Redd Slave Histories: Family, Race, and Sex in Pioneer Utah

Redd Slave Histories: Family, Race, and Sex in Pioneer Utah

BY TONYA REITER

On June 17, 1864, Emma Ainge, a twenty-two year old Mormon convert from England, stood in the First District Court in Provo, Utah Territory, and testified that the father of her newborn daughter was Luke Redd. Emma and Luke had been ordered to court to answer a charge of “lewdness resulting in her having a child.” 1 Emma’s baby, Flady, had been born less than three weeks earlier on May 28 in Spanish Fork, nine miles south of Provo. 2 Not all unmarried parents were charged with criminal conduct, but this illegitimate birth was exceptional because Flady’s mother was white and her father was black. Luke Redd had been born into slavery in North Carolina and brought to Utah by the John Hardison Redd family.

The circumstances of Flady’s birth forced the little Mormon community of Spanish Fork to confront one of the great taboos of the nineteenth century. She was the product of what critics of racial equality and integration feared most: “miscegenation.” Flady Ainge was the visible proof that religious, racial, and sexual mores had been violated. Brigham Young’s condemnation of mixed-race relationships and marriages did not prevent a few such connections developing or continuing in early Utah. Despite religious and societal disapproval, two of the Redd family slaves were involved in multiple illicit relationships with white Mormons.

The Redd family, black and white, was bound together by legal and formal ties that had begun in the South thirty years before their arrival in Utah ; ties that dictated reciprocal obligations between master and slave. Perhaps more importantly, they were also bound by familial ties that informed their relationships and behavior one to another. It appears that when John Hardison Redd, the patriarch of the family died in 1858, the younger slaves in the family group, Luke and Marinda, found it difficult to negotiate the transition to life after emancipation, and to establish family ties that would replace the bonds of slavery. Instead, they crossed racial and social boundaries in an attempt to find a place in a white society that was somewhat alien to them. Their stories illustrate some of the legacies of Utah slavery.

At the time the Redd family entered the Salt Lake Valley, six people of color were bound to them in service. Who were these black servants? Like other American and Utah slaves, their stories must be culled out of reminiscences written primarily by and for the white families they served. John Hardison Redd stands at the head of a prominent Utah pioneer family whose members colonized early settlements, filled local leadership positions, and produced faithful LDS adherents who have researched and written family histories. Not all pioneers are so well remembered, particularly enslaved black settlers. The little that is recounted about their lives is most often seen as incidental to the central story of white actors. Hints we find about these black lives found in stories, journals, and letters must be combined with data from official sources and oral traditions to help us understand their histories and place in early Utah.

The stories about the African American Redd slaves found in family histories and in Kate B. Carter’s The Story of the Negro Pioneer offer glimpses into their lives as the servants of founding Mormon pioneers, but tell only part of the story. 3 What were their relationships to each other and to white members of the Redd family? What was their status in Utah both before and after slavery ended? When did their bondage end and how did they negotiate the transition to freedom? By looking at the Redd family, perhaps we can get a clearer picture of what slavery in Utah was like, at least for one family. The stories the Redds tell about themselves and their interactions with their slaves show something about how this white LDS family viewed their bondsmen and how the wider community interacted with its black neighbors. While we may never fully comprehend the complex relationships shared by Redd family members or their lives in bondage, the focus of this study is to tell fully the history of John Hardison and Elizabeth Redd’s slaves and, by so doing, illuminate what has been a little-known aspect of social life in early Utah County.

Daughters of Utah Pioneers members Kate B. Carter (center), Ida Kirkham (left), Rosella F. Larkin (right). Carter was the author of, among other works, The Story of the Negro Pioneer. —

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John Hardison Redd and Elizabeth Hancock grew up on farms in Onslow County, North Carolina, where they were married in 1826. 4 They, like their parents, cultivated smaller holdings than the huge cotton plantations of the Deep South. In North Carolina, famers often worked the land alongside hired laborers and a few slaves. 5 In 1820, prior to her marriage, Elizabeth’s father bequeathed two slaves to her. They were sisters. The first was a ten-yearold girl named Venus and the second was seven-year-old Chaney. 6 Although they may have begun serving Elizabeth at an earlier date, the girls became her legal property when her father’s will was probated in August, 1824. When Elizabeth married John Hardison two years later, she brought both girls with her into her new home to act as her personal servants. 7

During the first year of their marriage, in 1826, Elizabeth gave birth to a baby girl. She was Elizabeth’s first child, but not John Hardison’s. On May 7, 1821, he had posted a bastardy bond in the amount of two hundred pounds for the maintenance of a child born in Onslow County to a woman named Peggy Breece. 8 Their child is not mentioned in family histories, but the 1830 and 1840 census listings of a “free white male” in the Redd household may be a reference to this child—and, if so, an indication that John Hardison may have brought him into his household. 9

The Redds farmed in North Carolina for nearly twenty years before selling out to buy land and relocate in Rutherford County, Tennessee, in 1838. Family traditions say the Redds grew tobacco and purchased “many slaves” to work this land, though the veracity of the last claim is not certain. The 1840 census shows only a handful of slaves belonging to the household. While it is possible that the Redds may have purchased some field hands after 1840, and sold them prior to the end of the decade, John Hardison was taxed on only four slaves in 1849. 10

During the years they lived in North Carolina, the Redd family was unchurched, but their move to Tennessee brought them into contact with LDS missionary John D. Lee, who baptized them in 1843. In his journal on June 17, Elder Lee recorded the conversion of John Hardison, Elizabeth, and significantly, Elizabeth’s two black slaves: “I . . . administered or inducted the following persons in the Kingdom or Church Militant on Earth: JOHN H. REDD . . . ELIZABETH REDD, VENICE & CHINEA, 2 servants belonging to Br. J. Redd.” 11

Family lore claims that soon after his conversion John Hardison came to believe that Joseph Smith disapproved of slavery. Redd family historians interpret this story as proof that The Redd family believed that because of this, John Hardison legally freed Venus and Chaney sometime between 1843 and their departure for Utah in 1850. In fact, even if John Hardison manumitted any field workers at this time, these two women had never belonged to him. They were the property of his wife, Elizabeth, and it seems she would have been the one to free them. Lura Redd recounts an incident that illustrates Elizabeth’s property, from a bequest, was understood to be hers, even after marriage. John Hardison and Elizabeth agreed to sell a parcel of land that Elizabeth had inherited and although she signed the deed of sale, she was not present when it was given to the buyer. The prospective purchaser sent an agent to her home to verify that John Hardison had her permission to sell the land and that she had actually signed the deed of her own free will. 12

To date, no available records have been found supporting the Redd family claim that either John Hardison or Elizabeth legally manumitted any of their slaves as they prepared to leave the South. 13 The story of voluntarily freeing slaves is common in southern LDS convert family histories. When recounting their past, former slaveholding families often depict their emancipated bondsmen eager to stay with their white families out of loyalty and love for their former masters. 14 While some family historians assume life could not have been better for their “faithful retainers” had they chosen freedom, when Lura Redd reports that her aunt was certain that Venus and Chaney longed to wait on “Missy” for the rest of their lives, she did, at least, question the decision her great grandparents made to bring their slaves with them. “I guess it was the right thing to do,” she wrote. “All things turned out well with them, and their lives were happier being together. None of them had to learn to adjust to new conditions and environment, at least as far as family surroundings were concerned.” 15 Here Lura seems to be uneasy with the morality of the decision her forbears made to bring the black women and their children to Utah. She implicitly acknowledges that there was an alternative.

