“He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.” 2 Nephi 26:33
This past week in the United States of America during the current Covid 19 Pandemic, we as Americans also face a serious war of black vs white, love vs hate, party vs party and good vs evil. These signs of the times tell us that wickedness has reached a terrible extreme. Why is there so much hate? Because we are in a war. God vs Satan the war is coming to the end. Who is on the Lord’s side who? Now is the time to tell!
The utter reckless killing (It seems this way although the jury hasn’t said) of George Floyd, an African American, by a White American policeman in Minneapolis has set off a fire storm of riots, protests and insurrection. I definitely believe in civil protests, but not riots. Why do some people hate so much? What spirit are we following in this life? Hostility has been fomenting a lot lately.
I still have total confidence and faith that the Lord is in control. As we turn to Him we will be blessed. That doesn’t mean we won’t face adversity, but we will be triumphant in the end. We must pray for all as the scripture above says, for the Jew and Gentile, the Bond and Free and the Black and White. We are all children of God who loves us all.
There is a lot to be learned from a friend of ours, Tim Ballard. He just hates, HATE! I do as well. Let us learn from the past and love each other. I am trying just to understand hate and slavery and by no means do I have all the answers. Pray and serve the Lord and do as He would do will go far in finding answers.
Thanks to my friend Bruce Lloyd for directing me to these awesome maps
Tim Ballard
“Lincoln may not have started out to abolish slavery but he became a convert to the idea as he eventually grasped the magnitude of this egregious human rights violation. He was humbled and repentant and ready to take a stand.
Lincoln declared to the nation:
“It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness…let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teaching, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country….” (Lincoln, as quoted in Richardson ed., “A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America (March 30, 1863),” 164-165)
The Civil War ended in 1865 with a shattered nation and the abolishment of slavery. Lincoln paid the ultimate price for his conviction, as have many before and after him. And although slavery may now be illegal, it has not been eliminated.
I invite you to join me in continuing the fight to free the enslaved. You may not be able to go in and free a child, but you can support those who do. As Edmund Burke so famously stated, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
As quoted from http://ourrescue.org/blog/the-sin-of-slavery/ by Tim Ballard.
Slavery
Slavery has been around for a long time. It is wrong no matter who practices it. When you demean another child of God as inferior to you, that is a terrible sin. I know we as Latter-day Saints know and believe that. All people were born with a conscious of right vs wrong. We all chose to follow Christ in the pre-existence. We as a nation are better than this racist evil. Racism is surely an evil that Satan has used for generations now.
Slavery’s Roots: War and Economic Domination
- 6800 B.C. The world’s first city-state emerges in Mesopotamia. Land ownership and the early stages of technology bring war—in which enemies are captured and forced to work: slavery.
- 2575 B.C. Temple art celebrates the capture of slaves in battle. Egyptians capture slaves by sending special expeditions up the Nile River.
- 550 B.C. The city-state of Athens uses as many as 30,000 slaves in its silver mines.
- 120 A.D. Roman military campaigns capture slaves by the thousands. Some estimate the population of Rome is more than half slave.
- 500 Anglo-Saxons enslave the native Britons after invading England.
- 1000 Slavery is a normal practice in England’s rural, agricultural economy, as destitute workers place themselves and their families in a form of debt bondage to landowners.
- 1380 In the aftermath of the Black Plague, Europe’s slave trade thrives in response to a labor shortage. Slaves pour in from all over the continent, the Middle East, and North Africa.
- 1444 Portuguese traders bring the first large cargo of slaves from West Africa to Europe by sea—establishing the Atlantic slave trade.
- 1526 Spanish explorers bring the first African slaves to settlements in what would become the United States. These first African-Americans stage the first known slave revolt in the Americas.
- 1550 Slaves are depicted as objects of conspicuous consumption in much Renaissance art.
- 1641 Massachusetts becomes the first British colony to legalize slavery.
The Age of Abolition
- 1781 Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II abolishes serfdom in the Austrian Habsburg dominions.
- 1787 The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is founded in Britain.
- 1789 During the French Revolution, the National Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man, one of the fundamental charters of human liberties. The first of 17 articles states: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.”
- 1803 Denmark-Norway becomes the first country in Europe to ban the African slave trade, forbidding trading in slaves and ending the importation of slaves into Danish dominions.
- 1807 The British Parliament makes it illegal for British ships to transport slaves and for British colonies to import them. U.S. President Thomas Jefferson signs into law the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, forbidding the importation of African slaves into the United States.
- 1811-1867 Operating off the Atlantic coast of Africa, the British Navy’s Anti-Slavery Squadron liberates 160,000 slaves.
