By D. Dmitri Hurlbut Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah and Boston University ([email protected])
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International Journal of African Historical Studies Vol. 52, No. 2 (2019) 301 Research Note LDS Materials for the Study of Postcolonial Sub-Saharan Africa* By D. Dmitri Hurlbut Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah and Boston University ([email protected]) Introduction Every person who enters the LDS Church History Library in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, is greeted with the words: “Behold, there shall be a record kept among you.”1 This passage, emblazoned over the entrance to the open stacks in the library’s foyer, is the scriptural mandate of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–day Saints (LDS Church) for collecting and preserving materials of historical importance, which include official church records, the personal papers, diaries, and correspondence of church members, genealogies, and also oral histories. Joseph Smith, the founder and first president of the LDS Church, believed that he had received this commandment from God to maintain records when he officially organized the church in 1830, and two years later, in 1832, Smith similarly declared that “it is the duty of the Lord’s clerk, whom he has appointed, to keep a history, and a general church record of all things that transpire in Zion.”2 While the beliefs, rituals, and practices of the Latter–day Saints (colloquially known as Mormons) may remain a mystery to many people today, they have nonetheless garnered an international reputation for their tradition of lay history.3 Mormons not only believe that families can be together in the afterlife, but also that their deceased relatives who were not baptized within the LDS Church are eligible for proxy ordinance work, as long as a genealogical connection with a living church * Thanks to Saheed Aderinto, Sarah Balakrishnan, Ian Barber, Michael DiBlasi, Leslie Hadfield, Victor Manfredi, David Northrup, and Dylan Proctor. 1 The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2013), 21: 1. For a thoughtful description of the physical structure of the LDS Church History Library and what this can tell us about the LDS Church, see K. Mohrman, “Queering the LDS Archive,” Radical History Review 122 (May 2015), 143–147. 2 Walter Paul Reeve, “Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes: Making Space on the Nineteenth- Century Western Frontier” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Utah, 2002), 28. See also Mohrman, “Queering the LDS Archive,” 143. 3 In this brief article, I will use “Latter-day Saint” and “Mormon” interchangeably. Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of Boston University 302 D. Dmitri Hurlbut member can be established.4 For this reason, thousands of Latter-day Saints have kept diaries and produced family histories.5 Although, from a theological standpoint, the LDS Church is primarily interested in the names of the dead and their genealogical connections to living church members, “the unofficial but widespread attitude,” according to anthropologist Mark Leone, “is to gather as much accompanying information about one’s dead as possible. Mormons actually want a rich context in order to understand who their kinsmen were.”6 As Spencer Kimball, the twelfth president of the LDS Church, once stated, “as our posterity read of our life’s experiences, they, too, will come to know and love us. And in the glorious day when our families are together in the eternities, we will already be acquainted.”7 This has resulted in the creation of a large body of journals, correspondence, local church records, and oral histories relevant to the study of postcolonial Sub-Saharan Africa that remain underutilized by historians. These documents provide insight into not only the expansion of an American church in postcolonial Africa, but they also contain ethnographic data on a variety of topics, such as marriage practices, African childhood, and burial customs, that will be of interest to historians who are not necessarily concerned with the history of religion in Africa. 4 On baptism for the dead, see H. David Burton and Krister Stendhal, “Baptism for the Dead,” in Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 95–97; Harold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 112–128. 