Personally I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was – how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition, but also to express our deep sorrow that it ever happened, that it ever could have happened and to rejoice at the different and better times we live in today. Tony Blair 27th November 2006
We have to stop being divided and ruled by the fault-lines of religion and class and income-bracket and culture and country ... What we need is to stop cooperating with our own enslavement. David Icke
This system that seeks to enslave us is held together by the cooperation of ordinary people. John Nada, Wake Up Call
We’re white and there’s nothing that means less to us ... Should the United States government be paying money to those our nation has harmed in the past? And it’s a tough one ... Reparations can be bullshit! Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s4e7: Reparations, Showtime 2006
Should all white people have to pay reparations? ibid.
Not all southerners were racists. ibid.
We tried that. It doesn’t work. John McWhorter, author Losing the Race
The whole reparations idea ultimately is the product of people who are afraid to stand on their own two feet. ibid.
The African American does not deserve reparations ... I do not want Jesse Jackson putting it in his pocket ... Once you open that can of worms you’re going to have a lot of people at the table seeking reparations. H K Edgerton
cf.
The government owes the black people of America some form of money. Dr Conrad W Worrill
Black people in this country are still impacted by what happened. Dr Conrad W Worrill
The greatest slave in a kingdom is generally the king of it. Fulke Greville
Slaves are real estate in this and other states. Missouri Evening and Morning Star 1833
Our intention was not only to stop free people of color from emigrating to this state, but to prevent them from being admitted as members of the [Mormon] church. W W Phelps, editor Missouri Evening and Mormon Star
Are the Mormons abolitionists? No, unless delivering the people from priestcraft, and the priests from the power of Satan, should be considered abolition. But we do not believe in setting the Negroes free. Joseph Smith, History of the Church II:436-438
Where can be the common sense of any wishing to see the slaves of the south set at liberty ... Such a thing could not take place without corrupting all civil and wholesome society, of both the north and the south! Let the Blacks of the South be free and our community is overrun with paupers and a reckless mass of human beings, uncultivated, untaught and unaccustomed to provide for themselves the necessaries of life – endangering the chastity of every female who might by chance be found in our streets – our prisons filled with convicts, and the hangman wearied with executing the functions of his office! ... [T]he project of emancipation is destructive to our government and the notion of amalgamation is devilish! – And insensible to feeling must be the heart, and low indeed must be the mind, that would consent for a moment, to see his fair daughter, his sister, or perhaps, his bosom companion, in the embrace of a Negro. Messenger and Advocate vol 2 pp299-301
I will remark with regard to slavery, inasmuch as we believe in the Bible, inasmuch as we believe in the ordinances of God, in the priesthood and order and decrees of God, we must believe in slavery. This colored race have been subjected to severe curses, which they have in their families and their classes and in their various capacities brought upon themselves ...
I am a firm believer in slavery ... Those servants want to come here with their masters ... I know it is right, and there should be a law made to have the slaves serve their master, because they are not capable of ruling themselves ... I am firm in the belief that they ought to dwell in servitude ...
When a master has a Negro, and uses him well, he is much better off than when he is free. Brigham Young, address joint session of legislature 23rd January 1852
That slavery will continue, until there is a people raised up upon the face of the earth who will contend for righteous principles, who will not only believe in but operate, with every power and faculty given to them to help to establish the kingdom of God, to overcome the devil, and drive him from the earth, then will this curse be removed. This was the starting point of slavery. ibid.
What is that mark? You will see it on the countenance of every African you ever did see upon the face of the earth, or ever will see ... Now I tell you what I know; when the mark was put upon Cain, Abel’s children was in all probability young; the Lord told Cain that he should not receive the blessings of the priesthood nor his seed, until the last of the posterity of Able had received the priesthood, until the redemption of the earth. If there never was a prophet, or apostle of Jesus Christ spoke it before, I tell you, this people that are commonly called Negroes are the children of old Cain. I know they are. I know that they cannot bear rule in the priesthood, for the curse on them was to remain upon them, until the residue of the posterity of Michael and his wife receive the blessings, the seed of Cain would have received had they not been cursed. ibid.
Now then in the kingdom of God on the earth, a man who has the African blood in him cannot hold one jot nor title of priesthood ... Let my seed mingle with the seed of Cain, that brings the curse upon me, and upon my generations – we will reap the same rewards with Cain ... In the priesthood I will tell you what it will do. Were the children of God to mingle there seed with the seed of Cain it would not only bring the curse of being deprived of the power of the priesthood upon themselves but they entail it upon their children after them, and they cannot get rid of it. ibid.
Not one of the children of old Cain, have one particle of right to bear Rule in Government affairs from first to last, they have no business there. This privilege was taken from them by their own transgressions, and I cannot help it. ibid.
It is a great blessing to the seed of Adam to have the seed of Cain for servants ... The moment we consent to mingle with the seed of Cain the Church must go to destruction ... Therefore I will not consent for one moment to have an African dictate me or any Brethren with regard to Church or State Government. I may vary in my views from others, and they may think I am foolish in the things I have spoken, and think that they know more than I do, but I know I know more than they do. If the Africans cannot bear rule in the Church of God, what business have they to bear rule in the State and Government affairs of this Territory or any others? ... Consequently I will not consent for a moment to have the Children of Cain rule me nor my Brethren. No, it is not right. ibid.
The Indians are citizens, the Africans are citizens, and the Jews that come from Asia, that are almost entirely of the blood of Cain. It is our duty to take care of them, and administer to them in all the acts of humanity, and kindness, they shall have the right of Citizenship, but shall not have the right to dictate in Church and State matters. The abolitionists of the east ... their whole argument are calculated to darken Counsel, as it was here yesterday. As for our bills passing here, we may lay the foundation for what? For men to come here from Africa or else where; by hundreds of thousands. When these men come here from the Islands, are they going to hold offices in Government? No. It is for men who understand the knowledge of Government affairs to hold such offices, and on the other make provisions for them to plough, and to reap, and enjoy all that human beings can enjoy, and we protect them in it. Do we know how to ameliorate the condition of these people? We do. Suppose that five thousands of them come from the Pacific Islands, and ten or fifteen thousands from Japan, or from China, not one soul of them would know how to vote for a Government officer, they therefore ought not in the first thing have anything to do in Government affairs.
What the Gentiles are doing we are consenting to do. What we are trying to do today is to make the Negro equal with us in all our privilege. My voice shall be against all the day long. I shall not consent for one moment. I will call them a counsel. I say I will not consent for one moment for you to lay a plan to bring a curse upon this people. I shall not be while I am here. ibid.
We consider it [slavery] of Divine institution, and not to be abolished until the curse pronounced on Ham shall have been removed from his descendants. Brigham Young, interview New Work Tribune 1859
For many years a slave trade in Indian children, especially from the poor Shoshonean tribes, had flourished along the Spanish Trail. Since Mormons regarded Indians as Lamanites of the Book of Mormon who were cursed with dark skin but were destined to be redeemed, they were sympathetic to their cause. Brigham Young advised the Saints to ‘buy up the Lamanite children as fast as they could, and educate them and teach them the gospel, so that not many generations would pass ere they would become a white and delightsome people.’ On 7th March 1852, the legislative assembly of the Utah territory had passed an Act legalizing Indian slavery. Ironically, as a result of this act, Mormons themselves indentured Indian children.
Venus, freed slave of early Mormon pioneer Elizabeth Redd, was originally given to Elizabeth as a wedding present. She came with the Redd’s to Utah Territory in 1850. She was a midwife and lived in Spanish Fork where she faithfully attended the LDS Church. However, she was never allowed to attend the temple. Kate Carter relates: