything that they did? Probably not. But he was the person they looked up to and were trying to enforce his policy.

How involved was Joseph with the Danites? Check out our conversation….

After Joseph Smith declared that the New Jerusalem would be built in Jackson County, Missouri, the saints were kicked out of the county. How much of a role did that play in later hostilities? Historian Steve LeSueur says that things were relatively peaceful between 1834-1838, in large part due to the perceived Caldwell County compromise.  But did Mormons really agree to it?

https://youtu.be/WUh0CQLXAL4

1832 Jackson County

GT:  The one thing I noticed about your book is you focus a lot on--what, about 1836-1838 onward? You kind of briefly mentioned what happened in 1832 in Jackson County, Missouri. I kind of think that played a big part in the Mormon reactions, especially in 1838. Do you want to give us a little bit of background on 1832, first, and then we'll dive in?

Steve:  Well, okay.  I guess, I'll just say, briefly, that the Mormons identified Jackson County, Missouri as their place of gathering to create Zion, as in the upcoming last days.  After a time, the Jackson County citizens decided, "No, we don't want the Mormons here and drove them out." The Mormons did nothing wrong. They tried to obey what the local authorities wanted them to do. One of them, which was, "Alright, both sides, let's give up your guns."  The Mormons did and the anti-Mormon vigilantes did not, and they got driven out of Jackson County.

Caldwell County Compromise

Steve: So, the crux of the conflict, the sticking point for Missourians, was their belief that the Mormons, in the creation of Caldwell County, the Mormons had agreed only to settle there.

GT:  Okay. So, if Caldwell County had been larger, would there have been an issue? Do you think the Mormons would have agreed to stay within that larger County?

Steve: That's a good question. I don't know. All of this is somewhat vague or ambiguous, this idea of this agreement, because first of all, I found nothing, no mention of an agreement in any Mormon source whatsoever.

...

GT:  Well, I know Dr. Alex Baugh had mentioned that he viewed it as kind of like an Indian reservation, the Mormon reservation, that this county was for, at least from the Missouri perspective, this county was for Mormons and stay out of everywhere else in the state. Is that a good representation?

Steve:  Yes, and I would say yes, though, it was, again, vague in that.  At the time, the Mormons were negotiating for Caldwell and that would have included what became Daviess County. Mormons were soon settling in Daviess County. This is John Butler, and later, Lyman Wight.  They went up there and the Daviess County citizens, some of them did immediately protest and say, "We don't want Mormons here. You should leave." The Mormons didn't leave. Eventually, it died down. Mormons kept coming and they became integrated, somewhat, into Daviess County. That is, the local store owner in Gallatin, a man named Jacob Stollings, sold them goods on credit, and they got help with their crops.  They became great friends with this guy, Josiah Moran, who became a state senator from there.  He helped them on a number of occasions.  So, they sort of became integrated, and the furor whatever it had been died down. So, they were fine there. My interpretation, or my belief, is that as long as the Mormons largely confined themselves to Caldwell, and they were just sort of scattering in other places, the Missourians seemed to be fine. It was when large-scale settlements started moving into places that the Missourians got nervous. So, that's why--is it this reservation? They could only settle there, nowhere else?  Sort of, but you know...

GT:  But, if they kept their numbers small Missourians wouldn't have said anything. But it was when they started getting big in other counties, that's when Missourians started to protest.

Steve:  Yes. In my book, what I tried to focus on was here we had in the e...

I’m excited to introduce historian Steve LeSeuer. Back in 1987, Steve wrote an amazing book called The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri. It won the best book award for the Mormon History Association.  We’ll get more acquainted with Steve and learn more about his background.  I was surprised to find out he was mapping Mormon history sites in Missouri as an undergrad.

https://youtu.be/TzwkAEfb5-Y

Mapping Mormon History

Steve :  I was looking for all of the references to Adam's Altar, because, as you might know, listeners might know, that Lamar Barrett, one of his chief interests was Mormon history, geography, places and, he was interested in all the places in Mormon history and descriptions of them and he has written books.

GT:  So, this is non-Book of Mormon geography.

Steve:  Yes, this is real history.

Steve:  Your listeners will like that, but, anyway, this was real history, and real places. I take that back, it's real history as much as Adam's altar, can be real history. But it was, at least the Mormons who settled there thought--they heard Joseph describe some stones as Adam's Altar. So, we were interested in, "Well, where was this?"  The descriptions, themselves, were quite different. Some people remembered, "Oh, yeah, there were these stones, and they were all set up together and in an altar.  Others said, "Well, no, they were just scattered stones, but they had once been an altar." So, the remembrances were quite a bit different, as well as the descriptions of some of the places.  But Lamar didn't care. He was just interested in, "What do we know? What did they say?"

