Footnotes
Jenson, Autobiography, 192, 389; Cannon, Journal, 9 Feb. 1891; Jenson, Journal, 9 Feb. 1891 and 19 Oct. 1897; Bitton and Arrington, Mormons and Their Historians, 47–52.
Jenson, Andrew. Autobiography of Andrew Jenson: Assistant Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . . . Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1938.
Cannon, George Q. Journals, 1855–1864, 1872–1901. CHL. CR 850 1.
Jenson, Andrew. Journals, 1864–1941. Andrew Jenson, Autobiography and Journals, 1864–1941. CHL.
Bitton, David, and Leonard J. Arrington. Mormons and Their Historians. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988.
See the full bibliographic entry for JS Collection, 1827–1844, in the CHL catalog.
Footnotes
See Rowley, “Mormon Experience in the Wisconsin Pineries,” 119–148; George Miller, St. James, MI, to “Dear Brother,” 26 June 1855, Northern Islander, 16 Aug. 1855, [4]; and George Miller, St. James, MI, to “Dear Brother,” 26 June 1855, Northern Islander, 23 Aug. 1855, [1]–[2].
Rowley, Dennis. “The Mormon Experience in the Wisconsin Pineries, 1841–1845.” BYU Studies 32, nos. 1 and 2 (1992): 119–148.
Northern Islander. St. James, MI. 1850–1856.
JS, Journal, 20 Feb. 1844. In January 1844, Wight and George Miller sent Mitchel Curtis and Stephen Curtis to Nauvoo to inquire if Wight should proselytize among these two tribes. JS told the messengers that Wight should “do what he thinks best. & he shall never be brought into difficulty about it by us.”
Wight later published his letter, which matches the letter featured here. (Wight, Address by Way of an Abridged Account and Journal of My Life, 1–3.)
Wight, Lyman. An Address by Way of an Abridged Account and Journal of My Life from February 1844 up to April 1848, with an Appeal to the Latter Day Saints. [Austin, TX], [ca. 1848].
JS’s journal entry for 10 March suggests that the letter written by Miller may have been read first. The journal reports that “a Letter was read from Lyman Wight & others Dated Feb 15. 1844. to B. Youg W. Richads &c . . . also a letter to Joseph Smith. &c— from Lyman Wight and others a committee of the branch at th[e] pinery Black River. Falls.— Feb 15. 1844.” Both letters close by listing JS, Brigham Young, and Willard Richards as the addressees. However, the greeting in the letter written by Miller was to the “first Presidency” and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, whereas the greeting in the letter written by Wight was to “Joseph Smith” and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Since the journal entry has the letter “to Joseph Smith. &c” being read second, these greetings suggest that the men read the letter from Miller first and the letter from Wight second—the same order in which William Clayton transcribed the letters into the Council of Fifty record. (JS, Journal, 10 Mar. 1844; Council of Fifty, “Record,” 10 Mar. 1844; George Miller, St. James, MI, to “Dear Brother,” 27 June 1855, in Northern Islander, 23 Aug. 1855, [2].)
Northern Islander. St. James, MI. 1850–1856.
Letter from Lyman Wight and Others, 15 Feb. 1844–B; George Miller, St. James, MI, to “Dear Brother,” 27 June 1855, in Northern Islander, 23 Aug. 1855, [2].
Northern Islander. St. James, MI. 1850–1856.
See 2 Corinthians 11:26; and Letter to Church and Edward Partridge, 20 Mar. 1839 [D&C 122:5]. Timothy and Titus traveled with and on assignment from Paul in various parts of the northern Mediterranean. (See, for example, Acts 19:22; 20:4–5; and Titus 1:4–5.)
The Cherokee and the Choctaw adopted plantation slavery and other aspects of white culture in the late eighteenth century, though slavery never became widespread among these tribes. The number of slaveholding families never exceeded 10 percent in the Cherokee Nation and was just over 5 percent in the Choctaw Nation. While individuals such as Josiah Gregg occasionally described individuals holding fifty or more enslaved persons, such large households were rare. Of the two tribes, Choctaw slaveholders had the higher average number of enslaved persons in the 1830s, and even then, according to a census taken of the Choctaw before their removal to the West, only three individuals in the entire tribe of nearly eighteen thousand enslaved twenty or more persons, enough to be considered part of the planter class. Nevertheless, the fact that these tribes had adopted slavery suggested to the Wisconsin Territory committee a commonality with the southern white slaveholders they hoped to gather in that region. (McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears, 121, 123, 125; Krauthamer, Black Slaves, Indian Masters, 28–29; Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 258–259; Fortney, “Slaves and Slaveholders in the Choctaw Nation,” 28, 31–32.)
McLoughlin, William G. After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees’ Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839–1880. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
Krauthamer, Barbara. Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.
Gregg, Josiah. Commerce of the Prairies; or, The Journal of a Santa Fé Trader, during Eight Expeditions across the Great Western Prairies, and a Residence of Nearly Nine Years in Northern Mexico. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. New York: J. and H. G. Langley, 1845.
Fortney, Jeffrey L., Jr. “Slaves and Slaveholders in the Choctaw Nation: 1830–1866.” Master’s thesis, University of North Texas, 2009.