It is impossible to know how Venus and Chaney felt about migrating to Utah. Even the strong desire for freedom they must have felt would have been complicated by other considerations. Remaining in the South, as manumitted slaves after the Redds departed for Utah, presented the risk of being forced back into slavery. They had been with the family since childhood, so a desire for familiarity and security might have come into play. Not only did they have an established home with the Redds, they also shared ties to the LDS faith with them. Their religious convictions might have drawn them to Utah, as joining the Saints in the Rocky Mountains might have been a more appealing choice than staying behind, if a choice was actually offered.

When the Redds began their journey West in the spring of 1850, Venus and Chaney accompanied them—whether as an act of free will, as the family histories state, or because they were compelled to do so. There were also four younger African Americans in the party: Luke, Marinda, Sam, and Amy, ranging in age from sixteen to twenty-two. Family traditions say the boys belonged to Venus and the girls to Chaney. Venus and Chaney gave birth to these children during the years that they were bound to Elizabeth as slaves and after her marriage to John Hardison. Whatever other factors came to bear upon their move to Utah, the women had the interests of their children to consider. Venus, Chaney, and their children travelled with the Redds in the James Pace Overland Trail Company and arrived in Great Salt Lake City late in September 1850. 16

Soon after their arrival, the U.S. Census was taken. For the Redd family, three aspects of their enumeration are worth noting. First, the Redd servants are listed on the original census version of Schedule Two Slave Inhabitants for Utah County, an indication that they entered Utah as enslaved people. 17 The second enlightening feature is that Sam is listed as a “Franklin,” not a “Redd,” and that he was set to be free at the age of twenty-one. This means that while the Redd descendants had come to believe Sam was the son of Venus, he almost certainly was not. It is possible he was an indentured servant, not a slave, though no indenture document has been found to date. Where and when he joined the Redd family is unknown. Sam Franklin’s legal status was not the same as the other Redd bondsmen. His period of bondage had an end date, while the others were bound to the Redd family in perpetuity. 18 The third feature of the census worth examining is that while Venus and Chaney are listed as “black,” their children are all classified as “yellow”—indicating they were known to be, or at least looked, biracial, begging the question of the children’s paternity.

While it may seem simple to jump to the conclusion that John Hardison was the father of Venus and Chaney’s children, proximity, alone, is not proof of parenthood. 19 In this case, however, circumstantial evidence indicates that he was the most likely candidate partly because he was the only white adult male in the household at the times of their births. Family stories remark on Luke’s light eyes and hair and descriptions of Marinda note her fair skin, but the Redd historians made no effort to account for the children’s births or their biracial characteristics. While no contemporaneous records name the father—or fathers—of the young Redd slaves, DNA testing proves that Luke was the biological son of John Hardison Redd. 20 Whether Chaney had children with John Hardison is still an open question. 21 No descendants have been located or tested to date, but if Marinda and Amy were actually Chaney’s daughters, chances are good that John Hardison was their father, as well.

One of the most difficult things to understand about slavery is how a father could keep his own children as slaves. It may help to see that by so doing, the father had some control over the conditions under which his children lived. In the antebellum South and in territorial Utah, it would have been almost unthinkable for John Hardison to acknowledge biracial children as his own—especially children whose mothers were his wife’s slaves. While it might have been easier to sell or give away the younger slaves, he chose to make them part of his extended family and took on the role of pater familias of the Redd clan. He occupied a position at the head of the large family group that included white children, black children, and servants. John Hardison fulfilled his duty toward the biracial children and their mothers when he included them in his family unit and migration to Utah. By embracing all of them, he appears to be have made the best of tangled family relationships that had begun before his Christian conversion. Ironically, his family structure was not unlike an LDS polygamous household with multiple wives and children who were half-siblings, but the racial makeup of the Redd family did not allow him to legitimize the relationships. Despite that, he provided for all of them, and all seem to have had a place in the household as they took up residence in Spanish Fork.

From about the time he entered Utah, until shortly before his death, John Hardison kept a notebook in which he listed expenses, and business transactions. He also used the notebook as some people used a family Bible: as a place to record important family dates. Among the birth, death, and marriage dates of his immediate family, he wrote a detailed list of slave names, birthdates, and parentage. Someone who had access to the notebook after John Hardison’s death lined through the slave data and attempted to completely blot out the slave names and relationships. 22

The Redd family and their slaves most likely lived in a typical Spanish Fork farmhouse like this one. —

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Despite later attempts to erase evidence that the Redd family, both black and white, enjoyed a close, familial relationship, those connections and the family’s religious ties are implied by the Spanish Fork ward record that lists the baptisms performed on June 13, 1852. William Pace rebaptized John Hardison, Elizabeth, two of their daughters, and Venus. Chaney was rebaptized by Stephen Markham on the same day. The record indicates they were all rebaptisms “for the remission of sins.” Marinda and Amy were “added to the Church” that day by a first baptism and confirmation, along with two of the Redd’s sons. 23 There is no mention of Luke or Sam being baptized with the others.

For the Redds, life and work in Spanish Fork seems to have gone on much the same as it had in the South. The slaves worked alongside the white members of the family to cultivate a farm in the river bottoms. The Redd bondsmen might have been unaware that they were part of a small, but significant group of black men and women enslaved to white Mormons in Utah. Mormon attitudes toward slavery and abolition had varied according to time and place, but they usually reflected moderation between hardline northern and southern extremes. After an influx of southern converts and their slaves between 1848 and 1850, European and New England Mormons were exposed to southern slavery for the first time. Despite the Redds and other black slaves constituting only a tiny percentage of the population of the new territory, early in 1852 the Utah territorial legislature, under the direction of Governor Brigham Young, passed An Act in Relation to Service. 24 This act has been characterized as the slave code of Utah because it specified measures to be taken to legally utilize African slave labor, but a recent interpretation of the act points out the humane intent of the legislation and suggests it might have been intended to be a step toward emancipation. 25

Under the new legislation, any person of African descent bound to service was required to freely give his assent to enter Utah. After arrival, the bondsman should have contracted a term of service with his master, even if the term was for his whole life. This contract, or registration, was to be made in the presence of a county probate judge and recorded by the court in a Probate Register of Servants. Registrations have survived for at least two slaves living in Salt Lake County. 26 Both men are called “slaves,” not servants, in the registrations. They are registered as slaves for life, and significantly, there are no reciprocal contracts in which they agree to service.