GT:  (Chuckling)

Steve: So, it was a good start. From there, after I was finished with that, Lamar just me on for the whole year doing research in other topics, and including, in the summer, we went out and Lamar rented a BYU station wagon. He and I and Leland Gentry, and Max Parkin and Linden Cook, who was teaching at BYU at the time, and was also interested in Missouri history, the five of us drove out to Missouri.  [We] went through the archives and county records and things there, places there, for two weeks doing research on the Missouri period. So, that was my background.  After I finished that, I moved to the east. That's why, when I did my master's program, and it came time to write a thesis, I thought, "Well, here's something I know a little bit about, so I'll write about that."

Writing the Book

Steve:  I went and did my research at various county and libraries in Missouri. Then, in the evening, I'd drive back to Bill [Russell]'s house. [Bill is Community of Christ historian.] He'd get out the popcorn. He had one of those air poppers. He'd make some popcorn, and we'd sit around and talk Mormon history for a couple hours before it was time for bed. I did that for at least a week at his house. It was just a lot of fun.

GT: Bill is a riot. People will love him. I need to get him on my podcast, too. Well, cool. Then, let's talk a little bit about the movie, before we dive into your book.  The movie was called Trouble in Zion. Kenny Ballentine's a friend of mine. I just kind of happened across him at the LDS Film Festival here in Orem, Utah. Tell us about your role there in the in the movie?

Steve: Well, let's see.  Basically, I answered questions, like I'm doing now. I talked about my book, but also my interpretations of the events there. Hopefully, you'll give me a chance to talk about some of those. But, in any case, I just talked about my view of what the causes of trouble were, and how the events unfolded as they did. Also, I had a few, and still have a few disagreements with some Mormon historians about interpretation of some of these events.

GT:  Right. That's what we want to talk about. I've had Dr.

Some LDS scholars get in trouble with Church authorities: Michael Quinn, Maxine Hanks, Lester Bush, to name a few.  Yet others like Dr. Richard & Claudia Bushman can write about controversial topics and not get into trouble.  Why is that?  I asked Richard & Claudia their answers to these questions.

https://youtu.be/9i2O-iXpHIM

Scholars Get in Trouble

GT:  So, I have a question for both of you, especially because you know Leonard Arrington and you know, Eugene England. I look at people like Lowry Nelson. I don't know if you knew him, from Utah State. Even, Lester Bush, it seems like certain people get in trouble. Michael Quinn is another one. [They] get in trouble for writing certain things. But there's other people like you two, Greg Prince, Terryl Givens, people like that, that can write very similar things, but you don't get in trouble. Can you talk about why some people get in trouble? Some people don't.  Do you toe the line better than Michael Quinn? How does that work? Or is it just luck of the draw? Or how does that work when you talk about sensitive issues with the Church?

Richard:  Well, it's a good question. My slogan is keep your heart pure, and let your mind run free.

Richard:  That is, if you can purge out any desire to tweak the Church, to sort of correct the Church, and just desire to really say what you believe is true. That's hard to do. A lot of people think they're doing that. But, you can always sense in their writings, a desire to trouble people. I wouldn't say that's true for everyone who gets in trouble, but I'm just saying, you have to have a good attitude. Then, in my case, of course, I was taking all the Church jobs that came along. So, the fact that I was a bishop and stake president and now I'm a patriarch, sort of reassures people that my heart is in the right place. Because I think that's what the Church leaders are most interested in. Are you really loyal to the Church? And that's a hard thing to judge. Probably, people are misjudged on that count. But, that's what I have to say on that subject.

GT:  Does it help that you didn't live in Utah? Did you have a little bit of a buffer, because you were in Boston and New York?

Richard:  Yes, it helps a lot. The trouble is, if you live in Utah, you write, aware of General Authorities looking over your shoulder. You can't do that.  You can't write to please the General Authorities. You've got to write what you think is true. It's just very hard to do in Utah, because there's such a presence. You say you're writing a book, or doing this or doing that, and they always want to know, “What do the brethren think?” And if you just get that in your head all the time, it's very hard to think clearly. So, I've done most of my writing in Boston and New York, and it's been much easier. Also, when I write, I don't I write just for the Church. I always write for people outside the Church. I always want to talk in a way that--I often imagine myself giving a talk to the faculty at Colombia, and what could I say about the Church, say it in a way that would make sense to them. So, it helps that way, too, to be in another society where you're aware of other demands.

Claudia's Thoughts

GT:  Claudia, do you have any thoughts there?

