Negro Slavery in Utah BY D E N N I S L. LYTHGOE
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F TRAFFIC DOES N O T deter, one may discover on the Brigham Young M o n u m e n t at the intersection of M a i n and South T e m p l e streets in Salt Lake City these n a m e s : " G r e e n Flake, H a r k Lay, and Oscar Crosby, Colored Servants." This plaque honoring the original pioneers of 1847 thus pays tribute to the three Negro slaves in the vanguard of the Mormon migration. T h o u g h they were the first slaves in U t a h and justly the most famous, they were not the only slaves to reside there. While the institution of slavery was not practiced in U t a h on a grand scale, it was sufficient to require historical interpretation. Oddly enough, U t a h was the only western territory in 1850 in which Negroes were held as slaves. This was a result of the Compromise of 1850, in which California was admitted into the Union as a free state, and New Mexico a n d U t a h territories ambiguously given popular sovereignty. Since some of the Mormon Dr. Lythgoe is assistant professor of history at Massachusetts State College at Bridgewater.