After the passage of the act in 1852, almost all of the bonded African Americans who stayed in Utah continued living near, and working for, their masters whether they were legally considered slaves or indentured servants. The legislation probably did not materially affect their lives and may have been more important as a statement of Mormon religious and political attitudes toward chattel slavery than as an actual legal requirement. The southern converts who brought slaves into Utah were a wealthy and influential body. It might have seemed necessary to Young and the legislature to legalize the bonds already in place, thereby recognizing the slaveholders’ property rights, while at the same time mandating restrictions on the exercise of power over those in bondage. 27

What is clear is that the philosophical underpinnings of An Act in Relation to Service and the ideas put forth at the time of its passage expressed beliefs and attitudes which made slavery under Mormonism distinctive. Slaveholders were to see their servants as something more than mere property; to acknowledge them as fully human with a degree of free agency. While Mormons were admonished to practice a type of benevolent slavery and avoid inflicting cruelty on their slaves, at the same time, they were told that it was God’s will that persons of African descent serve their white brothers. As Brigham Young stated, “It is a great blessing for the seed of Adam to have the seed of Cain for servants, but those they serve should use them with all the heart and feeling as they would use their own children and . . . treat them as kindly.” 28 Young spoke of the black man’s proper place as a “servant of servants” until God rescinded the curse of Cain in the distant future, and he preached that as their service benefited the white race, it also benefitted the black race. Beyond any consideration of whether slavery should be practiced in the territory, in his speech to the Utah legislature on February 5, 1852, Brigham Young was explicit in explaining his views on black persons remaining subservient to whites and the inadvisability of allowing them to wield governing power, “Therefore I will not consent for one moment to have an African dictate to me or any Brethren with regard to the Church or State Government . . . If the Africans cannot bear rule in the Church of God, what business have they to bear rule in the State and Government affairs of this Territory or any other?” 29 Mormon theology assigned persons of African descent a permanent second-class status, making them a perpetual underclass. 30

John Hardison and Elizabeth did not register their slaves, nor did the 1852 act alter their lives, but the family encountered other difficulties during this period. Between 1851 and 1853, two teenaged children and Elizabeth Redd died. Chaney’s youngest daughter, Amy, died in November 1854. Interspersed with these unhappy events, three of the Redd children married and in early 1856 John Hardison remarried at the age of fifty-six. His new wife, Mary Lewis, was sixteen years old, just three years older than his youngest son. Mary gave birth to a baby girl in 1857. 31 Redd family tradition holds that Venus and Chaney “transferred their allegiance” to John’s new wife and continued to serve the wider family, retaining their roles as nannies and nurses. A family member described the new Mrs. Redd as “’an old man’s darling.’ She had no work to do that she didn’t want to do. Those Negro mammies did it all—took care of the baby and ‘petted’ Mary.” 32

Like other Mormons in the mid-1850s, John Hardison consecrated his property to Brigham Young as an act of religious devotion. A receipt for his consecrated goods lists household items and livestock. 33 Unlike Mississippi Mormon John Brown or William Taylor Dennis, both of whom consecrated slave “girls” to the trusteein-trust of the church, John Hardison did not deed over any of the Redd slaves. 34 Perhaps after Elizabeth’s death, John Hardison considered Venus and Chaney to be free, though both black women continued working for the family until John Hardison’s death. A Redd family historian describes the roles the two “mammies” filled at Elizabeth and John Hardison’s funerals. They were the “chief mourners at their funerals and . . . considered themselves fullfledged family members. Had they not been dependent on my Redd grandparents [John H. and Elizabeth Redd] for shelter, food and clothing even as much as any of the children?” 35

It seems John Hardison died intestate, but his widow and eldest son divided his property soon after his death. 36 In the document listing bequests written some time before Mary Lewis Redd remarried at the end of 1859, three of the Redd slaves are named and granted real property, farm animals, grain, and household goods. Venus, Marinda, Luke, and John Hardison’s six legitimate heirs received equal shares of land. In addition, Luke received five acres of farmland and a house to share with his mother and Marinda. Although there are no court documents or registrations that emancipated the Redd slaves, the inheritances they received upon their master’s death indicate they were considered free by the end of 1859 and were given a portion of John Hardison’s goods almost equal to what his widow and legitimate children were granted. 37 Lemuel and Mary’s generosity towards the former slaves may have reflected John Hardison’s stated wishes or it may have been a reflection of their own good feelings toward the people who had served the Redd family for three decades. In any case, the Redd family freed their bondmen several years before the federal government passed the act to end slavery in the territories in 1862 and the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Chaney is not listed in the distribution list, and Redd family histories assumed that she died not long after John Hardison. This is not the case. While Venus stayed in Spanish Fork for the rest of her life working as a nurse and midwife, Chaney left the Redd family before 1860. She managed to bring two Missouri-born minor children to Utah before moving to St. George to work for the Samuel and Mary Ellis Cunningham family. 38 She used the Cunningham surname on the 1870 census, and when she died in 1872, she was buried under that name next to several of the family’s deceased children. 39 Her sister Venus seems to have asserted her right to link herself with the black family they had been born into when, on the 1870 census, she gave her last name as Cupid, their biological father’s name. 40

Neither the Redd histories nor other accounts indicate whether Chaney remained committed to the LDS faith, but her sister Venus continued to attend church late into her life. 41 Venus received a patriarchal blessing in 1855. Although no lineage was given, she was promised a place in the kingdom of God and a crown of Glory. She was told that “there is no difference whether . . . bond or free . . . Thou shalt be blest . . . thou shalt rejoice in a day to come . . . and be satisfied with the dealings of a kind Providence toward thee.” 42 In her lived experience, however, Venus recognized that her church did make distinctions between white members and those of African descent. Upon learning that she would not be able to participate in the LDS temple rituals, she is said to have scratched her arm until it bled and questioned whether her blood “was not as white as anyone’s?” 43 Kate Carter recounts this story but does not give its source. While it could have actually happened, it sounds suspiciously similar to the many stories attributed to early black Mormons in which they said they would be glad to be “skinned alive” if that would take away the offending black color that kept them out of the temple. Regardless of this quote’s provenance, the story does get at the disappointment and distress felt by faithful black Mormons in the face of the priesthood and temple ban.

Venus is the only Redd slave whose entire life is documented by Redd family historians. Chaney’s move to southern Utah accounts for her disappearance from the record, but there may be more to it than that. Venus died in Spanish Fork in 1876, a faithful member of the LDS church and without any scandal connected to her life—a faithful “mammy” figure, remembered as “Aunt Venus” by the family. 44 Less is known from Redd family narratives about Marinda, the likely daughter of Chaney; her life is not thoroughly documented in The Utah Redds and Their Progenitors. According to Hatch, Marinda kept the Redd surname, but moved away to find work. 45 Other sources indicate that she married another former slave, Alexander Bankhead and settled into family life in a small home near the center of Spanish Fork. 46 Between her arrival in Utah as a “slim, happy, and very attractive” girl of about nineteen in 1850 and her marriage to Alex around 1870 accounts differ on Marinda’s life. 47

In 1899, Julius F. Taylor, a journalist for the African American newspaper The Broad Ax, interviewed Marinda. 48 She reportedly told Taylor that during the 1850 trek to Utah, while traveling through Kansas, a number of slaves in the group attempted to escape. Marinda tried to run away with them but was caught and forced to rejoin the company. She did not identify any of the runaways. Marinda also revealed that after she had been in Utah for a number of years living with the Redd family, she was “transferred” to another owner, “Dr. Pinney” of Salem, Utah.

