Tithing and Consecration Deeds

Before the Latter-day Saints moved to the Great Salt Lake Valley, they built a temple in Nauvoo, Illinois which they had to abandon when they moved west. Some Southern enslavers, most still living in the South, donated cash, labor for the temple, or agricultural products, such as the tobacco donated by Seth Utley and Bird B. Barnett. Most donations from Southerns directly or indirectly involved enslaved labor. The economic contributions of the enslaved to the Nauvoo Temple ranged from any work done on the Jolley farm by six-year-old Lambson, the only person enslaved in Henry Jolley household, to the cash donations made by the extended Crosby family from the sale of the land and enslaved workers recently inherited from their father.

Tithing donations for the temple and other church uses were voluntary but strongly encouraged, and the poor were not expected to pay. Tithing records show that enslavers usually donated cash or produce rather than labor. The major labor donation by enslavers was in the spring of 1845 when William Crosby, John H. Bankhead, John Brown, William Matthews, William McKown, and Samuel Heath traveled to Nauvoo to work on the temple for about a month. Tithing records and Brown's account of the trip suggest that they left any enslaved people working on their Mississippi farms. Nauvoo and Utah records suggest that enslavers preserved the labor of their workers for agricultural production rather than donating their labor to the church or community.

Enslaved Venus Redd and John Burton each donated one dollar for the temple. Nothing is known about the source of their donations. Benjamin Holladay, a Black man living in Mississippi, legal status unknown, donated $1.50. Later in Utah Territory, Nancy Lines Smith and Luke Redd donated produce to the church as tithing.

Known enslavers in the 1844 to 1846 Nauvoo tithing records include Henry Jolley, $124.86; the extended Crosby family, $1093.83; brother John H., James B., and George W. Bankhead, $89.00; brothers William, James, and George W. Stewart, $195.70; brothers Bryan W. and Jabus Nowlin and their father Peyton Nowlin, $445.00; Robert D. Covington, $25.00; James M. Morehead, $10.00; Washington N. Cook, $38.50; James M. Flake, $350.00; the Redd family, $23.45; Seth Utley, $83.50; Bird B. Barnett, $39.00; James Poe, $5.00; Samuel Rooker, $2.00; John M. Thompson, $16.00; George W. Brame, $2.00; Francis McKown and his son William, $33.50; and the McCorkle-Scott family, $65.98. Contemporary accounts estimated the cost of the temple at between $800,000 and $1 million. Donations from the Southern enslavers were occasionally much larger than the average tithing donation but total contributions were around three-tenths of 1 percent of the estimated cost of the temple.

After the Latter-day Saints began settling the Great Salt Lake Valley, a handful of Southern families used their enslaved workers to quickly create productive farms. Although church tithing books from early Utah show occasional donations from enslavers, the books do not document the direct use of donated enslaved labor. Tithing donations from enslavers in the early Great Salt Lake Valley include Daniel and Ann Crosby Thomas, $210.39, the value of which would have involved the labor of Philemon and Tennessee; James M. and Agnes Flake, $128.75, labor of Green Flake and Elizabeth Flake; George W. Bankhead, $147.21, labor of Nancy Bankhead Valentine, Alexander Bankhead, and Nancy's sons; Reuben Perkins, $351.04, labor of Frank and Esther Perkins, their children, and Benjamin Perkins; and Williams Camp, $347.07, labor of Charlotte and Daniel. Tithing receipts from enslavers in California beginning in 1851 include Agnes Flake, $29.50, labor of Green (hired out) and Elizabeth; the extended Crosby family, $1641.66, including the donation of an IOU for $250.00 from Thomas S. Williams to Sytha Crosby Lay, labor of Toby Embers, Grief Embers, Oscar Smith, Nelson, Henderson, Mary Crosby Bankhead and children, Philemon, Tennessee, Hark Wales, and Harriet Embers; and Robert M. Smith, $91.82, labor of Biddy Mason and Hannah Smiley and their children.

In the mid-1850s, Brigham Young encouraged church members to consecrate (dedicate) their property to the work of the church. About half of Latter-day Saint households created deeds of transfer. The movement was both an effort to create a unified front as a people and an attempt to create a system by which, as Apostle Orson Pratt explained, "the Saints must eventually become perfect enough to consent to the great principles of equality in regard to property." Most of the deeds still in existence show between $100 and $1,000 of property per household, but a handful show property in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. An index book shows the total amount of consecrated property at close to $2 million, with $1500 of that in slave property. The deeds were symbolic; the church did not take possession of any property.

Two men in Utah County, south of Great Great Salt Lake County, listed enslaved women in their valuations. William Taylor Dennis listed "1 African Servant Girl 500.00 [dollars]," meaning Nancy Lines Smith, then in her forties, and John Brown listed "1 African Servant Girl 1000.00 [dollars]," meaning twenty-year-old Betsy Brown. No other enslavers listed the enslaved on their deeds although they continued to hold people in bondage.

The tithing contributions made possible by their labor made the enslaved part of Nauvoo experience, and then made them an important part of the settlement of Utah and San Bernardino. However, the Southerners' tithing and the symbolic consecration deeds were never as important to their communities as the knowledge of how to quickly begin operational communities, with contributions made through the strength and experience of Samuel Smith, Toby and Grief Embers, Philemon, John Burton, Green Flake, Violet Litchford, Hannah Smiley, and other enslaved pioneers.