Busting Utah’s Slavery Myths (Paul Reeve/Christopher Rich 1 of 3)

Gospel Tangents Podcast

It's time to bust some slavery myths about Utah Slavery. Dr Paul Reeve & Christopher Rich have written a book called "This Abominable Slavery." Was Brigham Young making Utah a slave state or a free state? Newly discovered documents from the 1850s are causing us to re-evaluate past narratives. Check out our conversation... https://youtu.be/mBMGRPn1P_8 Don’t miss our other conversations with Paul Reeve! https://gospeltangents.com/people/paul-reeve/ Copyright © 2024 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission. Meet Paul & Chris GT: Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I'm excited to have two amazing historians. Chris, you're new to the show. Tell us who you are and you're almost a doctor now. Right? Give us your background a little bit. Christopher: Almost. I'm a PhD candidate right now, actually a student of Paul's. In a previous life, well, I still am an attorney. I was active duty military for 11 years in the Army JAG Corps. GT: Oh, wow. Christopher: I came out of there, switched over to the reserve side and started going down the history track here at the University of Utah. GT: Wow. Christopher: So we've been working with Paul for little over 10 years now on this book. GT: But can you handle the truth? Christopher: I actually had somebody ask me that one time during a deposition. It was really [strange,] and yes, yes, I can. GT: Do you feel like Tom Cruise cross examining Jack Nicholson?[1] Christopher: There have been some moments like that where I've gone away afterwards and said, yeah. I could be in a movie. GT: Well, great. Well, Paul, could you go ahead and reintroduce yourself. You're a three-time guest here on Gospel Tangents. Paul: Yeah. I’m Paul Reeve. I'm currently chair of the history department at the University of Utah and Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies. GT: Yeah. And tell us about the book you two as well as your third co-author, which we couldn't get here unfortunately. Tell us about your new book that just released. Paul: This Abominable Slavery. The title is a quote from Orson Pratt. GT: Go ahead and show it. Paul: It is based upon a variety of newly transcribed speeches from the 1852 Legislative Session and the 1856 Utah Constitutional Convention that were captured in Pitman Shorthand and LaJean transcribed them. GT: LaJean Carruth. Paul: LaJean Carruth. She's a co-author on the book. The book wouldn't exist without her transcriptions. We have a new source base that no prior scholars had access to. And so, we tell the story of Utah's answer to pressing national questions, can human beings be held as slavery? GT: And at one time the answer was yes. Well, very good. So, I think I told Paul this earlier, but for my audience, some of you may not know that Paul was my either second or third guest here on Gospel Tangents.[2] And I remember at the beginning of the interview, I said, so are you working on any other books? And you were working on this book. So I think that was eight years ago. I think, I can't remember. But , so I've been waiting for eight years for this book, so I know you guys have been working hard on it, but I'm very excited that this book's out finally. Paul: Yeah, we are too. It's taken a long time, but happy that it's finally here. GT: All right. Well, great. Chris, I we got to get a Mormon myth out of the way right off the bat. I remember, when was MHA in San Antonio? Was that seven years ago? Christopher: 2012, I believe. GT: Oh my goodness. Was it that long ago? That's 12 years. Christopher: Yeah. GT: Oh, wow. You two, I don't remember who else, but I know you two were giving a presentation and there's a well-known apostle, Charles Rich, who held slaves. Are you an apologist for Charles Rich? Christopher: You had mentioned this, I believe, and a few times when I have been discussing our research,