- 1813 Sweden, a nation that never authorized slave traffic, consents to ban the African slave trade.
- 1814 The king of the Netherlands officially terminates Dutch participation in the African slave trade. At the Congress of Vienna, the assembled powers proclaim that the slave trade should be abolished as soon as possible but do not stipulate an actual effective date for abolition.
- 1820 The government of Spain abolishes the slave trade south of the Equator—but it continues in Cuba until 1888.
- 1833 The Factory Act in Britain establishes a working day in textile manufacture, provides for government inspection of working conditions, bans the employment of children under age 9, and limits the workday of children between 13 and 18 years of age to 12 hours.
- 1834 The Abolition Act abolishes slavery throughout the British Empire, including British colonies in North America. The bill emancipates slaves in all British colonies and appropriates nearly $100 million in today’s money to compensate slave owners for their losses.
- 1840 The new British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society calls the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London to mobilize reformers and assist post-emancipation efforts throughout the world. A group of U.S. abolitionists attends, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, as well as several male supporters, leave the meeting in protest when women are excluded from seating on the convention floor.
- 1845 The British Navy assigns 36 ships to its Anti-Slavery Squadron, making it one of the largest fleets in the world.
- 1848 The government of France abolishes slavery in all French colonies.
- 1850 The government of Brazil ends the country’s participation in the slave trade and declares slave traffic to be a form of piracy.
- 1861 Alexander II emancipates all Russian serfs, numbering about 50 million. His decree begins the Great Reform in Russia and earns him the title “Czar Liberator.”
- 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issues The Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all U.S. slaves in states that had seceded from the Union, except for those in Confederate areas already controlled by the Union army.
- 1863 The government of the Netherlands takes official action to abolish slavery in all Dutch colonies.
- 1865 Congress gives final passage to, and a sufficient number of states ratify, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to outlaw slavery. The amendment reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
- 1888 The Lei Aurea, or Golden Law, ends slavery in South America when the legislature of Brazil frees the country’s 725,000 slaves.
- 1865-1920 Following the American Civil War, hundreds of thousands of African Americans are re-enslaved in an abusive manipulation of the legal system called “peonage.” Across the Deep South, African-American men and women are falsely arrested and convicted of crimes, then “leased” to coal and iron mines, brick factories, plantations, and other dangerous workplaces. The formal peonage system slows down after World War I but doesn’t fully end until the 1940s. However, in recent years, activists have noted that the 13 Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not outlaw prison slavery, and that requiring inmates to work in prison industries today constitutes a continuing form of modern slavery. Source:
Mapping Slavery in America
Distribution of the Slave Population
Edwin Hergesheimer’s map of Southern slavery was printed in September of 1861 and sold to raise money for sick and wounded Union soldiers. It identified the percentage of the population enslaved in each county, and the total number of slaves—four million, up from 700,000 in 1790—was a figure that could not have gone unnoticed by Americans living through such violent upheaval. By using this relatively new “choropleth” technique of shading, Hergesheimer showed Americans their country through the lens of slavery.
The “slave map” was of particular interest to President Abraham Lincoln, as illustrated in a painting by Francis Bichnell Carpenter, First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln. [Offsite link: See an image of the painting on the U.S. Senate website.] The artist spent six months living at the White House in order to complete this work, and in that time repeatedly observed Lincoln studying the map. To master the detail on the map for his painting, Carpenter surreptitiously borrowed it; and when the president visited the artist in his White House studio a few days later he remarked, “You have appropriated my map, have you? I have been looking all around for it.” According to Carpenter, Lincoln was once again instantly absorbed by the map and used it to trace the recent progress of Union troops through Virginia. It gave Lincoln happy news, for the areas conquered by the Union just that week were densely populated with slaves. Thus Hergesheimer’s map appears in the corner of Carpenter’s painting, a detail as meticulously chosen as the artist’s arrangement of Lincoln’s cabinet: those sympathetic to emancipation appear on the president’s right, while the more conservative members are placed at his left. The map also appealed to Carpenter for its elegant organization of information. By just a glance, one could see the proportion of blacks to whites in the Southern states, which made it impossible to deny that slavery was at the heart of the rebellion. https://press.uchicago.edu/books/akerman/maps_slavery.html%C2%A0
Historical Geography
“The two English colonies that first settled in America furnish a moral lesson that is full of interest and in some respects without a parallel in the history of the world.
This map (below) represents those colonies by two trees whos striking contrast will be apparent to the most superficial observer, but not more so than the historical facts make them appear.
