The Misguided Focus on 1619 as the Beginning of Slavery in the U.S. Damages Our Understanding of American History
In 1619, “20. and odd Negroes” arrived off the coast of Virginia, where they were “bought for victualle” by labor-hungry English colonists. The story of these captive Africans has set the stage for countless scholars and teachers interested in telling the story of slavery in English North America. Unfortunately, 1619 is not the best place to begin a meaningful inquiry into the history of African peoples in America. Certainly, there is a story to be told that begins in 1619, but it is neither well-suited to help us understand slavery as an institution nor to help us better grasp the complicated place of African peoples in the early modern Atlantic world. For too long, the focus on 1619 has led the general public and scholars alike to ignore more important issues and, worse, to silently accept unquestioned assumptions that continue to impact us in remarkably consequential ways. As a historical signifier, 1619 may be more insidious than instructive…
Most obviously, 1619 was not the first time Africans could be found in an English Atlantic colony, and it certainly wasn’t the first time people of African descent made their mark and imposed their will on the land that would someday be part of the United States. As early as May 1616, blacks from the West Indies were already at work in Bermuda providing expert knowledge about the cultivation of tobacco. There is also suggestive evidence that scores of Africans plundered from the Spanish were aboard a fleet under the command of Sir Francis Drake when he arrived at Roanoke Island in 1586. In 1526, enslaved Africans were part of a Spanish expedition to establish an outpost on the North American coast in present-day South Carolina. Those Africans launched a rebellion in November of that year and effectively destroyed the Spanish settlers’ ability to sustain the settlement, which they abandoned a year later. Nearly 100 years before Jamestown, African actors enabled American colonies to survive, and they were equally able to destroy European colonial ventures…
There is also suggestive evidence that scores of Africans plundered from the Spanish were aboard a fleet under the command of Sir Francis Drake when he arrived at Roanoke Island in 1586. In 1526, enslaved Africans were part of a Spanish expedition to establish an outpost on the North American coast in present-day South Carolina. Those Africans launched a rebellion in November of that year and effectively destroyed the Spanish settlers’ ability to sustain the settlement, which they abandoned a year later. Nearly 100 years before Jamestown, African actors enabled American colonies to survive, and they were equally able to destroy European colonial ventures.
These stories highlight additional problems with exaggerating the importance of 1619. Privileging that date and the Chesapeake region effectively erases the memory of many more African peoples than it memorializes. The “from-this-point-forward” and “in-this-place” narrative arc silences the memory of the more than 500,000 African men, women, and children who had already crossed the Atlantic against their will, aided and abetted Europeans in their endeavors, provided expertise and guidance in a range of enterprises, suffered, died, and – most importantly – endured.” Smithsonian Magazine
The Love of Joseph Smith
Secondhand Account Mary Frost Adams, December 1906
“While [Joseph was] acting as mayor of the city, a colored man named Anthony was arrested for selling liquor on Sunday, contrary to law. He pleaded that the reason he had done so was that he might raise the money to purchase the freedom of a dear child held as a slave in a Southern State. . . . Joseph said, ‘I am sorry, Anthony, but the law must be observed, and we will have to impose a fine.’ The next day Brother Joseph presented Anthony with a fine horse, directing him to sell it, and use the money obtained for the purchase of the child. (Mary Frost Adams, “Joseph Smith, the Prophet,” Young Woman’s Journal, December 1906, as quoted in Hyrum L. Andrus, Joseph Smith, the Man and the Seer (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1960), 33.)
Green Flake
Green Flake was born in January 1828 in Anson County, North Carolina. He was the Slave of James Madison Flake, a Southerner who converted to the Church. Green was given to James and Agnes Love Flake by James’s father, Jordan Flake as a wedding gift. He took the last name of his master and was known thereafter as Green Flake. He was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the age of 16 in the Mississippi River by John Brown on April 7, 1844, but remained a slave. He accompanied the Flake family to Nauvoo, Illinois.
From family diaries and the memory of a grandson, it is believed that was Green who drove the carriage and team that brought President Brigham Young into the Salt Lake Valley.
Brigham Young had Flake freed in 1854. Flake died a faithful member. (Margaret Young was the source of much of the information on this page.)http://www.blacklds.org/flake
Indentured Servitude of Whites in British America
Indentured servitude in British America was the prominent system of labor in the British American colonies until it was eventually supplanted by slavery.[1] During its time, the system was so prominent that more than half of all immigrants to British colonies south of New England were white servants, and that nearly half of total white immigration to the Thirteen Colonies came under indenture.[2] By the beginning of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, only 2 to 3 percent of the colonial labor force was composed of indentured servants.[3]
The consensus view among economic historians and economists is that indentured servitude became popular in the Thirteen Colonies in the seventeenth century because of a large demand for labor there, coupled with labor surpluses in Europe and high costs of transatlantic transportation beyond the means of European workers.[4][5] Between the 1630s and the American Revolution, one-half to two-thirds of white immigrants to the Thirteen Colonies arrived under indentures.[6] Half a million Europeans, mostly young men, also went to the Caribbean under indenture to work on plantations. Fraud and sometimes even force were widely used as methods of recruitment.[7] A debt peonage system similar to indenture was also used in southern New England and Long Island to control and assimilate Native Americans from the 1600s through the American Revolution.[8] Wikipedia
https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/indentured-servants-in-the-us/
Slavery and Abolition
When the Church was organized in 1830, there were two million slaves in the United States—about one-sixth of the country’s total population. For three centuries, women and men had been kidnapped or taken as war captives in Africa and shipped across the Atlantic, and European Americans came up with various justifications for enslaving them and their posterity. In 1808, the United States banned the transatlantic slave trade, but the status of slaves already in the country and their descendants was a matter of continuing debate.
Slavery was gradually abolished in the Northern States in the late 1700s and early 1800s, including in the early Latter-day Saint centers of New York and Ohio. In the Southern States, including Missouri, slavery and the domestic slave trade continued. Many Americans supported slavery. Of those who opposed it, some focused on limiting the spread of slavery, some hoped to see it gradually end, and some—an outspoken few known as abolitionists—called for a more immediate and unconditional end to slavery. Because the exaggeration of racial differences was common in early American social, scientific, and religious thought, even many abolitionists advocated returning black Americans to Africa rather than integrating them into American society.