Several things about Taylor’s article cast doubt on its complete accuracy, although it has been taken at face value and quoted extensively in Utah black histories. Taylor wrote that the Redd family travelled to Utah with the William Pace Company and, although the Paces were also from Tennessee, there is no record that they brought slaves with them. 49 Neither did any slaves other than those owned by the Redds travel in the William Pace Company. Taylor incorrectly reported that Marinda was a resident of Salt Lake City. The Redds only stayed in the valley for a few months before moving on to Spanish Fork. Finally, The Broad Ax article is the only source that mentioned Marinda’s “transfer” or sale. No Dr. Pinney lived in Salem during that time. The article may have intended to refer to Dr. William Taylor Dennis. 50

On November 7, 1862, Marinda gave birth to a mixed-race son named David William. 51 Spanish Fork was a small, Mormon pioneer town in the early 1860s, making it unlikely that the identity of the child’s white father would not have been known by Marinda’s neighbors. In 1964, as Kate Carter was collecting reminiscences about black pioneers, she received a letter from a “Daughter” offering “special information” identifying the father of Marinda’s son. The letter writer claimed that it was one of the Pace boys; she named him as “Al” Pace. 52 According to The Story of the Negro Pioneer, David William went by “Billy” as a child and attended school in Spanish Fork with the neighborhood children. Carter wrote that Billy “was clean and careful about his appearance.” 53 Another Spanish Fork historian remembered that he played banjo in a dance band. 54 He visited Marinda often after moving away as an adult but none of the ladies of the DUP was able to document his life after he left his home town. 55

Marinda Caroline Redd Bankhead. The provenance of this grainy image of Marinda from the DUP publication The Story of the Negro Pioneer is unknown.

David William, or Billy, was not the only mixed race child Marinda bore while she was unmarried. Four years after Billy’s birth, on April 12, 1867, she had another son, Edward T, who lived only six months and died on October 29. 56 At the birth of her second illegitimate son, her LDS bishop, Albert King Thurber, reacted with a scathing sermon directed toward his congregation’s Aaronic Priesthood Teacher’s Quorum on September 22, 1867. In tones reminiscent of the days of the Mormon Reformation, Thurber “denounced whoredom and said if Marinda Redd was found pregnant again death should be her portion and the same with all who whore with her. Whoredom among the young folks was also denounced and the teachers were to use their influence to stop it.” 57 Apparently feeling the need to address his entire congregation, the following Sunday he “referred to whoredoms and said if there was any more whoring with black folks both black and white shall be killed.” He also “rebuked some of the young for their whoredoms and gave some good counsel to the young on the relations of the sexes.” 58

In directing his rebuke to the Teacher’s Quorum of his ward, Bishop Thurber may have been mistaken about the identity of Edward T.’s father. When Marinda’s baby son was buried in the Spanish Fork City Cemetery, the sexton’s book listed him as Edward T. Dennis, his father as William T. Dennis, and mother as Marinda Redd. At some point, Edward’s surname “Dennis” was crossed out by hand and the surname “Redd” written above it, possibly to indicate the baby’s illegitimacy. 59 William Taylor Dennis, a Mormon slaveholder from Tennessee, migrated to Utah in 1855 with his first wife, their children, and a few black slaves. He and his wife were closely connected to some of the other southern slaveholding converts in the territory. If Marinda was sold to Dennis as she claimed, it would necessarily have been between his arrival in 1855 and the end of 1859 when she received her inheritance from John Hardison Redd’s estate. 60 Although it may have been the case that some bondsmen were held in Utah after the legal end of slavery, it is very doubtful that Dennis held Marinda as a slave as late as 1867 when Edward was born. Her description of their association as that of slave and master may have been a way to explain a sexual relationship with Dennis in which she felt subservient, coerced, or cruelly treated, although she may not have been legally owned by him. It is possible her labor was sold to Dennis for a period of time, but there is no evidence to support that supposition.

When Marinda gave birth to Dennis’s child, he was in his late fifties and had three plural wives. He reportedly had a nasty temper that flared into violence. His second wife sued for divorce in 1873, citing “the unpleasant feeling existing between them caused by . . . [Dennis] having used violence towards her.” She claimed he had tied her up, thrown her around, and “threatened to take off her head.” 61 If true, her complaints demonstrate how Dennis treated an “eternal” wife who shared his social standing. One wonders how he treated Marinda, a black woman whose relationship to him was neither legally nor religiously sanctioned.

Marinda’s marriage to Alex Bankhead might have been arranged by church leaders to end either her sexual exploits or exploitation. 62 Originally owned by George Bankhead, Alex had been sold to Abraham Smoot before being freed. 63 In 1870 he and Marinda are listed in the same household with Venus and Marinda’s son, Billy. 64 Billy is counted as Alex’s stepson in the 1880 census. 65 He was the only child they raised, as they never had biological children of their own. The same letter that named Billy’s father also said that Alex had been “casterized.” 66 Assuming this means castrated, he would have been unable to have children with Marinda or anyone else. 67 No other information is given about why Alex would have been subjected to such harsh treatment if the report is accurate. Alex and Marinda lived in Spanish Fork until their deaths. Julius Taylor’s article called them faithful members of the LDS church, named Marinda as a member of the Spanish Fork Relief Society, and reported her attendance at the Pioneer Jubilee in 1897. 68

When Marinda’s life story is recounted in Carter’s The Story of the Negro Pioneer, the difficult episodes from her life are absent. By the time the histories of the early black pioneers in Utah became the subject of DUP interest, many of the facts about these people had died with them. Not only that, DUP depictions glossed over unpleasant or embarrassing details to make histories into inspiring lessons. The writers often knocked the raw edges off imperfect people to make their lives exemplary. They also made an effort to draw Marinda and other early black Utahns from the margins into the main current of local history and to acknowledge their contributions and similarity to themselves as they noted her “beautiful white wash” and her “wonderful” cooking. 69 Their reminiscences give the impression that Marinda, at least in her later years, was respected and integrated into the white community. For instance, the Bankhead home was near the center of town, and Marinda received visits from white neighbors which she returned with gifts of bread. A DUP member remembered her father joking and dancing with Marinda in the home of mutual friends, which indicates that Marinda took part in the social life of the town. 70 This is not to say that social relations between the Bankheads and white community members were always amicable; according to The Story of the Negro Pioneer, Marinda’s son, Billy, would get very angry when he was called “a nigger” by some of the other children. Neighborhood boys reportedly played a trick on Alex Bankhead by painting his horse blue and turning it out of the barn. 71 Overall, the Bankhead family appears to have been an accepted part of the pioneer town, although they were still somewhat set apart, as they were referred to as “Aunt Rindy” and “Uncle Alex” rather than Brother and Sister or Mr. and Mrs. Bankhead. 72

John Hardison Redd’s notebook gives genealogical information about the Redd and Hancock slaves we would otherwise not have. The strikethrough text reads (with some added punctuation): “Moriah Daughter of Cupit and Amy was born October the 9th AD 1809; Venius Daughter of Cupit and Amy was born November the 25th AD 1810; Abram son of Cupit and Amy was born October the 9th 1812; Chaney Daughter of Cupit and Amy was born March the 20th AD 1817; Finitty Daughter of Cupit and Amy was born June the 26th AD 1819; Luke son of Venius was born Janry the 9th 1828; Thomas son of Moriah was born Janry the 23rd 1828.” On the previous page and also lined through was the line: “Amy Daughter of Chaney departed this life on Saturday morning the 4th of November AD 1854.” —

Courtesy of Amasa Mason Redd

Like his mother and Marinda, Luke continued to live in Spanish Fork after the deaths of John Hardison and Elizabeth Redd. Family histories state he was given to the Redd’s oldest surviving son, Lemuel Hardison Redd to be his companion for life. Luke learned to read and write, according to census data. As a young man, he helped Lemuel, then a boy of fourteen to drive the family’s oxen across the plains on their way to Utah. Luke was handy, and the family relied upon him to mend farm implements and generally keep things in running order. 73 He was expected to teach Lemuel the same skills, as he was about eight years his senior.