The student of history can here see at a glance that it would require him years of hard study to glean from textbooks, and many will see the moral of the subject here for the first time.
It is said that history repeats itself. We do not claim that it does; but there is a similarity between the first colony of the old world and the first colonies of the new world. The first colony of the old world was established in the Garden of Eden where good and evil existed and the evil cause the down-fall of man; so it was in the new world. Good and evil came here also, the good to Plymouth and the bad to Jamestown. As the tree which bore the forbidden fruit caused the curse to be brought upon man in Eden, so did the tree of Slavery in Jamestown.
There was a constant warfare in the old world between good and evil, so there has been in the new world. The evil of Jamestown has always been and is today at war with the good of Plymouth.
Much of the trouble in the new world was caused in this way. In 1620 EACH COLONY PLANTED A TREE. The tree of Liberty, then quite small, was planted by the Pilgrims upon the Bible, at Plymouth, where it received God’s blessing, which accounts for its wonderful growth and the excellent quality of its fruit.
The tree of slavery was brought from the old world and the people of Jamestown planted it upon mammon.
In time a dispute arose between the two colonies as to whose tree should grow so large that it would occupy all the land.
Slavery with its attendant evils would overshadow the land with darkness, while Liberty with its manifold blessings would send a flood of light over the whole country.
At one time it appeared that the tee of Slavery would gain the supremacy, but God cursed that tree and is soon began to lean southward. Its friends then tried to prop it up, but it still continued to lean and showed signs that it would fall. This made the Southern mind jealous and he decided to murder his Northern brother, as Cain of old had done his brother Abel. For this sin God set a black mark upon Cain and sent Father Abraham with his big emancipation axe to cut the tree of Slavery down.
Editor’s Note: This curse above is spoken of in the Bible in Genesis 4:14-16. “Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.” Genesis 4:14-15
It is a remarkable fact that so far as the influence of the two colonies has been felt in the affairs of our country that of the Jamestown colony has been bad, and that of the Plymouth colony good.
The grand and noble thoughts recorded, the wonderful inventions, our free schools, the many blessings we enjoy today and all that tends to elevate mankind are heirlooms handed down from the Puritans and their children. While nearly every evil which exists in the political economy of our beloved country can be traced back to the pernicious teachings of the Jamestown settlers and their children.
Jamestown is no more but the colony still lives in the form of the Democratic party. Plymouth is a flourishing city and her children now form the Republicans party of this great country. For a verification of these facts study the history of the United States.”
John F. Smith, “Historical Geography” (1888). Library of Congress (Quoted from the bottom of the map below)
The turn of the nineteenth century was a period of national reconciliation, but one that came at the cost of the rights and welfare of black Americans. Yet the Civil War continued to affect politics. The rising power of the Republican Party—born out of antislavery impulses in the 1850s—was in no small part aided by the willingness of Republicans to “wave the bloody shirt” and remind the nation of their party’s leadership during the war and unbroken Unionism. This view is embodied in the 1888 map “Historical Geography,” a vision of the nation very much at odds with the contemporary spirit of reconciliation. In this rendering the Civil War is only a symptom of a much deeper division traceable to the early days of colonial settlement and which turned on the decision to import slaves to Jamestown. From here, “history” brought forth two entirely different societies. To Plymouth came Liberty, “planted by Pilgrims upon the Bible … where it received God’s blessing” in the form of intellectual, technical, and educational advantages unblemished by the sin of slavery. By contrast, “nearly every evil which exists in the political economy of our beloved country can be traced back to the pernicious teachings of the Jamestown settlers and their children.” Text from the map above titled Historical Geography. Copyright: Excerpted from Maps: Finding Our Place in the World by edited by James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr., published by the University of Chicago Press. ©2007 by the University of Chicago. (See Map Below)
https://press.uchicago.edu/books/akerman/maps_slavery.html%C2%A0
Cartographic Evidence of Hell in Texas, 1888
[Source: the Library of Congress. The map is very expandable.]
“The map is divided North and South by two lightning-like trees, “God’s Blessing, Liberty” and “God’s Curse, Slavery.” The limbs of the tree of Liberty read “Light, Joy, Hope, Faith, Charity, Patience, Benevolence, Philanthropy, Love of Country, Equal Rights, Obedience to Law, Peace, Honor, Truth, Virtue, Sobriety, Industry, Contentment, Free Speech, Knowledge, Free School.”
The limbs of the dark, crooked tree of slavery read: “Murder, War, Rebellion, Treason, Secession, Sedition, Superstition, Ignorance, Avarice, Lust” and of course “Hades”. these are hosted on the spikes of the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Laws, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott.”
