From Gentile to Israelite

This chapter traces the racial implications of the Mormons’ forced removal in 1833 from Jackson County, Missouri, where the Mormons had hoped to build New Jerusalem. Non-Mormons in the county forced the Mormons out following accusations that the Mormons were “meddling” with black slaves and Indians in order to convert them and to foment racial violence. In exile, the Mormons’ practice of (relative) racial inclusion became more circumscribed, though one famous black convert, Elijah Abel, joined the church. Promising not to upset the nation’s racial hierarchy, early Mormon leaders focused on making white converts in America and in the first international missions to the British Isles. White Mormons also began to reexamine their own racial/genealogical identities. Through the ritual of the patriarchal blessing, Mormons discovered that most of them were not actually “gentiles,” but Israelites and natural born heirs to the sacred covenant that God made with Abraham.