Race and the Making of the Mormon People

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Perry Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Early American ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
History Of ◽  
Human Family

The nineteenth-century history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this book argues, illuminates the role that religion played in forming the notion of three “original” American races—red, black, and white—for Mormons and others in the early American Republic. Recovering the voices of a handful of black and Native American Mormons who resolutely wrote themselves into the Mormon archive, this book threads together historical experience and Mormon scriptural interpretations. The Book of Mormon is key to understanding how early followers reflected but also departed from antebellum conceptions of race as biblically and biologically predetermined. Mormon theology and policy both challenged and reaffirmed the essentialist nature of the racialized American experience. The Book of Mormon presented its believers with a radical worldview, proclaiming that all schisms within the human family were anathematic to God’s design. That said, church founders were not racial egalitarians. They promoted whiteness as an aspirational racial identity that nonwhites could achieve through conversion to Mormonism. This book also shows how, on a broader level, scripture and history may become mutually constituted. For the Mormons, that process shaped a religious movement in perpetual tension between its racialist and universalist impulses during an era before the concept of race was secularized.

scholarly journals Vampires and Werewolves: Rewriting Religious and Racial Stereotyping in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Series

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-211
Author(s):  
Georgina Ledvinka
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Family Values ◽  
American People ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Active Member ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
Lds Church ◽  
History Of ◽  
Twilight Series

Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series (2005–8) demonstrates a strong connection with the theology, cultural practices and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), of which Meyer is an active member. One of the strongest ways in which this connection is demonstrated is through characterisation: specifically, by featuring vampires and werewolves as prominent supernatural characters in the text. Twilight employs vampires as a metaphor for the LDS Church. By eschewing literature's traditional association of vampires with subversive acts, especially subversive sexuality, and rewriting them as clean-cut pillars of the community, Twilight not only charts but promotes the progression of Latter-day Saints from nineteenth century social pariahs to modern day exemplars of conservative American family values. The series represents its Native American shapeshifting werewolves as an ancient group of people from LDS scriptural history called Lamanites, who were cursed by God with ‘a skin of blackness’ for their ‘iniquity’ (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 5:21). The construction of the werewolves as impoverished and socially marginalised yet with strong family ties enables the treatment of race in Twilight to move beyond a standard white/non-white binary frame to engage at a deeper level with LDS stereotyping of Native American people.

Esotericism and the “Coded Word” in Mormonism

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-54
Author(s):  
Clyde Forsberg Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Popular Religion ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
Divine Inspiration ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
New Religion

In the history of American popular religion, the Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, have undergone a series of paradigmatic shifts in order to join the Christian mainstream, abandoning such controversial core doctrines and institutions as polygamy and the political kingdom of God. Mormon historians have played an important role in this metamorphosis, employing a version (if not perversion) of the Church-Sect Dichotomy to change the past in order to control the future, arguing, in effect, that founder Joseph Smith Jr’s erstwhile magical beliefs and practices gave way to a more “mature” and bible-based self-understanding which is then said to best describe the religion that he founded in 1830. However, an “esoteric approach” as Faivre and Hanegraaff understand the term has much to offer the study of Mormonism as an old, new religion and the basis for a more even methodological playing field and new interpretation of Mormonism as equally magical (Masonic) and biblical (Evangelical) despite appearances. This article will focus on early Mormonism’s fascination with and employment of ciphers, or “the coded word,” essential to such foundation texts as the Book of Mormon and “Book of Abraham,” as well as the somewhat contradictory, albeit colonial understanding of African character and destiny in these two hermetic works of divine inspiration and social commentary in the Latter-day Saint canonical tradition.

