Description
Book SynopsisAccording to an Akan proverb, “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” This belief underlies historian Amy Tanner Thiriot’s work in
Slavery in Zion, which combines genealogical and historical research to bring to light events and relationships unknown or misunderstood for well over a century. The total number of enslaved people in Utah’s early history has remained an open question for many years, due in part to the nature of nineteenth-century records, and an exact number is undetermined. But while writing this book Thiriot documented around one hundred enslaved or indentured Black men, women, and children in Utah Territory.
Slavery in Zion has two major parts. The first section provides an introductory history, chapters on southern and western experiences, and information on life after emancipation. The second section is a biographical encyclopedia of names, relationships, and events. Although
Slavery in Zion contains material applicable to legal history and the history of race and Mormonism, its most important contribution is as an archive of the experiences of Utah’s enslaved Black people, at last making their stories an integral part of the record of Utah and the American West—no longer forgotten or written out of history.
Trade Review“
Slavery in Zion is the most thorough and exhaustive treatment to date of the lives of Black Utahns in the nineteenth century. It should serve as an indispensable starting point for other researchers to explore all sorts of potentially fascinating and important topics."—Christopher C. Jones, assistant professor of history, Brigham Young University
“An important addition to the study of slavery and (most importantly) enslaved peoples in early Mormon Utah. The author should be commended for her painstaking archival work to bring together well known documents as well as lesser-known documents related to this history."—Max Perry Mueller, author of
Race and the Making of the Mormon PeopleTable of Contents
- Sankofa: Remembrance
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Bound for the Promised Land
- Part I: The Story of African American Slavery in Utah Territory
- 1. Southern Origins: Mississippi and Alabama
- 2. Southern Origins: Tennessee, Missouri, and Kentucky
- 3. Exodus and Escape
- 4. The Settlement of Utah
- 5. Going to California
- 6. Green Flake and the Tithing Myth
- 7. The Texans
- 8. Merchants, Army Officers, and Government Appointees
- 9. Free at Last
- Part II: Biographical Encyclopedia of the Enslaved
- 10. The Enslaved
- 11. Associated Enslaved Individuals
- 12. Black Residents of Utah Territory
- 13. Former or Unproven Enslavers
- 14. Related Topics
- Afterword
- Appendix 1: An Act in Relation to Service, Utah Territorial Legislature (1852)
- Appendix 2: Slave Registrations and Bill of Sale
- Appendix 3: Deeds of Consecration
- Appendix 4: Brigham Young Correspondence
- Appendix 5: Miscellaneous Documents
- Appendix 6: Selected Newspaper Articles
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
