Here's an 1870 account from an old Painesville, Ohio resident, who was evidently
present in 1831, when Joseph Smith first arrived at Kirtland. The correspondent
offers a report of the evident demise of "Black Pete," the first Mormon of color, whose
1830-31 activities are briefly chronicled by Apostle George A. Smith, and in sundry old
reports from the Kirtland area:



UD

Perhaps Connell O'Donovan (who has recently written on the subject) could
shed some light upon the matter.

Also -- I recently noticed this, on-line:

Black Pete – According to historian Mark Staker, Black Pete was an ex slave living in Kirtland 1830 or 31.
Journal accounts say that he was baptizing people in Kirtland during this time period.

Was "Black Pete" a Baptist or Campbellite elder (and thus authorized to baptize)?
Or were his mentioned 1830-31 baptisms Mormon ordinances?

UD

I thought I read somewhere that he was either killed or banished for making advances on white women, but I may be completely wrong.

Perhaps both --

According to Newell Bringhurst: "Pete 'wanted to marry a white woman' but Joseph Smith could not get
any 'revelations' for him to do so."

That's the last we hear of the man.

What if the first (__________ fill in the blank) convert to the contemporary LDS Church wished to
marry a certain kind of Mormon woman, and President Monson could receive no "revelation" from
God? What would be that convert's fate?

Possible entries for the "blank" --

1. Martian
2. Antarctican
3. tri-sexual
4. cetacean
5. cyborg
6. disembodied
7. cloned
8. Democrat

UD

9. European (read as eurotrash)
10. Russian
11. socialist
12. communist
13. muslim
14. gay

Wow, Uncle Dale. That's really sad if it's true. In fact, it makes me a little sick to my stomach just to read it.

FARMS would tell us we are using presentism.. its was perfectly acceptable to lynch negroes for making advances on white women back then.. shame on ya’ll..

Black Pete was an embarrassment to Joseph Smith -- but not just because he hoped to marry a
white woman. He was acting in enthusiastic ways, outside of the "restored" hierarchy. Smith put
a stop to most of the Pentecostalism of Rigdon's church; and when that was gotten rid of, the
troublesome Pete was likewise disposed of.

If by dropping him into the waters of a river, I'd suppose that very few people knew about it.
Later, when Smith was brought to trial for the attempted murder of Grandison Newell, it seems
that only a small handful of Saints were aware of the facts in the case.

Dark secrecy come in handy, when you're trying to establish authoritarian control over people.

UD

Actually, FARMS would be right. Some fears run deep, and the white man's fear of being outdone by the black man's sexual prowess runs very deep. And did then. And did long before that.

What?????

Well FARMS might not make that exact point, but I suppose most of us understand the implication.

As a shipmate of mine boasted in the Navy, years ago: "Once a white woman has had some black c___
she'll never be satisfied by your white man's tiny imitation."

The implication is that Miss Scarlet, down on the plantation, will be seduced by a strapping young
servant and begin turning out mulatto babies --- or, worse yet, run off with the fellow to Canada,
to continually "suffer the fate worse than death," away from her gallant plantation-master defenders.

One drop of black blood makes a person black, they say. That's got to be very powerful stuff, eh?

UD

Yes, I've heard such bragging before. It's High School locker room talk. Are there people out there who are actually influenced by this in their adult lives?

UD

They were lynched because they had an inch advantage in the size of their sexual organs?

From a CoC lecture on racial intolerance, based upon an excerpt from Saints’ Herald of April 30, 1935:



The part of the conversation not quoted here was Whitefield's reply, that he would
"...kill a g____ d____ n_____, before that n_____ ever laid hands on my daughter."

This was a very common sentiment in the past, and even crops up in the literature of
the Reorganized LDS Church. The prejudice is not so much based upon the black man's
physique as it is based upon the white man's fear and hatred of him. The oft-heard
reference to sexual prowess was merely an excuse, in order to carry out the lynching.

I'm surprised you've never heard of such stuff. I grew up with Mormons in Idaho in
the 1950s who expressed very similar feelings about "Lamanites" (Bannock Indians).

UD

I agree with you then. I was objecting to the idea that that was the legitimate cause of the bigotry. Harmony seems to think it is still prevalent and I disagree with this.

I think that the major cause of bigotry is fear. In many cultures, world-wide, it is still
possible to identify potential mob leaders who play upon this sort of racial fear. It
really does not matter if that mob leader is a bigot or not.

There may have been some anti-Mormon mob leaders in Missouri in the 1830s who
had no great personal objections to the Mormons. But those mob leaders saw that
they could elevate their own positions by stoking the fears of fellow Missourians.
Sometimes this happened due to careful scheming -- and at other times it happened
spontaneously. But there was probably always a voice in the crowd yelling out:
"Let's kill those d___ Mormons, before they rape our sisters!"

When you add to that the explosive feelings many people have about darker-skinned
people being "inferior," or even "animals," the lynch mobs need very little encouragement.

Notice the faces of all those white people in the photograph. They did not even try to hide
their identities. They knew that the local police would never arrest them. That the local
prosecutors would never try them. And that the local juries would never convict them.

If "Black Pete" suffered a similar fate, it may have been at the hands of Mormons or at the
hands of Gentiles. The point is, there were plenty of people around in those days, ready
to "dispose" of such a "problem" in secret.

UD

Yes, notice the faces of the white folk in the photo. Nothing indicates they do anything more than see the hanging bodies. Nothing in the photo indicates those onlookers did the hanging.

Stupid even being there and the inference is clear but nothing in the photo connects them with the actual deed.

From Brighams 'one drop of Negro blood' to the First Presidency statements to Mark E. Petersons talk that Negroes would be in the Celestial Kingdom.... as servants... LDS, Inc had a history of racism. It has long been known who hung the black man in Price in the last Century but nothing was ever done. Some of those involved even bragged about it in the local bars for years afterwards.

It is believable that the first Black Mormon was given his own 6 foot plot of land by his 'friends'/

Where did I say the idea was legitimate? Of course it's not legitimate. And of course it's still prevalent. Good grief. You think these things disappear within a generation or two? You think society is comfortable... comfortable, not just tolerant... of a black man with a white woman? Get real. We don't have public lynching anymore, but that doesn't mean the underlying fear isn't still there.

By legitimate I meant actual cause. I think the actual cause for discrimination is a combination of unhealthy fear and simple pride, always having someone you know you are superior to. Oddly, I think this is why racism in America is most prevalent among poor white society. There's no one to look down on for them.

I'm comfortable with it. I think most of society is based on seeing many such couplings. I'm sure there are areas where this is not true but I've been around a little. I imagine in the deep south it's more prevalent. Here in the DFW area it's not bad.

So Uncle Dale, is there any valid reason to assume that Black Pete met some unfortunate fate by Mormon hands, besides this belated hearsay (which sounds like it came from a newspaper that was not kindly disposed toward Mormons in the first place). Additionally, if someone was driven off because they were a town nuisance, is there reason to assume that they were also murdered?