Though most early Latter-day Saint converts were from the Northern States and were opposed to slavery, slavery affected Church history in a number of ways. In 1832, Latter-day Saints who had settled in Missouri were attacked by their neighbors, who accused them of “tampering with our slaves, and endeavoring to sow dissentions and raise seditions amongst them.” That winter, Joseph Smith received a revelation that a war would begin over the slave question and that slaves would “rise up against their masters.” The next year, concerns that free black Saints would gather to Missouri was the spark that ignited further violence against the Saints and led to their expulsion from Jackson County.
In the mid-1830s, the Saints tried to distance themselves from the controversy over slavery. Missionaries were instructed not to teach enslaved men and women without the permission of their masters. The Church’s newspaper published several articles critical of the growing abolitionist movement. After the Saints had been driven from Missouri and had settled in Illinois, however, Joseph Smith gradually became more outspoken in his opposition to slavery. He asked how the United States could claim that “all men are created equal” while “two or three millions of people are held as slaves for life, because the spirit in them is covered with a darker skin than ours.” As a U.S. presidential candidate in 1844, Joseph called for the federal government to end slavery within six years by raising money to compensate former slaveholders.
By the time the Saints migrated to Utah, there were both free and enslaved black members of the Church. Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, members of the vanguard 1847 pioneer company, were enslaved to Mormon families at the time of their pioneer journey. [See information below about each of them]. In 1852, Church leaders serving in Utah’s legislature debated what to do about black slavery in Utah Territory. Brigham Young and Orson Spencer spoke in favor of legalizing and regulating slavery, allowing enslaved men and women to be brought to the territory but prohibiting the enslavement of their descendants and requiring their consent before any move. This approach would guarantee the eventual end of slavery in the territory. Apostle Orson Pratt gave an impassioned speech against any compromise with the practice of slavery: “[To] bind the African because he is different from us in color,” he said, “[is] enough to cause the angels in heaven to blush.” Young and Spencer’s position prevailed, and the legislature authorized a form of black slavery that demanded humane treatment and required access to education.
During the 1850s, there were about 100 black slaves in Utah. In 1861, the Civil War broke out in the United States over the question of slavery, as Joseph Smith had prophesied. On June 19, 1862, the United States Congress ended slavery in U.S. territories, including Utah. The next year, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that the U.S. government no longer recognized slavery in the rebelling Southern States. After the war, a constitutional amendment prohibited slavery throughout the United States.
Church Resources
“Letter to Oliver Cowdery, circa 9 April 1836,” Historical Introduction, in Brent M. Rogers, Elizabeth A. Kuehn, Christian K. Heimburger, Max H Parkin, Alexander L. Baugh, and Steven C. Harper, eds., Documents, Volume 5: October 1835–January 1838. Vol. 5 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Ronald K. Esplin, Matthew J. Grow, and Matthew C. Godfrey (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2017), 231–36.
Joseph Smith’s Views on the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States (Salt Lake City: Jos. Hyrum Parry, 1898).
Jonathan A. Stapley and Amy Thiriot, “‘In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions’: Green Flake’s Legacy of Faith,” Pioneers in Every Land series, Feb. 19, 2014, history.lds.org.
“Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics Essays, topics.lds.org.
Bibliography
The following publications provide further information about this topic. By referring or linking you to these resources, we do not endorse or guarantee the content or the views of the authors.
David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).
William Mulligan and Maurice Bric, eds., A Global History of Anti-slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/slavery-and-abolition?lang=eng
“In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions”
Green Flake’s Legacy of Faith
On April 7, 1844, Joseph Smith arose at his final General Conference and delivered what many believe to be his greatest sermon. His topic, the relationship of man and God, transformed the understanding of members of the restored church. That same day, John Brown, a missionary in Mississippi, noted in his diary that “we ordained two elders the same day, brother James M. Flake & Washing[ton] N. Cook. I also baptized two black men, Allen & Green, belonging to Brother Flake.” 1
Green was born into slavery on the Jordan Flake plantation near Wadesboro, Anson County, North Carolina, in the mid-1820s. Later, Jordan’s son, James Madison Flake, took Green to Mississippi to help colonize the land being vacated by the forced relocation of the Five Civilized Tribes. It was in Mississippi that James, his wife, Agnes Love Flake, and their slaves met Elder Benjamin Clapp and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Flake household traveled first to Nauvoo, Illinois, then on to Winter Quarters. When the first company of Saints left for the Rocky Mountains, three convert families from Mississippi sent their slaves ahead with the vanguard pioneer company. The slaves, Green Flake, Oscar Crosby, and Hark Lay (later Wales), were to prepare homes for the families at their destination.
Although references company members made to the black men traveling with them were not particularly enlightened, the men were a vital part of the pioneer trek. When Brigham Young lay ill at the head of Emigration Canyon, he sent Green and others ahead to prepare the road. Green drove the first wagon into Emigration Canyon, and when Young arrived in the valley, Green had already planted crops. When James and Agnes Flake arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in October 1848, they found that Green had built them a comfortable log cabin in the South Cottonwood area of the Salt Lake Valley.
James soon passed away, and three years later the widowed Agnes and her three young boys went to settle San Bernardino, California. Agnes took her slave, Liz, with her, but left Green in the Salt Lake Valley. Several years later, as Agnes was dying, she had Amasa Lyman write to Brigham Young to ask him to sell Green Flake to raise funds for her family. No sale took place; Green may have considered himself freed when James Madison Flake died in 1850.
Green Flake married Martha Crosby, the daughter of Vilate Crosby and half-sister of Hark (Lay) Wales and Oscar Crosby. While still a slave, Martha had been baptized along with members of the Crosby family in Mississippi about the same time Green was baptized. Green and Martha had two children, Lucinda and Abraham. Green remained in an area of the Salt Lake Valley known as Union for most of the rest of his life. He farmed his land and was involved in mining ventures with Martha’s family members, Hark Wales and Miles Litchford. Green was an active member of the Union Ward.