Claudia:  Well, I think--I'll do anything if they tell me straight out that I'm not supposed to do something. I won't do it, and that's happened a few times. But, I don't think that--I have never been in the business of criticizing the Church. I don't want to try and reform it. I don't threaten to leave if they don't do something or other. That doesn't mean I agree with everything that goes on, but, I just think there is no point in fighting authority in that way. So, I just don't do that. I know there are a lot of people that are dubious of the things I say and do. But, on the other hand,

Some LDS scholars get in trouble with Church authorities: Michael Quinn, Maxine Hanks, Lester Bush, to name a few.  Yet others like Dr. Richard & Claudia Bushman can write about controversial topics and not get into trouble.  Why is that?  I asked Richard & Claudia their answers to these questions.

Scholars Get in Trouble

GT:  So, I have a question for both of you, especially because you know Leonard Arrington and you know, Eugene England. I look at people like Lowry Nelson. I don’t know if you knew him, from Utah State. Even, Lester Bush, it seems like certain people get in trouble. Michael Quinn is another one. [They] get in trouble for writing certain things. But there’s other people like you two, Greg Prince, Terryl Givens, people like that, that can write very similar things, but you don’t get in trouble. Can you talk about why some people get in trouble? Some people don’t.  Do you toe the line better than Michael Quinn? How does that work? Or is it just luck of the draw? Or how does that work when you talk about sensitive issues with the Church?

Richard:  Well, it’s a good question. My slogan is keep your heart pure, and let your mind run free.

Richard:  That is, if you can purge out any desire to tweak the Church, to sort of correct the Church, and just desire to really say what you believe is true. That’s hard to do. A lot of people think they’re doing that. But, you can always sense in their writings, a desire to trouble people. I wouldn’t say that’s true for everyone who gets in trouble, but I’m just saying, you have to have a good attitude. Then, in my case, of course, I was taking all the Church jobs that came along. So, the fact that I was a bishop and stake president and now I’m a patriarch, sort of reassures people that my heart is in the right place. Because I think that’s what the Church leaders are most interested in. Are you really loyal to the Church? And that’s a hard thing to judge. Probably, people are misjudged on that count. But, that’s what I have to say on that subject.

GT:  Does it help that you didn’t live in Utah? Did you have a little bit of a buffer, because you were in Boston and New York?

Richard:  Yes, it helps a lot. The trouble is, if you live in Utah, you write, aware of General Authorities looking over your shoulder. You can’t do that.  You can’t write to please the General Authorities. You’ve got to write what you think is true. It’s just very hard to do in Utah, because there’s such a presence. You say you’re writing a book, or doing this or doing that, and they always want to know, “What do the brethren think?” And if you just get that in your head all the time, it’s very hard to think clearly. So, I’ve done most of my writing in Boston and New York, and it’s been much easier. Also, when I write, I don’t I write just for the Church. I always write for people outside the Church. I always want to talk in a way that–I often imagine myself giving a talk to the faculty at Colombia, and what could I say about the Church, say it in a way that would make sense to them. So, it helps that way, too, to be in another society where you’re aware of other demands.

Claudia’s Thoughts

GT:  Claudia, do you have any thoughts there?

Claudia:  Well, I think–I’ll do anything if they tell me straight out that I’m not supposed to do something. I won’t do it, and that’s happened a few times. But, I don’t think that–I have never been in the business of criticizing the Church. I don’t want to try and reform it. I don’t threaten to leave if they don’t do something or other. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything that goes on, but, I just think there is no point in fighting authority in that way. So,

We’re continuing our conversation with Dr’s Richard & Claudia Bushman. I asked Claudia more about her writings on women in church history.

https://youtu.be/IJ5apI0bq_c

Women in History

Claudia:  When I went to graduate school, I decided that I was going to do a study of women.  I was the first person that ever had thought of that to myself.  Now, of that, I don't really say I was THE pioneer, but here I was, a woman, women didn't get that much attention in the past. Alright, I'm meant to think about women and ordinary women, women that were like me, and I could use my own experience as a housewife and the kinds of things I'd done, that would give me a measure against those. So, in this American Studies program, it was quite possible to do that. The first thing I studied with any kind of seriousness was mill girls in early New England. I studied them because they were the first sort of regularly paid working women in the country. They were really interesting. One of the people that wrote the best book about mill girls, from her own experience, turned out to have a whole slew of papers in the library that was nearby me, near enough so that I could take my little boy to nursery school in the morning, go to this library and work for a few hours. Then I'd go pick him up and become a housewife for the rest of the day. So, I wrote my dissertation about her, Harriet Hanson Robinson, who's a person that you never would have heard of her, though she was sort of a second / third-rate level feminist and well-known in Boston at the time. So that's the kind of thing I'd do. But, it's because of all these other circumstances that it worked to put it together. When I was in graduate school, I also wanted to learn how to do women's work. So, I did things like, grow and process flax.  I learned to spin and weave. I made cheese and soap, all that kind of thing, and all that sort of thing of the past, that I was really glad to know how to do. I'm very glad I didn't have to do it.