“Hades” might not be that far off, at least for the heat/difficulty index, as this one seems to be located right about at the eastern boundary of the Llano Estacado, which in centuries past was a very highly difficult place to navigate.” Edited by James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr.
Division Among the Nephites and Lamanites.
We know the story of Nephi and his brothers Laman and Lemuel. They were separated from each other because of sin and wickedness. The Book of Alma Chapter 3 says,
“And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.
And their brethren sought to destroy them, therefore they were cursed; and the Lord God set a mark upon them, yea, upon Laman and Lemuel, and also the sons of Ishmael, and Ishmaelitish women.
And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preserve his people, that they might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction.
And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed.” Alma 3:6-9
The Church in an American Racial Culture
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was restored amidst a highly contentious racial culture in which whites were afforded great privilege. In 1790, the U.S. Congress limited citizenship to “free white person[s].” Over the next half century, issues of race divided the country—while slave labor was legal in the more agrarian South, it was eventually banned in the more urbanized North. Even so, racial discrimination was widespread in the North as well as the South, and many states implemented laws banning interracial marriage. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that blacks possessed “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” A generation after the Civil War (1861–65) led to the end of slavery in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional, a decision that legalized a host of public color barriers until the Court reversed itself in 1954. Not until 1967 did the Court strike down laws forbidding interracial marriage…” Gospel Essays Race and the Priesthood 20013
“Today, [T]he Church [ of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.” Gospel Essays Race and the Priesthood 20013
Book of Mormon Geography
According to the Heartland Theory about Book of Mormon Geography, the Lehites landed near Florida originally, (Map Below) and the Nephites eventually fled for their lives toward the north and settled near Tennessee. Eventually, Mosiah left that area and headed further north into Missouri, Iowa and Illinois along the Mississippi River. This is the area of Nauvoo where we believe the Mulekites arrived from the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi River and stopped near Nauvoo in a place they called Zarahemla. From that time forward the Nephites lived north of the Ohio River and the Lamanites lived south of the Ohio River.
This designation of lands looks very similar to the John F. Smith, “Historical Geography” (1888) map above by the Library of Congress, that separates the Northern States from the Southern States. This could be an amazing coincidence comparable to the founding of Jamestown, VA, by treasure seekers vs the founding of Plymouth, MA where the Puritans arrived.
I fully understand I am generalizing. In no way do I mean the Nephites are always good and the Lamanites are always bad. Look at Samuel the Lamanite who was the most righteous on the American soil as he preached against the sins of the evil Nephites. At the end of the Book of Mormon all were wicked and only Lamanites remained. The end was at 385-421 AD which coincides with the end of the Hopewell Culture in historical North America.
Most understand all are created equal, and all are loved equally by God. Part of this life is to take what we have been blessed with, and turn our life over to God and He will pour out abundantly, additional blessings we could never dream of, whether we are Black, White, Asian, Polynesian, or Indian. We all have equal potential and opportunity to be with our Father in Heaven again. We shouldn’t blame our past history on our future possibilities. If we repent daily and look to God through Jesus Christ we will win in the end against all this racism, sin and darkness we are experiencing.
Mormon Fun
Find the “Mormon Swamp” on the Gospel Temperance Railroad Map Below.
The “Gospel Temperance Railroad Map” (See Below) is an example of an allegorical map. It was published in 1908 by G. E. Bula and looks very much like the typical American railroad map of its day. It presents the traveler with three main lines diverging from Decisionville in the State of Accountability at the left-hand side of the map. The routes of the lower two lines, the Way That Seemeth Right Division and the Great Destruction Way Route, pass at first through towns representing relatively minor vices and self-deceptions of alcohol use, but lead inevitably to more serious “states” of Depravity, Intemperance, and Bondage. A River of Salvation offers hope for some, but those who stubbornly remain on the path of drink and debauchery end, without escape, in the City of Destruction. The upper line from Decisionville, the Great Celestial Route, is not without its trials, represented by such station stops as Bearingcross, Abandonment, and Long Suffering; but the final destination, The Celestial City, is clearly more desirable than its counterpart.
The Mormon Swamp is found on the “Way That Seemeth Right” in the State of Vanity, right next door to Infidel Park. This is a fun little map. I’m glad they don’t label us as “drunkards.” We Mormons know a tiny bit of racism compared to the African Americans! May we love one another.
I found my way to “The Celestial City”.
Directions: From the Mormon Swamp, go east to Confusionpoint, then turn north and visit Fort Confidence then travel NE to Fort Whosoeverville, then take the River of Life directly to the Celestial City! We Mormon’s made it. Hallelujah!