Albert King Thurber, bishop of the Spanish Fork LDS ward. Thurber testified against Luke and Emma, a white woman within Thurber’s ward, for a past indiscretion that resulted in the birth of their illegitimate, biracial daughter. —

USHS

After Lemuel Redd married, he and his family were called by the leaders of the LDS church to settle a community in southern Utah in 1862. Luke helped move the family to New Harmony but soon returned to Spanish Fork to work the farm land he had received from the Redd family. 74 He was in Spanish Fork in 1863 with his mother, according to Bishop Albert K. Thurber’s diary. On February 22, Thurber mentioned “taking” dinner at Luke and Venus Redd’s house. The “Canaanites” served cabbage and pork “with other good articles of food . . . on the table.” Bishop Thurber “enjoyed a good time” with them that evening. 75 It must also have been around this time that Luke met Emma Ainge, the daughter of George and Elizabeth Halford Ainge. The attraction they felt for each other must have been strong enough to allow them to ignore social conventions of the period and begin a controversial, but long-lasting relationship that eventually came to the attention of a member of the LDS Quorum of the Twelve. 76

The Ainge family joined the LDS church in rural England and immigrated to Utah, settling in Spanish Fork in 1862. 77 The Ainge’s second oldest daughter, Love, born in 1841, arrived in Utah and began calling herself Emma. 78 A family history claims that she had wanted to marry prior to coming to America, but her father would not allow it. He might have lived to regret that edict when, after only two years in their new home in Utah Valley, Emma was brought to trial after the birth of her illegitimate biracial daughter.

In 1864, when Bishop Thurber was called by the court to give evidence against Emma and Luke, they both were living within his ward boundaries and Emma, at least, was a baptized member of his congregation. Thurber reported to George A. Smith that on June 17, Emma stood in open court and named Luke as her baby’s father. Luke denied that the baby was his, but was scheduled to give his defense the following day. Unfortunately, the trial records are lost, along with Luke’s response to Emma’s charge. Her willingness to admit to an illicit sexual relationship with a black man makes her testimony convincing. By naming him, she subjected herself not only to the shame of giving birth to an illegitimate child but to the further shame and stigma associated with interracial relations. It is not surprising that Luke did not openly admit his guilt in public. Thurber wrote that Judge Snow was trying to get the parties before him to acknowledge their wrongs and pay their fines. He hoped that “the arest [sic] and trial will put a stop to such conduct in Spanish Fork.” 79 Despite Brigham Young’s insistence that the penalty for black-white sexual transgression should be blood atonement, it appears Judge Snow simply levied a fine on the guilty parties. 80

Luke was the only known African American man living in the area at the time and therefore the obvious suspect merely by virtue of his race, but anecdotes about him in Redd family lore hint that he did not always “know his place” as a black man in Utah Territory. They tell of fights he started when called a “nigger” and of the times he relied on the Redd sons to help him out of scrapes. Lura Redd recounts a story that demonstrates he must have been comfortable flirting with a white woman, even a married one. Luke put his arm around Louisa, Lemuel’s recent second wife, while she was boiling a pot of cereal. In response, she smacked his face with a large spoon dripping with hot mush. 81 As related by Nelle Hatch, Luke “was handsome, and as fair in complexion as any white man. Only by the yellow in his eyes and his kinky hair did he betray his racial descent. His good looks probably got him into trouble a time or two, for it was not hard to find association among unsavory society. The result was that he had to change his residence on very short notice. His morals, I guess, were not of the best.” 82

Lemuel Hardison Redd, John Hardison’s eldest surviving son. Luke was given to Lemuel so that the two could become companions for life. As Luke was eight years Lemuel’s senior, Luke was expected to teach him to work on the farm. —

Courtesy of Amasa Mason Redd

Emma Love Ainge Harris. In 1874, she married John Harris, another English convert, as a plural wife and raised four children with him. —

Courtesy of Debbie Spiers

Emma, too, must have been willing to ignore social and church tenets. When all of her family was rebaptized in 1864, she was not, and she apparently refused to end her relationship with Luke despite the sanctions imposed on her. 83 While Bishop Thurber hoped that bringing Luke and Emma to justice would curtail their behavior, the trial seemed to have little effect on their conduct. Two years after her appearance in the Provo courtroom, Emma gave birth to a second child, this time a boy named John born on July 3, 1866. Both of Emma’s children are classified as “mulatto” in the censuses of 1870 and 1880, making it logical to believe that Luke was John’s father, as well as Flady’s. 84 A DUP life sketch of Emma, written after her death, asserted that both children shared a “southern man” as their father. 85 But other than Thurber’s letter reporting on the trial, no other contemporaneous records reveal anything about the couple, their children, and the impact of the trial on them.

Marinda’s first son had been born the year before Flady’s birth. The year following the birth of John Ainge, Marinda’s second biracial child was born. This chain of events in Spanish Fork put Bishop Thurber’s hellfire sermons into a slightly new context. From 1863 to 1867 the small pioneer town witnessed four mixed race children born out of wedlock. Interracial marriage was technically legal in Utah Territory during the 1860s and not outlawed until 1888 when the territorial legislature passed an anti-miscegenation law that was not repealed until 1963. 86 So, while it would have been legal for Emma and Luke to marry, An Act in Relation to Service of 1852 forbade sexual acts between white persons and anyone of the “African race,” and it subjected the white participant, upon conviction, to a fine between $500 and $1000.

Despite any questions of the legality of mixed marriage, Brigham Young had declared that even if “the first presidency . . . and all the elders of Israel here declare that it is right to mingle our seed with the black race of Cain, that they shall come in with . . . us and [be] partakers with us of all the blessings God has given to us, on that very day and hour we should do so, the priesthood is taken from this Church and kingdom and God leaves us to our fate.” 87 Young saw interracial marriages as a serious threat to the very foundation of the church: “let my seed mingle with the seed of Cain, that brings the curse upon me, and upon my generations—we will reap the same rewards with Cain.” 88 Engaging in a mixed-race relationship, therefore, brought the curse upon the white participant and any children born from that coupling, ending the right to priesthood in that family. To be a party to such a relationship brought social disapprobation and, more importantly, the loss of a birthright for generations to come.