GT:  Soap making is dangerous, isn't it?

Claudia:  Oh, yeah, you can do all kinds of harm with those things. But, anyway, that's the sort of thing.  So, I did that book on Harriett Hanson Robinson. It was called A Good Poor Man's Wife. At the same time, I was just editing this book for Mormon sisters, for my Exponent II book. So, suddenly, I had two books out. From then I could do anything I wanted. So, I just did the things that came into my hands. As I say, I wrote a book about Columbus.  The title is America Discovers Columbus: How an Italian Explorer Became an American Hero.  It's Richard's title. I think it's pretty good title.

GT:  Yes.

Christopher Columbus

Claudia:  But, the story of how Columbus becomes famous in this nation is unknown. It isn't from the very beginning. This was always a country that was from England. But, at the time of the revolution, Columbus was rediscovered by America to be the grandfather of the country. George Washington is the father, but Columbus is the grandfather of this country. Of course, then, all kinds of wonderful things are said about Plymouth. A lot of them were discovered to be somewhat false. So, they made a lot of Columbus that he didn't deserve. So, what I say is that he didn't volunteer for this, he can't be too mad at him for being treated well in the past, because he was drafted for that job.

Have you read Claudia's books?  Do you agree with her about Columbus? Check out our conversation….

Dr. Claudia Bushman has focused her research on women in history and Christopher Columbus.

Saints Volume 3 is coming out soon, part of the first update of Church history in almost 100 years. But did you know that back in the 1970s, Dr. Richard Bushman was part of a project to update Church history?  The project was scuttled, and Richard gives more details on that project.

https://youtu.be/_zuajfbGQc4

Richard:  Yes, I was involved. We dreamed up the idea of having a new comprehensive History of the Church, which had been published in its finished form in 1930.  [The year] 1980 was approaching. So, that would be the 150th anniversary. So, it seemed likely that a new comprehensive history would be suitable, especially because there are so many young historians coming along a lot of new information. So, Leonard asked me to do the first volume, which was history of Joseph Smith's life up to 1830. So, I produced that and got it in in time for the deadline. Milt Backman had submitted his volume, which was on the Kirtland period. His went through and was going to be published.  Mine got approval from the Church Historian and in his staff.

Richard:  But, somewhere along the line, someone decided this was not suitable. I mean, the whole project. So, I went with Leonard once when I was in Salt Lake to Deseret Book, where he got the news for the first time that the project was being cancelled. This was difficult because we had all received a substantial advance and everyone was laboring away, and to have this project scuttled really broke Leonard's heart. I never felt as bad about it as he did, because a series like that leads to a lot of complications.  You're in the situation, where if the Church reads, a manuscript and doesn't like it, and wants to have it changed, they then come off as censors, you know, they're dictating to the authors what they should write. That's uncomfortable for the authors, and it's uncomfortable for the Church, and it's unseemly. On the other hand, if they just let the authors do whatever they want, then who knows what you will get? So, it's almost a very difficult situation, and I don't like to be in that situation. I want to write what I want to write. So, I felt okay about canceling the series.

Richard:  We all went off and got our books published by other presses. I went to University of Illinois Press. They, at first, were hesitant to publish it, because it struck them as very much an apologetic work. So, they were unsure. Johns Hopkins had turned it down for that reason. But, the University of Illinois finally sent the manuscript off to, I think it was George Marsden, some eminent scholar. He wrote back, he says, "Well, if we publish books from Marxist point of view, from a gay point of view, why not from a Mormon point of view?" I came under the weirdos category of authors. Anyway, the book got published.

GT:  What was the name of the book?

Richard:  Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism.

GT:  Okay.

Richard:  That was 1984.

GT:  So, 1984, at the time, it was seen as a too apologetic.  I know you have another book, Rough Stone Rolling, that I think gets labeled as both too apologetic and too critical. How much of the first book that was too apologetic is in Rough Stone Rolling, would you say?

Richard:  The interesting thing about it is that there were parts of that book that were a little disturbing to people. One was that I talked about how the Smith family were money diggers, which the Church had always denied.

GT:  The church probably didn't like that back in the 70s, right?

Richard: They were uneasy about it.  That may have been why they didn't publish it, under Leonard Arrington's Church History Office.

Were you aware of this scuttled history?  What do you think of Saints?  Is it better than the last 1930 official history the Ch...