The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Eastwood Pulido
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
The Third ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
The World ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
Spiritual Conquest ◽  
The Church ◽  
The U.S

A spiritual biography, this book chronicles the journey of Margarito Bautista (1878–1961) from Mormonism to the Third Convention, a Latter-day Saint (Mormon) splinter group he fomented in 1935–1936, to Colonia Industrial/Nueva Jerusalén, a polygamist utopia Bautista founded in 1947. It argues that Bautista embraced Mormon belief in indigenous exceptionalism in 1901 and rapidly rose through the ranks of Mormon priesthood until convinced that the Mormon hierarchy was not invested in the development of native American peoples, as promoted in the Church’s canon. This realization resulted in tensions over indigenous self-governance within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) and Bautista’s 1937 excommunication. The book contextualizes Bautista’s thought with a chapter on the spiritual conquest of Mexico in 1513 and another on the arrival of Mormons in Mexico. In addition to accounts of Bautista’s congregation-building on both sides of the U.S. border, this volume includes an examination of Bautista’s magnum opus, a 564-page tome hybridizing Aztec history and Book of Mormon narratives, and his prophetic plan for the recovery of indigenous authority in the Americas. Bautista’s excommunication catapulted him into his final spiritual career, that of a utopian founder. In the establishment of his colony, Bautista found a religious home, free from Euro-American oversight, where he implemented his prophetic plan for Mexico’s redemption. His plan included obedience to early Mormonism’s most stringent practices, polygamy and communalism. Bautista nonetheless hoped his community would provide a model for Mexicans willing to prepare the world for Christ’s millennial reign.

The Odd Man Out in a Pioneer Cemetery at Seccombe Lake Park, San Bernardino, California

2020 ◽  
pp. 90-113
Author(s):  
Patricia M. Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Native American ◽  
Morphological Traits ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Ancestry ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Community Members ◽  
San Bernardino ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

In 1989, a pioneer cemetery associated with the 19th-century Latter-Day Saints colony in San Bernardino, California, was discovered during the construction of a baseball field. Among the remains of 12 individuals recovered from the cemetery were those of a young man of about 22 years, whose burial treatment differed notably from the other intact interments at the site. Unlike these coffin burials, Burial 5 was found in a sprawling position, apparently tossed unceremoniously into the grave pit. Dental morphological traits identified the genetic affinities of this man as Native American, perhaps a member of the local Cahuilla or Serrano tribes, whereas the other individuals appeared to be of European ancestry, an interpretation consistent with records kept by community members. A possible identity for this individual came from a journal account describing the shooting of an “Indian” by the local sheriff, who was then brought to the fort, died, and was buried before his fellow tribesmen arrived to determine what had transpired and perhaps to claim his remains. This chapter explores the identity and life history of this young man in the context of the history of the valley and the pioneer community in which he met his death.

Introduction

Horace Holley ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Cousins
Keyword(s):  
History Of Education ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
History Of ◽  
Transylvania University

The introduction places the life of Horace Holley in the context of the history of education, the history of Kentucky, and the history of the early American republic. It begins with a summary of Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to Lexington in May 1825, reviews Horace’s career at Transylvania University, and provides an overview of the book. It also includes a summary of scholarship related to the life and times of Horace Holley. The introduction outlines the scope and method of research as well as the significance of the project. It concludes with individual chapter summaries that outline themes and historical contexts developed throughout the book.

An American Book of Chronicles

2019 ◽  
pp. 136-158
Author(s):  
Eran Shalev
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Early American ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Republic ◽  
American Book

By the time Joseph Smith published The Book of Mormon, Americans had been producing and consuming faux biblical texts for close to a century. Imitating a practice that originated as a satirical literary genre in eighteenth-century Britain, Americans began producing pseudo-biblical texts during the Revolution. This essay demonstrates how the prism of pseudo-biblicism allows us to view The Book of Mormon as emerging from a larger biblico-American world. The genre demonstrates how pervasive the Bible was in the cultural landscape of the Republic and the ease with which Americans lapsed into biblical language. As this essay points out, however, pseudo-biblical discourse also sheds new light on The Book of Mormon. The similarities between The Book of Mormon and other pseudo-biblical texts provide a significant context to understanding the creation and reception of Smith’s text, the culture of biblicism in the nineteenth century, and the intellectual history of the early American Republic.