Nineteenth-century antipathy toward mixedrace sexual relationships and LDS beliefs about the secondary status of blacks undoubtedly impacted the development of the LDS priesthood ban for men of African descent. During the late 1800s, when Jane James and Elijah Abel requested LDS temple ordinances, church leaders sought to define policy regarding priesthood ordination of black men and to identify precedents in Joseph Smith’s teachings. Church leaders consulted Zebedee Coltrin, the last surviving member of the original Kirtland School of the Prophets and a close associate of Smith. Coltrin lived in Spanish Fork in the 1860s and must have been aware of the interracial relationships in his community and their consequences. Memory is not static and the events that took place in Utah may well have shaped how Coltrin remembered the more distant past, influencing his opinions and attitudes. He reported that Smith had dropped Abel from the Quorum of the Seventies upon learning of his African descent. Coltrin’s assertion contributed to continuation of priesthood restriction and its attribution to Joseph Smith well into the twentieth century. 89

By 1870, Marinda and Alex Bankhead had settled into family life. There are no indications in the historical record that Marinda engaged in any more illicit interracial liaisons. According to the census that year, Emma was living at her parents’ home with her two children. Luke relocated to New Harmony, Utah, where he is listed as “Duke” Redd in the census. He left behind some property for Emma’s children. 90 Perhaps this was one of the times “he had to change his residence on short notice” with Lemuel’s help. In New Harmony, Luke worked as a carpenter, handyman, and possibly a barber. 91

Luke’s misadventures in Spanish Fork were not the end of his involvement with white women. A rumor told in New Harmony since the late nineteenth century tells of an illegitimate baby born to Mary Ann Pace Goddard, a resident of the town and wife of William Pettibone Goddard. The child, named George Clarence, was born December 27, 1872, twelve years after the couple’s youngest child, and at a time when Mary Ann and her husband were not living together. The boy was given the Goddard surname despite the question of his paternity. Mary Ann lived next door to Luke Redd in the years immediately preceding the birth of the child.

Soon after Luke took up residence in New Harmony it is rumored he began a relationship with Mary Ann. She successfully hid the pregnancy that ensued, gave birth to her son on her own, and left him in a cellar or an out-building on her property. When one of her teenage sons heard the baby’s cries, he found him, and confronted his mother with the child. She admitted Luke was the father. From the moment his brother discovered him, Clarence was accepted and loved as one of the family. He was mainly raised by his older brothers who took him to their herding camps in the Pine Mountains near New Harmony as soon as he was old enough. 92

Flady Ainge Morrison (seated) and her children, from left to right, Flady Mae Morrison Snow, Clara Ella Morrison Burke, LeRoy (Roy) Christian Morrison, Ralph William Morrison, Maude Emma Morrison Barker, Millie Myrtle Morrison Hopper, Della Octavia Morrison. The family portrait was probably taken in Salt Lake City, circa 1939. —

Courtesy of Tonya Reiter

By 1873 Luke had settled in California. Again, his relocation seemed to correspond conveniently with the birth of another of his illegitimate children. DNA testing has shown that Goddard descendants carry Redd Y-DNA, substantiating the rumor of Luke and Mary Ann’s relationship. The results show that Clarence Goddard was Luke’s son and John Hardison’s grandson. 93 After Luke left Utah, it is doubtful that he ever saw any of the three children he left behind. He lived for a time in Nevada City, California, and then moved on to Colfax. He is found in voter registration lists in Colfax under the name of “Luke Ward Redd,” but a burial or death record has not been found. He is last listed in the 1880 census for Colfax, California. 94

Through the 1860s and into the 1870s, the patterns that were set in slavery for the African American Redds continued to shape their lives. After the deaths of John Hardison and Elizabeth Redd, Venus’s life remained stable, and she continued working as a nurse and midwife in Spanish Fork. Chaney also spent her final years as a domestic working for the Cunningham family, using the skills she had developed while enslaved. Unlike their mothers, Marinda and Luke had the freedom to choose their own paths earlier in their lives, but it seems they were somewhat adrift in a white world in which they found no natural home. Outside of their own family, there was no African American community in Utah County, and as slavery came to an end their attempts to integrate into white society were fraught with difficulty. Marinda, the only young black woman in Utah County, flouted convention and became the sexual partner of multiple white men. Whether she acted willingly or under some type of duress is unclear. It is difficult to see her experience as anything other than exploitation given her status. Evidence suggests that no formal church action was taken against her, and, in fact, her bishop tried to control the situation by demanding that the white men in her ward comply with church standards and take responsibility for stopping the misconduct. In the end, Marinda married another emancipated slave, and she was finally able to make what seems to have become a stable family life with her husband and her son.

Unlike Marinda, Luke seems to have been unable to establish a stable home and family life. Instead, he put himself in situations that made him unwelcome in the small Mormon communities of Utah. It is impossible to know if Luke knew the identity of his father, but if he did, it might help to explain why he had a hard time finding his place. He and Lemuel, his master, were actually half-brothers, but while Lemuel had a prominent position in pioneer society, Luke, as the son of an African mother, was viewed as a cursed offspring of Cain. When the Redd histories stated John Hardison’s sons helped Luke out of trouble, it is possible they referred to the times Luke needed to get out of town quickly before he faced what could have been dire consequences for his continued dalliances with white LDS women. Luke’s interactions with the Redd family and his neighbors must have been complicated by his biological relationship to John Hardison and the social and religious implications of that relationship. While he surely benefitted from the Redd’s help in avoiding retribution for his transgressions, he seems to have been unable to occupy a respected place in the primarily white Mormon communities where he lived.

George Clarence Goddard. He married a white Mormon woman and raised his family in Cedar City.

Courtesy of Elaine Goddard Rawley

While John Hardison and Elizabeth Redd lived, the connections that bound the white family and their black servants remained strong. The relationships that had begun in slavery grew into something closer to a real family bond after John Hardison’s conversion to Mormonism. Venus and Chaney were not only servants to the Redd family; they were also fellow members of “The Kingdom” who worshipped with the family they served. By converting to Mormonism, Marinda and Amy strengthened that tie of a shared faith. John Hardison’s biological connection to Luke must have contributed to his concern for the future lives of his younger slaves. By giving Luke to Lemuel, he may have hoped they would look out for each other as loyal companions. There seems to have been a mutual bond of affection between John Hardison and all his family members, whether legitimate or illegitimate. Toward the end of his life, he sent a letter to his son and daughter-in-law in which he wrote, “We all have a desire to see you, both white and black, and our ardent desires are for your temporal and eternal welfare, and truly hope the Lord may bless and prosper you.” 95 He appears to have truly considered them all family, regardless of color. During his lifetime John Hardison Redd was the center that kept the large diverse family knitted together, but after his death, as the familial and formal ties that held them together loosened, his former slaves were forced to find family, meaning, and belonging in a world that was foreign to them. Some negotiated that transition successfully, but for others it was a more difficult journey.

—

The author wishes to thank Ainge, Goddard, and Redd family members as well as Pat Sagers, whose research and contributions have made writing this history possible. She is also very appreciative of the encouragement and valuable suggestions made by Paul Reeve, and Amy Tanner Thiriot, and the late Ronald W. Walker.

—Notes

1. Albert K. Thurber, Provo, June 17, 1864, box 6, fd. 14, George A Smith Papers, Ms 1322, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

2. “Utah Death Certificates, 1904–1964,” s.v. Flady Ainge Morrison, 1953, accessed February 29, 2016, familysearch.org.

3. Kate B. Carter, The Story of the Negro Pioneer (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1965). Carter, then president of Daughters of Utah Pioneers, led an effort to gather all available information about Utah’s free and enslaved early black settlers. She compiled the information and published it in booklet form. The biographies in it are often inaccurate, biased, and incomplete but yet contain details that otherwise would have been lost.

4. Lura Redd, The Utah Redds and Their Progenitors, edited by Amasa Jay Redd (Salt Lake City: privately published, 1973).