As the years wore on, Green became a popular speaker at Pioneer Day celebrations. During the 1894 celebrations, “Green Flake … made an interesting address, stating that he was proud to be of that honorable and honored body [of 1847 Pioneers].” In 1896, Green moved to Gray’s Lake, Idaho, to be near his children and grandchildren, but returned to Salt Lake City in 1897 for the Jubilee Pioneer Day celebration. A newspaper account described the surviving pioneers and proclaimed that “one of the most interesting of these old-timers was Green Flake, the only colored survivor of the band of ’47. Green is a vigorous, broad-shouldered, good-natured, bright old gentleman, long a resident of Salt Lake County, but now living at John Gray’s Lake, Idaho. He wears glasses, but that is the only sign of old age about him. His voice might do for a trumpet, and he steps off like a West Pointer when he walks.”
Green passed away in 1903. The Deseret Evening News said at the time of his death that “Bro. Flake had reached the honorable age of 76, which means, to all who knew him, 76 years of honest, hard work for the betterment of humanity, and for an exaltation in his Father’s kingdom.”
“Bro. Flake had reached the honorable age of 76, which means, to all who knew him, 76 years of honest, hard work for the betterment of humanity.” The Deseret Evening News
Sixty years earlier, when Green joined the church, a black seventy named Elijah Abel had just returned from a mission, and members of the Quorum of the Twelve were promoting Joseph Smith’s proposal to free all the slaves in the United States. Not long after Green arrived in the Great Basin, however, church leaders began to exclude black men from the priesthood, a change that also limited black members’ access to the temple.
Despite this change, Green lived out his life in full faith. He carved a gravestone for his wife that he ultimately shared with her in the Union Cemetery. Above his name is etched in now weather-worn and barely legible text: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” This invocation echoed the sentiments Joseph Smith preached the day Green was baptized: “There [are] many mansions in my father’s Kingdom. What have we to console us in relation to our dead? We have the greatest hope in relation to our dead of any people on earth. We have seen them walk worthy on earth and those who have died in the faith are now … gone to await the resurrection of the dead, to go to the celestial glory.”Jonathan A. Stapley and Amy Thiriot
Footnotes
[1] John Brown, Reminiscences and Journals, April 3-7, 1844, p. 27, microfilm of holograph, MS 1636, LDS Church History Library.
[2] Census records placed Green Flake’s birth between 1825 and 1828. His gravestone states 1828. Newspaper articles at the time of his death noted that he was 76 years old, which would indicate a date of 1826 or 1827. Near the end of his life Green noted that he was “Born in north Car[o]lina, ” at “mads burr” [probably Wadesboro], Anson County, North Carolina. Green Flake, Reminiscences, in Utah Semi-Centennial Commission, The Book of the Pioneers [ca. 1897], quoted in Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847–1868.
[3] “Fifty Years Ago Today,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 31, 1897, 1.
[4] “More Pioneers,” Deseret News, July 19, 1897, 2.
[5] “The Veterans’ Reunion,” Salt Lake Herald, August 21, 1894, 8.
[6] “The Opening Day of the Jubilee,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 20, 1897, 1.
[7] “Died,” Salt Lake Herald, October 23, 1903, 8.
[8] “Union. Funeral of Green Flake. Aged Colored Pioneer Laid to Rest Honored and Respected by All,” Deseret Evening News, October 31, 1903, 9.
[9] Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Richard Lloyd Anderson, eds., Journals, Volume 2: 1842-1843 in The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011), 197 and 212; General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States (Nauvoo Ill.: John Taylor, 1844), 7.
[10] “Union. Funeral of Green Flake. Aged Colored Pioneer Laid to Rest Honored and Respected by All,” Deseret Evening News, October 31, 1903, 9.
[11] Joseph Smith, Sermon, April 7, 1844, Wilford Woodruff report, Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon Cook, eds., Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1980), 347; cf., Thomas Bullock report, ibid., 354.
https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/green-flake-pioneer?lang=eng
Elijah Abel
“A ready and willing Abel • What about Elijah Abel, who was ordained to the LDS priesthood by Mormon founder Joseph Smith in 1836, and soon rose to the office of Seventy and became one of the leading elders of the church at the time?
Abel served at least four Mormon missions and contributed generously to the building of the Salt Lake Temple, but was never allowed inside for its sacred rituals.
“It is tempting to partition Abel off from mainstream Mormon history as a token black man who happened to hold the priesthood,” Stevenson says. “But if you want to understand LDS history, Elijah Abel is as representative as any other early white Latter-day Saint.”
Not to be forgotten was Jane Manning James, a freeborn black woman who converted to Mormonism in 1839, traveled West with the Saints and tried repeatedly to be allowed into an LDS temple.
Jane Manning James
James was “sealed” to founder Smith and his wife Emma as a “servant” and, then, posthumously to her own children.
“Our stories are just as inspiring as all the other ones,” Vranes says. “How do we tell the story about Eliza Lyman almost dying on the trail and leave out the part about how a black woman gave Eliza half her flour? Saved her life?”
White Mormon feminists almost “deify Eliza R. Snow,” an early convert, poet and longtime female leader in the church, Vranes says, but Snow held racist views just like her contemporaries.
In one of Snow’s poems, she suggests that “the (*black see editor’s note below) people are cursed,” Vranes says. “So some group’s heroes are not everyone’s heroes.”
Maybe one day, she says, Mormon feminists will understand why “I don’t necessarily want a silhouette of Eliza Snow on my T-shirt.”
But the real history of LDS blacks also reveals how unusual Mormonism was, Vranes and Smith say.
Abel not only worshipped alongside white Mormons, but also preached to them and led them at a time when most black and white Americans were not allowed in the same congregation. James addressed the mostly white, all-women Relief Society, a feat almost unheard of in the rest of the nation.
Black people, Smith says, “have always been an important part of Mormon history.” Maybe now that rich past will live in the present.” Salt Lake Tribune 2014 Black Mormon pioneers — a rich but forgotten legacy of faith.
Heroes and Heroines:
Green Flake—Black Pioneer By Jane McBride Choate
Forced by mob persecution to leave their homes in Nauvoo, Illinois, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints decided to go westward to find a new home. The next year, 1847, under the direction of President Brigham Young, they moved to the Great Salt Lake Valley, Utah. The first pioneer colony to arrive at the valley numbered one hundred forty-three men, three women, and two children. Among these first settlers was Green Flake, a former slave of a North Carolina planter, who had been converted earlier to the Church.
Born in Anson County, North Carolina, in 1825, Green was inherited by Madison Flake after his father’s death. As was the custom of the time, Green took the surname of his master. After Madison Flake joined the Church, he offered Green his freedom. However Green chose to remain with Madison, and he moved to Nauvoo with the Flake family. In Nauvoo Green served for a short time as one of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s bodyguards.