Continuing the Intervention: Past, Present, and Future Pathways for Native Studies and Early American History

2020 ◽  
Vol 125 (2) ◽  
pp. 528-532
Author(s):  
Christine M. DeLucia
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
American History ◽  
Indigenous Studies ◽  
Native American History ◽  
Lively Discussion ◽  
King Philip's War ◽  
Native Studies ◽  
Early American History ◽  
Early American ◽  
History Of

Abstract David Silverman offers a critical appraisal of two prizewinning works in Native American and Indigenous studies (NAIS), Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War, by Lisa Brooks, and Memory Lands: King Philip’s War and the Place of Violence in the Northeast, by Christine M. DeLucia. Silverman’s review treats the methodology associated with NAIS with some skepticism, offering the opportunity for a lively discussion about the merits and perils of community-engaged history scholarship. Four scholars of Native American history, including DeLucia, respond, defending new approaches to Indigenous history represented by these recent works.

VENUS ON THE SOFA: WOMEN, NEOCLASSICISM, AND THE EARLY AMERICAN REPUBLIC

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
CAROLINE WINTERER
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
The Self ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Early National ◽  
Mercy Otis Warren ◽  
History Of

What did early national Americans mean when they articulated fears of “luxury and effeminacy,” those twin sins of a republic that idolized the classical virtues of manly self-restraint? This essay argues that the fear of luxury and effeminacy circulated not just as airy metaphor but as palpable reality, specifically in the figure of the female recumbent on the sofa. The article traces separately the careers of Enlightenment Venus, who especially in her recumbent form embodied fears of passion in a republic built on reasoned consent, and the sofa, a piece of neoclassical furniture that rose to great popularity at this time and was envisioned as both effeminate and luxurious in fictional and nonfiction writing. The essay then joins the two figures of recumbent Venus and the sofa, showing how they were mutually enabling, and how they entered into early national conversations about labor and race. It concludes by examining how two educated American women, the self-described Roman matrons Mercy Otis Warren and Martha Bayard Smith, incorporated the image of the supine woman and her implied sofa into fictional writings about classical polities in danger. By knitting political ideologies, imaginative worlds, and neoclassical objects, the essay suggests a way for historians to flesh out the intellectual history of early national women, showing how they could participate in a conversation about modern politics and classical antiquity from which we have assumed they were largely disbarred.

The Early Republic, 1789–1815

2020 ◽  
pp. 44-61
Author(s):  
John L. Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Early Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Revolutionary Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Past Half

The twenty-five-year political history of the early American republic, covering the period from the first federal election through the War of 1812, critically shaped the terms and path of American politics over the ensuing two centuries. During this time the United States emerged from the volatility of revolutionary politics to establish the bipolar party structure that has dominated the American political landscape ever since. The central ideological debate over the power of the national government was shaped by classical understandings of politics and by powerfully contested interests. This essay begins with a short chronological summary of the politics of the period, and then turns to the five broad frameworks that historians of the politics of the early republic have addressed over the past half-century: party structure, republican ideology, political culture, slavery, and state-formation.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Porterfield ◽  
John Corrigan ◽  
Darren E. Grem
Keyword(s):  
Religious Organizations ◽  
American Religious History ◽  
Business Practices ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Consumer Capitalism ◽  
Early American ◽  
History Of ◽  
Marketing Tool ◽  
Commercial Organizations

Beginning with the intertwining of commerce and Christianity in the colonial era, the Introduction offers a historical framework for understanding the evolving relationship between American religious organizations and consumer capitalism. From the move toward parity between religious and commercial organizations under the aegis of contract law in the early American republic to the infusion of business practices into religious organizations beginning in the nineteenth century, and finally to recent equations of religion and prosperity and the strategic use of religion as a marketing tool for business growth, this chapter identifies business practices and economic theories embedded within the history of American religious organizations. The chapter calls for more attention to the business side of religion as not only a neglected aspect of American religious history but also a new way of understanding that history.

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