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And so, this is the story I tell in the book of Abraham Smoot, who had been born and raised in Kentucky, had gone on a mission Alabama, was a southerner and came west but told Brigham pretty much he wanted to maintain his slaves when he came. And it was the influence of people like Smoot who helped motivate young to make sure the territory was a pro-slavery space. So, Smoot gets here. He moves down to Provo. He becomes like state president and mayor and first trustee of Brigham Young University.
He's a really successful businessman. In 1879, after State Conference one day, John Taylor comes down to visit a conference and afterwards goes back to one of the Smoot's four houses in Provo, and asked Smoot to recollect for him the story of the ordination of Elijah Abel because Abraham Smoot had been ordained at the same time on the same day in the same place as Elijah Abel. And the man who are named him and Elijah Abel was a man named Zebedee Contrin, who by that point was a poor farmer, barely scraping by on the outskirts of Spanish fork.
And Smoot, in fact, owned the land that Coltrin lived on via the united order, right? No pressure on Coltrin, right? So, Abraham raised Coltrin and Coltrin says, 'Yeah, I ordained him, but it really wasn't supposed to be that way.' And Joseph Smooot himself said that it shouldn't be. And then, Abraham Smoot said, 'Yup, what he said and I say the same thing and ordination of black people should not happen.' And they lied. They lied together. They had both been there.
They had both seen hands placed on Elijah Abel's head and the priesthood conveyed upon him. Coltrin had done it himself. And yet, they arrayed their testimonies against him and they knew what that meant. Elijah Abel had documents of his ordination. He would carry around to try and show people. And it was always being debated. And this very powerful figure cast us lots decisively against black testimony, against black authority. And against black lives.
He held black people in slavery in Provo. But he's a human, right? I mean, but he's a human. And we're not going to hate on Abraham Smoot. It's just like, but we need to be big caution. The way you came to power in this territorial theocracy, the way we carved out the space we have, the fact that it is a resolutely whitespace still, that's not an accident. If we want that to change, we have to know how we got here.Share
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