Madison asked Green to go with the first wagon train of Saints to help prepare for the subsequent arrival of the Flake family. Life was hard for all of the pioneers. Green proved himself strong and reliable as the small group of men set up winter quarters in Nebraska, made a trail along the Platte River to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, in the spring, and found a way through the Rocky Mountains.
President Young became ill with a fever when they arrived at Echo Canyon, which cut through the eastern slopes of the Wasatch Range eighty kilometers from the Great Salt Lake. He sent Orson Pratt ahead with a company of forty-two men, instructing them to build bridges and roads as they went. Green Flake was included in this group, which pushed on and reached the Great Salt Lake Valley 21 July 1847. He rode in the first wagon to move through Emigration Canyon into the desert valley, later called by Brigham Young “the Promised Land.”
Orson Pratt immediately dedicated the land to the Lord and blessed the seed that they had carried with them over a thousand miles. He then ordered the first crops to be planted. Green Flake plowed the earth and sowed his share of the seed before building a log house for the Flake family. He had chosen a site that the Flakes could live near the Southern Saints who had come west with the Mississippi Company.
When Madison Flake arrived a year later, he found a beautiful home ready for his family. At this time, Green was only twenty-two years old. Shortly afterward Green married Martha Crosby, and they had two children. After his wife died in 1885, Green went to live near his son and daughter in Gray’s Lake, Idaho. He returned to Salt Lake City in 1897 to attend the Jubilee Pioneer Celebration and to receive a special certificate for being one of the first pioneers to enter the valley. He died six years later in Gray’s Lake at the age of seventy-eight. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/1989/06/green-flake-black-pioneer?lang=eng
“Before closing this communication, I beg leave to drop a word to the traveling Elders. You know, brethren, that great responsibility rests upon you; and that you are accountable to God, for all you teach the world. In my opinion, you will do well to search the Book of Covenants, in which you will see the belief of the Church, concerning masters and servants. All men are to be taught to repent; but we have no right to interfere with slaves, contrary to the mind and will of their masters. In fact it would be much better, and more prudent, not to preach at all to slaves, until after their masters are converted, and then teach the masters to use them with kindness: remembering that they are accountable to God, and the servants are bound to serve their masters with singleness of heart, without murmuring.” Joseph Smith
History of the Church, Vol.2, Ch.30, April 9, 1836, p.436–440. https://josephsmithfoundation.org/historical-scriptural-statements-on-race/
Petition, also, ye goodly inhabitants of the slave states, your legislators to abolish slavery by the year 1850, or now, and save the abolitionist from reproach and ruin, infamy and shame. Pray Congress to pay every man a reasonable price for his slaves out of the surplus revenue arising from the sale of public lands, and from the deduction of pay from the members of Congress. Break off the shackles from the poor black man, and hire him to labor like other human beings; for “an hour of virtuous liberty on earth, is worth a whole eternity of bondage!” . . . The southern people are hospitable and noble: they will help to rid so free a country of every vestige of slavery, whenever they are assured of an equivalent for their property. (Joseph Smith. Nauvoo, Illinois. Printed by John Taylor. 1844. General Smith’s Views of the Power and Policy of the Government)
Green Flake and Abraham – Poem
Here is a tribute given to Green Flake at the July 24th 2007 Pioneer Commemoration at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte NC. It included artwork and photos.
When Brigham Young said “This is the right place, drive on”, he most likely said it to a trailblazer from North Carolina named Green Flake. Green Flake was a 19-year old slave who joined the church in Nauvoo, Illinois. He was a bodyguard for the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1844, the year when Joseph ran for president. A key platform of Joseph’s campaign was to free the slaves by selling public lands to compensate the owners and help the South make the economic transition. As you look at this museum’s exhibit “From Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers”, think about how much smoother and quicker that transition would have been if this plan had been used and war had been avoided.
A poem called “Green Flake and Abraham”, in the style of Dr. Seuss, is a tribute to our North Carolina pioneer. It refers to past Biblical rationalizations for slavery and discrimination as the Curse of Ham. It then witnesses to the full blessings of Abraham that have come to Green Flake and other Black Pioneers through our unfolding Constitution and the spirit of connecting all families. It will be read by Elder Rambo from Kelso, Washington who is serving a mission in the Charlotte area.
This is the right place, drive on he said,
A Salt Lake view from Brigham’s bed.
And who drove on and lead the way?
Was me, Green Flake, … plus Oscar Crosby and Hark Lay.
Three strong young men, I was nineteen.
Both saint and slave, I served the team.
We blazed the trail and sang our songs,
With hope the Lord would right all wrongs.
I am Green Flake, Green Flake I am.
I do not like the curse of Ham.
As pioneer, was glad to work,
Just set me free, and bless my curse.
How did I get to Great Salt Lake?
I’ll tell the tale of this Green Flake,
Who was born in 1828.
From Carolina just north of South,
In Anson County, I came out.
Plantation fields were my green home.
We served master and did not roam.
A wedding gift at age of ten,
To James and Agnes Flake, so then,
This Green young boy became a Flake,
And all a move to Mississippi take.
Then Mormons came to preach God’s Word,
James and Agnes the spirit heard.
Up river we move to Nauvoo,
And there I get me baptized too.
I was washed in Old Man River,
Set free from sin, sweet Lord deliver.
John Brown’s the man who baptized me.
No, not the Brown of song history.
I, Green, was Black, and Brown was White,
Yet brothers we by gospel light.
The year was 1844.
I was sixteen, slave ten years more.
That year kept me a workin’ hard,
For Joseph Smith, a bodyguard.
That year he ran for president,
To set slaves free with payment sent.
The Mormon Book says this land,
Should sure be free for every man.
Joseph Smith had a plan,
To pay for freedom – would that be grand!
But Carthage Jail would end his life,
And set our course for joy and strife.
By 46 we left Nauvoo,
As Brigham’s lead, I blazed the view.
We found the place that God prepared,
Brown land turned green with water shared.
I built a cabin for the Flake’s.
Then trekked back East for goodness sakes.
I brought more Saints to Utah’s life,
And found dear Martha for my wife.
I paid vegetables for the right,
My sweet potato both day and night.
Master Flake went on a mission,
California, his position,
But a mule kicked his head and he was dead
Poor Agnes, his wife, came west in his stead.
I, Green Flake stayed in Salt Lake,
And worked for Flake’s tithing sake.
1854, I was set free,
With Brigham Young befriending me.
Our children would sit on Brigham’s lap,
For this and more I tip my cap.
I only wish for temple rights,
To say goodbye to Ham’s cursed plight.
I listened to a Bible plan,
At least as taught to me by man.
I do not like that Cain-Ham curse,
Could you please rethink that verse?
I raised my family in Salt Lake,
Till death did dare my Martha take.
The year was 1885.
I know in heaven she is alive.
I, Green Flake, moved to Idaho,
Faithful saint where e’er I go.
October 20, 1903
Is when the earth buried me.
In Union Cemetery, with Martha dear,
Is a Green and Black suit of a pioneer.
I am Green Flake, Green Flake I am.
I am now full blessed by Abraham.
On to heaven’s great expansion,
Father’s house has many mansions.
I am Green Flake, Green Flake I am.
Full blessed I am by Abraham.
Hark Lay Wales Memorial
The Utah branch of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), descendants of the Crosby-Lay family, and Amy Tanner Thiriot, a historian of black enslavement in Utah Territory, are working with the cooperation of Daughters of Utah Pioneers, the caretakers of Union Pioneer Memorial Cemetery, to place a gravestone for Hark Lay Wales. We would be delighted and grateful to have your support for this project.
Hark Lay Wales, an enslaved man, entered the Salt Lake Valley on July 22, 1847, two days ahead of the first Mormon pioneer company. Traveling with him were two fellow enslaved men, Green Flake and Oscar Crosby Smith. Hark’s owners, William and Sytha Crosby Lay, had sent him ahead to prepare a home for them; they arrived in the Valley a year later with a pioneer company that included their large extended family and three dozen more enslaved persons.
Hark lived in the valley for almost four years before his owners took him to California and separated him from his pregnant wife and young son. By early 1856, Hark learned he was free. Thereafter he was known as Hark Wales. In the early 1870s, he returned to Utah and lived in the small black community in Union Fort and mined in Big Cottonwood Canyon. He has no known descendants, and his grave in Union Pioneer Memorial Cemetery is unmarked.
Amounts raised in excess of the cost of laying the stone (approximately $4300) will be contributed to Daughters of Utah Pioneers for the upkeep of the cemetery, the final resting place of two of the three enslaved men in the first pioneer company, as well as some of their family and friends.
Oscar Crosby was labeled in several journals as “a black man.” He was part of the 13th Company of Ten led by Shadrach Roundy.
Brigham Young Vanguard Company (1847)
- Age at Departure: 32
Sources
- Albert P. Rockwood journals, 1847-1853, Journal, 1847 April-July.
- Amasa M. Lyman collection, 1832-1877, Journal, 1847 April 8-September 10, 1-26 and 1-10. Events recorded by Albert Carrington.
- Find a Grave (Website)
- Heber C. Kimball journal in Heber C. Kimball papers, 1837-1866.
- Howard Egan, Pioneering the West, 1846 to 1878, edited and compiled by William M. Egan (1917), 21-105.
- Thomas Bullock journals, 1843-1849, Journal, 1847 April-June.
- William Clayton diaries, 1846-1853, Folder contents: (2) Volume 2, 1847.
Editors Note
*Black (I replaced an inappropriate word with black above. I apologize for the language in some places of this article, but I feel it’s important to share this information. The Lord loves us all and I feel anyone who dislikes someone for the color of their skin is deeply wrong. We are all children of God.
“In the autumn of 1848, Abraham Lincoln campaigned for Whig presidential candidate Zachary Taylor in Massachusetts. On the way home to Illinois, he visited Niagara Falls, and found the sight so impressive that he started writing about it. His 
“Continue south (from SR 32) on Wakefield Mound Road past several early nineteenth century houses,
“Niagara-Falls! By what mysterious power is it that millions and millions, are drawn from all parts of the world, to gaze upon Niagara Falls? There is no mystery about the thing itself. Every effect is just such as any intelligent man knowing the causes, would anticipate, without [seeing] it. If the water moving onward in a great river, reaches a point where there is a perpendicular jog, of a hundred feet in descent, in the bottom of the river,—it is plain the water will have a violent and continuous plunge at that point. It is also plain the water, thus plunging, will foam, and roar, and send up a mist, continuously, in which last, during sunshine, there will be perpetual rain-bows. 
The mere physical of Niagara Falls is only this. Yet this is really a very small part of that world’s wonder. It’s power to excite reflection, and emotion, is it’s great charm. The geologist will demonstrate that the plunge, or fall, was once at Lake Ontario, and has worn it’s way back to it’s present position; he will ascertain how 
accuracy, that five hundred thousand [to]ns of water, falls with it’s full weight, a distance of a hundred feet each minute—thus exerting a force equal to the lifting of the same weight, through the same space, in the same time. And then the further reflection comes that this vast amount of water, constantly pouring 
[1] AD, DLC-RTL. The dating of this document by Nicolay and Hay [July 1, 1850?] has been rejected because the editors can find no reason for so dating it. The date, c. September 25-30, 1848, is based on two principal facts: (1) Lincoln visited Niagara Falls en route from Boston to Chicago, September 23-October 5, 1848; (2) the document is in appearance of paper and handwriting contemporary with the documents of speeches written in 1848 in Washington. The content suggests the sort of meditation and recapitulation of observations and reflections which would be psychologically apropos following a visit to the Falls, and one suspects that Lincoln’s boat trip from Buffalo provided the leisure to begin, if not to conclude, the meditation. Nicolay and Hay entitle the piece “Notes for a Lecture,” but the subject itself should suffice. The manuscript stops abruptly with an unfinished sentence. 
The antiquarian author William Pidgeon created fraudulent surveys of mound groups that did not exist, possibly tainting this opinion, which was replaced by others.
The monument (left) reads: The Rockwell Mound Built in about A.D. 150, this massive mound is thought to be the largest prehistoric earthwork in the Illinois River valley. it is the largest known mound built by indians of the Western Hopewell or Havana culture. [Same culture as the Zelph Mound]. Found along major rivers of the midwest, mounds of the Havana culture were usually built over the log-covered tombs of prominent leaders. Ceremonial and everyday items were often placed with the burials. It has been estimated that this two-acre, 14 foot high mound required about 1,700,000 basket loads of earth to construct. Because of its size and strategic location opposite Spoon River, Rockwell Mound was probably the most important of the Havana site’s more than twenty mounds. Havana was a trading and ceremonial center with trade routes that spanned much of the midcontinent.The mound was not scientifically verified until 1986, where a small test trench yielded pottery fragments and a variety of other identifiable material. Individual baskets loads of earth were clearly visible in the walls of the trench. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
This mound was the site of major campaign addresses by Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas during their campaign for U.S. Senate in 1858.
Mound in Bronson Park
The Preservation Commission noted that from the time of Bronson Park’s creation, it has been the site of celebrations and public meetings. 
As early as 3500 years ago, American Indians’ traditional knowledge of differing environments led them to develop a unique North American agricultural complex; fostering prehistoric trade between and within the tribes across the eastern United States. Plants, ceremonial practices, domestic spear points and pottery, and artifacts of unusual form and exotic materials were exchanged; and within more complex societies, earthen mounds were constructed. Some mounds were for burials and some were built over and/or under buildings of different uses, including rituals. Elaborate copper, silver, obsidian and mica artifacts have been found in the “Ohio Hopewell” mounds of Ohio built between 250 BCE and 350 CE, and in related mounds along the Gulf Coast and across the southern midwest.
First recorded as the Nation of Fire in the area from northern Lake Huron to southwestern Lake Superior, by 1680 culturally related Anishinabe tribes were identified as the Ojibwa (Chippewa) who had also occupied eastern lower Michigan, the Adwada (Ottawa), who had also moved to northwestern Michigan, and the Pottawatomi who were expanding around southern and western Lake Michigan. Throughout two centuries of colonial conflict, the villages of these three tribes were pushed to French and British forts and trading posts. After the American Revolution the Federal Government opened their lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains to American settlers. In spite of their united resistance to the new settlements, the Anishinabe and other tribes were defeated, and in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville ceded to the U.S. their lands east of the Wabash and Miami Rivers, giving up millions of acres of forests, lake shores, and river valleys.
“I’m very enthusiastic about the renewed emphasis on Church history. Everyone is reading Saints, which is awesome.
“There is one thing which I am now about to read which has not yet been fulfilled, and which we must fulfill before Zion is redeemed. I will read it—“Behold, saith the Father, I will bring the fulness of my Gospel from among them, and then I will remember my covenant which I have made unto my people, O house of Israel, and I will bring my Gospel unto them.” 
Jefferson never removed any Native Americans. However in private letters he did suggest various ideas for removing tribes from enclaves in the East to their own new lands in lands west of the Mississippi. Indian Removal was passed by Congress in 1831, long after he died. Before and during his presidency, Jefferson discussed the need for respect, brotherhood, and trade with the Native Americans, and he initially believed that causing them to adopt European-style agriculture and modes of living would allow them to quickly “progress” from “savagery” to “civilization”. Beginning in 1803, Jefferson’s private letters show increasing support for the idea of removal. Jefferson maintained that Indians had land “to spare” and, he thought, would willingly exchange it for guaranteed supplies of food and equipment.
Cyrus Thomas was an ethnologist and entomologist prominent in the late nineteenth century. He was noted for his studies of the natural history of the American West. However, Thomas is best known for his work in archaeology and ethnology — specifically, his contributions to the question of the origins of the mound builders and Mayan hieroglyphics. Thomas was not a field archaeologist. He visited the sites on which he reported, but did little if any field work. He had permanent and temporary field assistants and one clerical assistant. They provided him with their notes, which he organized, formed into a report, and published.
In 1894 Cyrus Thomas (left) was apparently unaware of the original survey made in 1823 and he dismissed the 1847 drawings which Squier and Davis had made with respect to the “Menorah” Earthworks in Clermont County as “largely imaginary.”7 From 1803 to 1897 the history of the existence of the “Menorah” Earthworks goes from found to lost. Here is the sequence of events.
(c) 1823. Major Isaac Roberdeau, head of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made a survey of the “Menorah” Earthworks. This original survey is currently found in the National Archives.
The 1823 survey showed that the ancient “Menorah” Earthworks existed along the waters of the East Fork of the Little Miami River in Ohio, about 20 miles above its mouth near Milford, and about 25-30 miles east of Cincinnati. The works have long since been under the plow zone. Their orientation and exact locations are today unknown.
Jefferson wrote that the mound was “of spheroidal form, of about 40 feet diameter at the base, and had been of about twelve feet altitude …. I first dug superficially in several parts of it, and came to collections of human bones, at different depths, from six inches to three feet below the surface. These were lying in the utmost confusion, some vertical, some oblique, some horizontal, and directed to every point of the compass, entangled, and held together in clusters by the earth. … to give the idea of bones emptied promiscuously from a bag or basket, and covered over with earth, without any attention to their order.”
“And, even here, Adair might have kept up his parallel, with ennobling his Conjurers. For the ancient Patriarchs, the Noahs, the Abrahams, Isaacs and Jacobs, and, even after the consecration of Aaron, the Samuels and Elijahs, and we may say further every one for himself, offered sacrifices on the altars. The true line of distinction seems to be, that solemn ceremonies, whether public or private, addressed to the Great Spirit, are conducted by the worthies of the nation, Men, or Matrons, while Conjurers are resorted to only for the invocation of evil spirits…”
In one of his books, America B.C.: Ancient Settlers in the New World, Dr. Fell offers many examples of Old World civilizations left behind symbols and messages all over America.
Recently we studied as a church in the Come Follow Me manual, the Sermon on the Mount, wherein the Savior declared to his disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). Salt is so common nowadays, that it’s easy to not think much of the Savior’s statement. But it wasn’t always so. In Mark Kurlansky’s NY times bestseller titled, “Salt – a World History” he stated, “Salt is now so common, so easy to obtain, and so inexpensive that we have forgotten that from the beginning of civilization until about 100 years ago, salt was one of the most sought-after commodities in human history.” A greater understanding of salts role in the economies of ancient civilizations can bring deeper insights.
Many of us probably have some Celtic blood. The Celts date to around 1200 BC and lived in what is now Hungary, Austria and Bavaria. The romans called them Gaul’s, which originated from the Greek word hal, meaning salt. They were the salt people. They were expert in salt mining and their economy was based on salt and iron. The German and Austrian towns of Halle, Hallein, Swabisch Hall, and Hallstatt were all named for Celtic saltworks. The Celts used rivers for trade and conquest as they moved into France, northern Spain, Belgium, the British Isles and the Mediterranean. By 51 BC, the Celts had largely been defeated by Julius Caesar and the Romans, except of course for some isolated groups in England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and the Brittany peninsula.
Salt was important to these early economies, because salt is required to live. When sodium, an unstable metal that can suddenly burst into flame, reacts with a deadly poisonous gas known as chlorine, it becomes the staple food sodium chloride, NaCl, or table salt. Chloride is essential for digestion and in respiration. And without sodium, which the body cannot manufacture, the body would be unable to transport nutrients or oxygen, transmit nerve impulses, or move muscles, including the heart.
When our baptismal and temple covenants become the defining focus of our life, rather than just one of the many influences, we create a hostile environment where the influences of the adversary cannot thrive, thereby preventing moral decay and the inherent unhappiness (our or somebody else’s) that always accompanies it. Does this mean that we’re perfect or won’t have temptations? Of course not, but the serious transgressions will be so far back in the rearview mirror that they won’t have any impact on us.
The possible conclusion of where Zelph may fit into the historicity of the Book of Mormon is either, Zelph may have died in 322 AD before Mormon became the Nephite leader or, Zelph may have died in 327 AD in Mormon’s first battle against the Lamanites in the City of Angola before the Nephites went even farther north and east toward Cumorah.
The name of Onandagus mentioned by Joseph, sounds very similar to Onondaga, one of the five Indian nations that comprised the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy. Haudenosaunee means “the people of the long house”. This confederacy assisted the United States in forming a similar government as the Iroquois. The tribe of Onandaga are native peoples of New York and are known to have built houses of timber. (Alma 19:17-18; 26:28-29). The Onandaga are also the leading tribe, or “fire keepers” of this current confederacy. Another people of the Haudenosaunee are the Oneida, which is strikingly similar to the Book of Mormon place name “Onidah”. (Alma 32:4; 47:5) It is also likely no coincidence that the Lamanite title of deity, “Great Spirit” is a native North American appellation. (Alma 18:4-5)
Of the First Presidency Conference Report, October 1968, pp. 106-110
Rod Meldrum
“First, I must say that, based upon the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith and my experiences with contemporary American Indians, I believe that the events of the Book of Mormon occurred in what is now the United States.
In representing the Chickasaw Nation throughout his career, Mr. Keel’s international influence is unparalleled. He personally carried greetings from the Chickasaw Nation to foreign political leaders, including Prime Minister (now President) Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Gűl of Turkey, Deputy Minister Volgin of Russia, Lord Alderdice of England and Deputy Minister Nazimov of Azerbaijan, among others. He also acted as the sole U.S. representative at international meetings concerning indigenous peoples in Russia, Turkey, Canada and Mexico.
In the Annotated Book of Mormon by David Hocking and Rod Meldrum there are over 30-40 pages about the wonderful Native Americans of the Book of Mormon. Pictures, articles, notes, graphs, maps and important stories about the descendants of the Lamanites.
showed these discs recklessly piled outside one of his field camp tents. Mound 17 had 3,000 sheets of mica excavated, “enough to fill two barrels”. The same mound had 5,000 copper objects, of which Moorehead thought 4,000 were copper ear spools, 100 were breast plates, and another 120 were “cut into numerous designs”. He also found in Mound 17 by his estimates over 100,000 fresh water pearls from the various species mussels and clams that inhabit Ohio streams (they were at the time worth one million dollars).
“Five years after the discovery of this remarkable memento of the ancient Israelites on the American continent, and thirty-five years after the Book of Mormon was in print, several other mounds in the same vicinity of Newark were opened, in several of which Hebrew characters were found. Among them was this beautiful expression, buried with one of their ancient dead, ‘May the Lord have mercy on me a Nephite.’ It was translated a little different—’Nephel.’ Now we well know that Nephi, who came out of Jerusalem six hundred years before Christ, was the leader of the first Jewish colony across to this land, and the people, ever afterwards, were called ‘Nephites,’ after their inspired prophet and leader. The Nephites were a righteous people and had many prophets among them; and when they were
“The caravans of Egypt and Israel pass each other, guided through the sands by those men of the desert (Arabs) who were the immemorial go-between of the two civilizations.
“In Nephi’s words we feel the magnitude of the sacred relationship that Nephi shared with Jehovah, the Great I Am, whose name is vital in our understanding of Him. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, “To the Lord’s covenant people, names—particularly proper names—have always been very important. Adam and Eve themselves bore names that suggested their roles here in mortality (see Moses 1:34; 4:26) and, when important covenants were made, men like Abram and Jacob took on new names that signaled a new life as well as a new identity. (See Gen. 17:5; 32:28). Because of this reverence for titles and the meanings they conveyed, the name Jehovah, sometimes transliterated as Yahweh, was virtually unspoken among that people. This was the unutterable name of Deity, that power by which oaths were sealed, battles won, miracles witnessed. Traditionally, he was identified only through a tetragrammaton, four Hebrew letters variously represented in our alphabet as IHVH, JHVH, JHWH, YHVH, YHWH.” Whom Say Ye That I Am?” Jeffrey R. Holland Ensign Sept. 1974. 
represents the name “Jehovah”, or the tetragrammaton. All throughout the Old Testament, the word ‘LORD’ (all small caps), replaced the sacred name “Yahweh” as described above. “I Am” in Hebrew is “Yahweh” and “Adonai” is the Hebrew word for LORD.
Here is an interesting note about the name Nephi. “Nephi; This is also an Egyptian name, usually given as Knephi, and transliterated into Hebrew as Nebi. It means “prophet” or one who speaks with God. The great Osiris, one of the Egyptian gods, was called Nephi or Knephi and the city in his honor was n-ph (vowels always had to be supplied). It is the city we know today as Memphis, located across the Nile from Cairo, but it is referred to by its original name of Noph (a variant of Nephi) in the writings of Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.” Treasures from the Book of Mormon by W. Cleon Skousen. See “Noph” in LDS Bible Dictionary.
“The tetragrammaton (from Greek Τετραγράμματον, meaning “[consisting of ] four letters.”
“Providential Importance in History The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone is a large boulder on the side of Hidden Mountain, near Los Lunas, New Mexico, about 35 miles south of Albuquerque, that bears a very regular inscription carved into a flat panel. The stone is also known as the Los Lunas Mystery Stone or Commandment Rock. The inscription is interpreted to be an abridged version of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments in a form of Paleo-Hebrew. A letter group resembling the tetragrammaton YHWH, or “Yahweh,” makes four appearances. The stone is controversial in that some claim the inscription is Pre-Columbian, and therefore proof of early Semitic contact with the Americas.
This counterfeit use of the inverted pentagram has led many to believe that this historic symbol of light, is actually a symbol of darkness. Lucifer delights, perhaps above anything, in perverting that which is sacred. This is true for more than sacred symbols. Satanists have their sacrament, their priesthood, they keep their journal histories. The devil perverts true marriage, true family, and true bonds of affection. Perhaps few realize that raw Satanism is little more than the blaspheming of sacred words and the blasphemous acting out of sacred rites to gain favor with Lucifer. The Satanic mockery of rituals and covenants do not in any way make true acts evil. The adversary has always desired to debase holy symbols, the pure emblems of Christ and His Gospel. He mocks sacred figures, initially revealed by God, as he mocked Christ on the Cross.” 
Then he spoke of other leaders serving with him in the Nephite army, all of whom had fallen with the forces under their command. 
At the time Mormon recorded the details of this dreadful tragedy, he said that only twenty-four remained alive of all the men, women, and children of the Nephites. These surviving few were themselves killed the next day—with one exception, Moroni, whom the Lord spared to close up the written record.
In closing his record, and knowing that it would come to us, Moroni pleaded with us, the modern inhabitants of this land, to escape the kind of tragic end which had obliterated his people. He said:
Many of us have fond memories learning about Noah and his ark during our days at home and in Primary. Perhaps our parents and teachers held up a picture of Noah preaching to laughing and mocking people as he stood in front of the partially built ark, or perhaps they showed us a picture portraying the ark filled with animals standing on the deck as the great vessel rested in the water. Later, our Sunday School or seminary teachers added to our knowledge of this great man, his righteousness, his missionary work, and the revelations surrounding the building of the ark. As Latter-day Saints, we treasure this sacred, true account of one of God’s great prophets who lived so long ago.
Moses may have received his information about Noah through direct revelation, or perhaps he used ancient records that were written by one of the eyewitnesses to the Flood, such as Noah himself or one of his sons. Such records, presuming they once existed, are now lost to the world. In the book of Genesis, Moses clearly states that a flood occurred, and the terminology definitely refers to a worldwide flood, as opposed to a localized flood. The Joseph Smith Translation backs up the Genesis account, modifying the wording only slightly.
Verse 23 [
For Latter-day Saints, the Flood is a matter of faith and belief. We believe in many events that today we cannot scientifically explain. For example, in a world where change and death are the norm, the scriptures promise immortality and eternal life. Indeed the scriptures teach that this earth will be burned (see 
The account of the tower of Babel, presented in Genesis 11:1–9 [
For some in the modern world, the historicity of the tower of Babel story, as with the Flood, is often discounted. One modern school of thought considers the account to be nothing more than an “artful parable” and an “old tale.”
1- Principles of Geology: Published July 1830 An attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth’s surface, by reference to causes now in operation is a book by the Scottish geologist Charles Lyell that was first published in 3 volumes from 1830–1833. As important to modern world views as any work of Darwin, Marx, or Freud, Principles of Geology is a landmark in the history of science. In this first of three volumes, Charles Lyell (1797-1875) sets forth his powerful uniformitarian argument: processes now visibly acting in the natural world are essentially the same as those that have acted throughout the history of the earth, and are sufficient to account for all geological phenomena. Also known as the Doctrine of Uniformity
2- The Book of Mormon Published June 1830 is a sacred text which adherents believe contains the writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from approximately 2200 BC to AD 421. It was translated by the Gift and Power of God and it was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith.
3- On the Origin of Species published on 24 November 1859, (or more completely, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life), is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Darwin’s book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection.
Nothing can be clearer than that the family of Lehi and his posterity, which grew into a mighty people, a great nation upon the continent of America, were descendants of Joseph, the son of Jacob. And now let us consider this fact in connection with the blessing pronounced upon the head of Joseph by his father Jacob; but before doing so I wish to call attention to the blessings which Moses also pronounced upon the descendants of Joseph just previous to his death; it is recorded in Deuteronomy chapter xxxiii.
Again, the family of Lehi was but a part and a very small part of the descendants of Joseph; the greater number of his descendants remained in Judea until, in connection with the ten tribes, and forming a part of that body of people, they were led away. But when Lehi and his colony left Jerusalem and planted themselves in America, the figure used by Jacob in blessing Joseph, was completed — Joseph was indeed “a fruitful bough by a well whose branches ran over the wall.” And though the great nations which sprang into existence on the American continent, consisting in the main of his posterity, have been destroyed, and broken up, until nothing is left of them but a few wandering tribes and the ruins of their once grand civilization — still many millions of them have been very faithful to the Lord and his truth in the days of their probation, and have doubtless died with a lively hope of a glorious resurrection.
“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
Shortly after the Thanksgiving Proclamation was written, it was lost for 130 years. The original document was written in long hand by William Jackson, secretary to the President, and was then signed by George Washington. It was probably misplaced or mixed in with some private papers when the US capitol moved from New York to Washington, D.C. The original manuscript was not placed in the National Archives until 1921 when Dr. J. C. Fitzpatrick, assistant chief of the manuscript’s division of the Library of Congress found the proclamation at an auction sale being held at an art gallery in New York. Dr Fitzpatrick purchased the document for $300.00 for the Library of Congress, in which it now resides. It was the first official presidential proclamation issued in the United States.
You can do a google search for many indications of Phoenician artifacts here: Davenport Tablets , Iowan Stele, Bat Creek Stone, Los Lunas Decalogue Stone, Pontotoc Stele, Newark Holy Stones, Oklahoma Hymn to Aten, Narragansett Rune Stone, Tyngsboro Map Stone, Tuscon Lead Artifacts, America’s Stonehenge Baal Stone (Mystery Hill NH), Westford Boat Stone, Spirit Pond Inscription Stone, Paraíba inscription, Pedra de Gavea Inscription.