In 1852, Utah lawmakers met to debate whether black men would be given the right to vote in the new territory of the United States. After three months of sometimes heated debate, the matter was decided. Utah’s leaders sided with Latter-day Saint prophet and territorial governor Brigham Young — who in the midst of the debate had compared Native Americans and African Americans to mules. And then the territorial Legislature went a step further — it passed a bill that enshrined slavery as a legal institution, and Utah became the only western territory of the United States where black men, women, and children could be the legal property of white slavers.
Historian Paul Reeve has helped unearth new documents describing the debate, and he joins us for the program.