5 LDS church leaders have frequently encouraged the practice of keeping diaries. See, for instance, Matthias F. Cowley, ed., Wilford Woodruff: History of His Life and Labors (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret News, 1909), 476–77; Francis M. Gibbons, Heber J. Grant: Man of Steel, Prophet of God (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Company, 1979), vii; Spencer W. Kimball, “Let Us Move Forward and Upward,” Ensign (May 1979), 82; Spencer W. Kimball, “Therefore I Was Taught,” Tambuli (August 1982), 3; John A. Widtsoe, “The Meaning and Importance of Records,” Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine (July 1920), 100. Published LDS journals relevant to the study of African history, include, among others, Calvin Cottrell Crane, One Year in Africa (Blackfoot, ID: Crane Publications, 1991); Marjorie Wall Folsom, Golden Harvest in Ghana: Gospel Beginnings in West Africa (Bountiful, UT: Horizon, 1989); Ellen Dee Walker Leavitt, ed., Missionary Journals of William Holmes Walker: Cape of Good Hope South Africa Mission, 1852–1855 (Provo, UT: John Walker Family Organization, 2003); E. Dale LeBaron, ed., Glen G. Fisher: A Man to Match the Mountains (Edmonton, Canada: Fisher House Publishers, 1992); Rendell N. Mabey, An African Legacy (Salt Lake City, UT: Rendell N. Mabey, 1998); Rendell N. Mabey and Gordon T. Allred, Brother to Brother: The Story of the Latter-day Saint Missionaries Who Took the Gospel to Black Africa (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1984). 6 Mark P. Leone, Roots of Modern Mormonism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 195. 7 Spencer W. Kimball, “President Kimball Speaks Out on Personal Journals,” Ensign (December 1980), 61. LDS Materials for the Study of Postcolonial Sub–Saharan Africa 303 Materials for the Study of Postcolonial Sub–Saharan Africa While some LDS records relevant to South African history predate the postcolonial period, the vast bulk of LDS manuscript and archival collections relevant to the history of Sub-Saharan Africa were produced after 1960, especially following the 1978 priesthood revelation when Mormonism spread beyond the borders of Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa.8 Materials for the study of postcolonial Sub-Saharan Africa 8 For late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century materials about South Africa, see, for instance, Folders 11–16, Accn1095, William Fotheringham Papers, 1853–1910, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah; MS 371, Miner Grant Atwood Journals, 1857– 1865, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter CHL); MS 890, Jesse Haven Journals, 1852–1892, CHL; MS 976, Henry A. Dixon Diary, 1861 August–1863 August, CHL; MS 1595, George R. Eldredge Diary, 1914 March–December, CHL; MS 4772, Frances E. Hulet Diaries, 1914–1916, CHL; MS 5634 1, Gottlieb Blatter Autobiographical Sketch, Undated, CHL; MS 5634 2–5, Gottlieb Blatter Journals, 1901–1903; 1910–1913, CHL; MS 5845, Harry J. Treleaven Diary, 1915 May–1917 October, CHL; MS 6487 4, Leon S. Saunders Papers, Circa 1921–1926, CHL; MS 7365, Alexander L. Stoddard Journal, 1916 November–1920 September, CHL; MS 7472, Clare B. Christensen Journals, 1928–1981, CHL; MS 7473, Clare B. Christensen Correspondence, 1928–1931, CHL; MS 7807, Henry J. Talbot Family Histories, Circa 1910–1969, CHL; MS 8344, Eli Wiggill Autobiography, 1883, CHL; MS 10840, Ben M. Greenberg Autobiography, 1926, CHL; MS 11423, Henry J. Talbot Reminiscences of Life in South Africa, Circa 1910, CHL; MS 11938, Excerpts from the Journal of Miner G. Atwood, 1861–1865, CHL; MS 12332, Ebenezer C. Richardson Journal, 1857 1863–1875, CHL; MS 15113, Elizabeth D. Short Brown Autobiography Sketch, 1892 March, CHL; MS 13658, George S. Young Collection, 1896–1958, CHL; MS 14361, June B. Sharp Journals, 1913–1915; 1944, CHL; MS 15759, Miner G. Atwood Journal, 1860, 1869–1882, CHL; MS 16795, William H. Walker Journal, 1852 August–1853 November, CHL; MS 17186, John E. Hunter Journal, 1911–1914, CHL; MS 17566, The History of Eli Wiggill, 1883, CHL; MS 19784, 1857 Handcart Missionaries, 1862, CHL; MS 23283, Joseph F. Hintze Mission Journal, 1910–1911, CHL; MS 24051, Harry J. Treleaven Papers, 1877–1917, CHL; MS 24960, Barrus Family Collection, 1896–1998, CHL; MS 25826, Badger Family Mission Papers, 1905– 1999, CHL; MS 26009, John Stock Journals, 1862–1863, CHL; MS 28711, African Treasures Marginalia [of the Cumorah Baseball Club], 1933, CHL; MSS 504, Eli Wiggill Autobiography, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah (hereafter LTPSC); Folders 3–4, Box 1; Folders 5–8, Box 6, MSS 1059, Don McCarroll Dalton Collection, 1906–1959, LTPSC. For correspondence from Nigerian and Ghanaian converts written before 1978, see MS 2015, LaMar S. Williams Papers, 1959–1962, CHL; Folders 1–2, MS 6393, Edwin Q. Cannon Collection, 1965– 1980, CHL; Folders 1–9, MS 16493, Ghana and Nigeria Files, 1968–1999, CHL; MS 21299, Edwin Q. Cannon Papers, 1963–1986, CHL; Folder 2, MS 25053, Correspondence Regarding the Establishment of LDS Church in Ghana, 1967–1972, 2004, CHL. On the history of Mormonism in Sub-Saharan Africa before 1978, see, for instance, James B. Allen, “Would-Be Saints: West Africa before the 1978 Priesthood Revelation,” Journal of Mormon History 17 (1991), 207–47; Jay H. Buckley, “‘Good News’ at the Cape of Good Hope: Early LDS Missionary Activities in South Africa,” in Reid L. Neilson and Fred E. Woods, eds., Go Ye into All the World: The Growth and Development of Mormon Missionary Work (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2012), 471–502; Jeffrey Grant Cannon, “Afrikaner Identity and Responses to Mormon Missions in the 304 D.