5. Eugene Genovese, Roll Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), 11.

6. “Record of Wills, Book A, 1800–1825, Onslow County, North Carolina,” s.v. Zebedee Hancock, May 1820, accessed January 19, 2017, files.usgwarchives.net/nc/ onslow/willa/hncock01.txt.

7. Redd, The Utah Redds, 180.

8. “Onslow County, NC – Court – Early Bastardy Bonds,” accessed January 19, 2017, files.usgwarchives.net/nc/ onslow/court/bstrdy01.txt.

9. “United States Census, 1830,” s.v. John H. Redd, Onslow, North Carolina, accessed April 28, 2015, familysearch. org

10. Redd, The Utah Redds, 197. This information was verified by Trent Hanner of the Tennessee State Library and Archives, email message to author, May 29, 2015.

11. Box 1, fd. 2, John Doyle Lee Papers, Accn 186, Special Collections and Archives, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

12. Hatch, Mother Jane, 7; Redd, Utah Redds, 181.

13. A search of the indexes to records housed in the Tennessee Library and Archives has revealed no official manumission records. Trent Hanner, email message to author, May 29, 2015.

14. Carter, Negro Pioneer.

15. Redd, Utah Redds, 211.

16. “James Pace Company,” Mormon Overland Pioneer Travel: 1847–1868, Church History Department, accessed January 19, 2017, history.lds.org/overlandtravels/ companies/230/james-pace-company-1850.

17. United States Census Office, Utah Territorial Census, Utah County, schedules 2-6, MS 2672, Church History Library.

18. After Sam’s appearance on the U.S. Census of 1850, there is only one other possible record of him in Utah. There is a Samuel Redd listed in the 1856 territorial census in Payson, Utah.

19. See Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (New York: Norton, 1974), 133. It seems to be a typical modern assumption that plantation owners routinely fathered children with their black slave women, but these authors present statistical evidence that shows this was not the case. In fact, slave children fathered by whites on the plantation may have been as low as one or two percent.

20. Known descendants of John Hardison Redd participated in a Y-DNA test project through FamilyTree DNA. A male Goddard descendant who was tested carries the same Redd Y-DNA as members of the family who can show genealogically that they are direct descendants of John Hardison Redd. See “Redd Family History Y-DNA Project, Y-DNA Colorized Chart,” accessed January 19, 2017, familytreedna.com/public/reddfamilyhistoryydna project?iframe=ycolorized.

21. Marinda’s death certificate does not give a mother’s or father’s name and states that she did not know much about herself. Utah Death Certificates, 1904–1964, s.v. Marinda Bankhead, accessed September 11, 2015, familysearch.org.

22. John Hardison Redd, “Notebook,” held in private hands by Amasa Mason Redd, Salt Lake City. Redd’s notebook is an extraordinary record to find and gives genealogical information about the Redd and Hancock slaves we would otherwise not have.

23. Spanish Fork Ward Records, 1852–1864, Spanish Fork Ward, Utah Stake, LR 8611 29, Church History Library.

24. “An Act in Relation to Service,” box 1, fd. 55, Territorial Legislative Records, Series 3150, Utah State Archives and Records Administration, Salt Lake City.

25. See Quintard Taylor, “The Utah Slave Code (1852),” accessed October 1, 2014, blackpast.org; Christopher B. Rich, Jr., “The True Policy for Utah: Servitude, Slavery, and An Act in Relation to Service,” Utah Historical Quarterly 80 (Winter 2012): 54–74. The statute was only tested once, at which time the decision was made against “the Negro boy” Dan (the same slave registered by Williams Camp).

26. William Camp Slave Registration, July 10, 1856, box 4, fd. 26, reel 5, Series 373, Utah State Archives and Records Administration. Slaves were living in Salt Lake, Davis, Utah, and Iron counties, but the only registrations to be found are in the Great Salt Lake County Probate Court records. They are those made by Williams and Diannah Camp for two of their slaves, Daniel and Shepard. In the depositions they gave, the Camps tried to establish their claim to the two men by recounting how they came to own them and adding an affidavit by William Taylor Dennis attesting to their ownership of Shepard. The Probate Court clerk listed page numbers on which these affidavits were listed in the Probate Register of Servants, a document which so far, has not been found. From his list, we know that the registrations for Daniel and Shepard, together with the Dennis affidavit were recorded on pages three through seven in the Probate Register. A bill of sale for a slave girl named Lucinda, sold by Abraham Smoot and purchased by Thomas Williams, was listed on page eight. If the Camp’s registrations of 1856 start on page three, it is unlikely the Probate Register was begun four years earlier in 1852. There would have been more than one or two other affidavits or registrations prior to these if the all the slaveholders in the territory had complied with the law. It appears that almost no one, including the Redds, registered their slaves.

27. Rich, “True Policy for Utah,” 55.

28. Brigham Young, February 5, 1852, box 1, fd. 17, Historian’s Office Reports of Speeches, CR 100 317, Church History Library.

29. Ibid.

30. For a more in-depth discussion of Mormon attitudes toward slavery, see Nathaniel R. Ricks, “A Peculiar Place for the Peculiar Institution: Slavery and Sovereignty in Early Territorial Utah” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 2007).

31. Redd, Utah Redds, 221.

32. Ibid., 221.

33. Records of Utah County, 1851–1864, MSS 3905, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. For information on the Conservation Movement of the 1850s, see Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Fox, and Deal L. May, Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation Among the Mormons (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 63–78

34. John Zimmerman Brown, comp., The Autobiography of Pioneer John Brown, 1820–1896 (Salt Lake City: privately published, 1941). See also Records of Utah County, 1851–1864, MS 3905, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

35. Hatch, Mother Jane, 11. Hatch’s comments imply that while Venus and Chaney might have thought of themselves as members of the family, from her perspective, they were not. Their race and station in life set them apart from blood relations. She simplifies the complex adult sorrow they felt. Venus, at least, had given birth to one of John Hardison’s children, making her relationship to him more complicated than Hatch is willing to acknowledge.

36. “Division of John H. Redd’s Property,” fd. 8, Farozine R. Bryner Collection, 1847–1956, MS 8865, LDS Church History Library. Luke is named with the Redd surname in the document, Venus and Marinda are not. The “land” might refer to town lots in Spanish Fork and to farmland acreage.

37. She signed as “Mary Redd.” According to her history on FamilySearch.org her second marriage took place on December 21, 1959. In 1900 she reports having been married forty years. See United States Census, 1900, s.v. Mary Hawks, accessed March 6, 2015, familysearch.org.

38. “A Sketch of the Life of William Bailey Maxwell by Charlotte Maxwell Webb,” accessed October 17, 2004, familysearch.org; United States Census, 1870, s.v. W. B. Maxwell, Nevada, accessed October 17, 2004, familysearch.org.

39. Find a Grave, s.v. Chauncy Cunningham, accessed January 19, 2017, findagrave.com; United States Census, 1870, s.v. Samuel Cunningham, accessed January 19, 2017, familysearch.org. Thanks to Amy Tanner Thiriot, independent historian, for the theory that Chaney Redd and Chaney Cunningham are the same person. Thiriot’s extensive research on Utah slavery will be published as Slaves in Zion: African American Servitude in Utah Territory by the University of Utah Press.

40. U.S. Census Bureau, “Spanish Fork, Utah, Utah Territory, 1870,” roll: M593_1612, film 553111, image 610, p. 307A, Family History Library. “Cupid” could be a misheard version of the more common slave name, “Cupit.”

41. Hatch, Mother Jane, 11.

42. Isaac Morley, Sr., “A Patriarchal Blessing Given on the Head of Venus, Daughter of Cupid & Amy,” March 1, 1855, Spanish Fork City, copy in the author’s possession. At the time Venus received her blessing, a person of African descent was thought to be a descendant of Cain and or Ham, and not of the house of Israel.

43. Carter, Negro Pioneer, 27. This type of story, reported by white Mormons, may show they empathized with black Mormons and recognized the difference between white and black was literally only “skin deep.”

44. City Recorder, Spanish Fork, Cemetery Deeds, 1866– 1978, film no. 1654570, LDS Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah; Hatch, Mother Jane, 11.

45. Ibid., 11.

46. Venus owned a lot in the same block. LaNora Allred, Spanish Fork: City on the Rio de Aguas Calientes (Spanish Fork, UT: printed privately, 2005), 40, 42.

47. Carter, Negro Pioneer, 26.

48. Julius Taylor, “Slavery in Utah,” Broad Ax, March 25, 1899, accessed April 30, 2015, udn.lib.utah.edu/ cdm/compoundobject/collection/broadax/id/3507/ show/3517/rec/52.

49. “James Pace Company,” Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel: 1847–1868, accessed January 19, 2017, history.lds. org/overlandtravels/pioneers/5893/james-pace.

50. Amy Tanner Thiriot has suggested that Julius Taylor’s Dr. Pinney was actually Dr. Dennis.

51. See FamilySearch, s.v. Marinda Redd, familysearch.org.

52. Ruth Brockbank, Spanish Fork, Utah, to Kate Carter, Salt Lake City, n.d. (ca. 1964), Daughters of Utah Pioneers Files, Salt Lake City, Utah. The “Al” Pace referred to in the letter is John Alma Lawrence Pace.

53. Carter, Negro Pioneer, 26.

54. La Nora Allred, DUP life sketch of David William Bankhead, Daughters of Utah Pioneers History Files, Spanish Fork, Utah.

55. Carter, Negro Pioneer, 26.

56. Spanish Fork, Utah Sexton, Cemetery records, 1866– 1898, film no. 1654570, Family History Library.

57. Spanish Fork Ward general minutes, 1851–1883, Spanish Fork Ward, Utah Stake, LR 8611 11, Church History Library.

58. Ibid.

59. Spanish Fork, Utah Sexton, Cemetery records, 1866– 1898, film no. 1654570, Family History Library. Edward’s medical attendant was Venus. He died of flux.

60. U.S. Census Bureau, “Spanish Fork, Utah, 1860,” roll M653_1314, film 805314, microfilm image 443, p. 971, Family History Library.

61. Probate Court (Utah County), Divorce Case Files, Series 20941, Utah State Archives and Records Service.

62. An idea suggested by Amy Tanner Thiriot in private correspondence with the author.

63. U.S. Census Bureau, “Great Salt Lake, Utah Territory, 1850,” roll M432_919, image 119, p. 58A, Family History Library.

64. “Inhabitants in Spanish Fork, in the county of Utah, August, 1870,” s.v. Alexander Bankhead, Utah, accessed June 12, 2015, familysearch.org.

65. United States Census, 1880, s.v. Alex Bankhead, Spanish Fork, Utah, accessed June 12, 2015, familysearch.org.

66. Brockbank to Carter, n.d. (ca. 1964).

67. Castration was allowed as punishment by the South Carolina Slave Code of 1712, for example, for repeated escape attempts and it is possible to find references to castration being used to keep troublesome slaves in line or to fit them to be “house slaves.” On slave punishments allowed by early slave codes in Colonial America, see Paul Finkelman, ed., Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619–1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass: Three-volume set (The African American History Reference Series) (Oxford University Press, New York, 2006), 151.

68. Taylor, Broad Ax.

69. Carter, Negro Pioneer, 26.

70. Ruth Brockbank, “Blacks in Utah” File, DUP, Salt Lake City, Utah.

71. Ibid.

72. Carter, Negro Pioneer, 27.

73. Hatch, Mother Jane, 11.

74. U.S. Census Bureau, “Spanish Fork, Utah, 1860,” roll M653_1314, film 805314, image 443, p. 971, Family History Library. Luke’s land was evaluated at $200.

75. William G. Hartley, Another Kind of Gold: The Life of Albert King Thurber, a Utah Pioneer, Explorer and Community Builder (Dalton: C. L. Dalton Enterprises, 2011), 176.

76. Having grown up in England, Emma may not have shared the racial prejudices felt by Americans who found mixed race relationships distasteful.

77. “Names of Immigrants,” Deseret News, September 24, 1862, 98.

78. England and Wales Birth Registration Index, 1837– 2008, database, s.v. Love Ainge, 1841, accessed February 28, 2016, familysearch.org.

79. Thurber to Smith, June 17, 1864, G. A. Smith Papers.

80. For Young’s statement on blood atonement, see Journal of Discourses Delivered by President Brigham Young, His Two Counsellors, and the Twelve Apostles, and Others, vol. 10 (Liverpool, England: Daniel H. Wells, 1865), 104– 11. Unfortunately the trial records are lost.

81. Redd, Utah Redds, 50.

82. Hatch, Mother Jane, 11–12.

83. “Spanish Fork (formerly Palmyra) Ward records, Utah County, Utah, book A: baptisms, births, marriages, and deaths, 1859–1869,” microfilm no. 6031574, typescript by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1942, LDS Family History Library.

84. United States Census, 1870, s.v. Emma Ainge in household of George Ainge, Utah; United States Census, 1880, s.v. Emma Harris, Pleasant Grove, Utah; both accessed June 18, 2015, familysearch.org. In early censuses, the census taker assigned racial designations based on how the person being enumerated looked. Emma’s children were really only one quarter black, but might have been described as “yellow” or as they were in this case, “mulatto” even though the last usually meant the person had one white parent and one black parent. For the date of John’s birth is from familysearch. org.

85. Vivian Harris Evans, Fern Thorne Bigelow, Mildred C. Cook, “Life Sketch of Emma (Love) Ainge,” DUP History Files, Salt Lake City, Utah.

86. Patrick Q. Mason, “The Prohibition of Interracial Marriage in Utah, 1888–1963,” Utah Historical Quarterly 76 (Spring 2008): 108–31.

87. Brigham Young speech to the Legislature, February 5, 1852.

88. Ibid.

89. L. John Nuttall, Journal, May 30, 1879, L. John Nuttall Papers, MSS 790, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

90. United States Census, 1870, s.v. Duke W. Redd, Utah, accessed April 28, 2015, familysearch.org.

91. Hatch, Mother Jane, 12.

92. Author interview with Rolaine Grant King, resident of New Harmony, October 2104, New Harmony, Utah.

93. See note 20. Autosomal DNA links the Ainge and Goddard descendants and links both to the Redd family.

94. United States Census, 1880, s.v. L. W. Redd in household of Rob F. Rooney, Colfax, Placer, California, accessed June 1, 2015, familysearch.org.

95. Redd, Utah Redds, 217–18.