Mormon leaders speak about the Curse of Cain

[_Daheshist]

Oliver Cowdery, Second Elder, co-founder of the Mormon Church:

"Let the blacks of the south be free, and our community is overrun with paupers, and a reckless mass of human beings, uncultivated, untaught and unaccustomed to provide for themselves the necessaries of life-endangering the chastity of every female who might by chance be found in our streets-our prisons filled with convicts, and the hang-man wearied with executing the functions of his office!" (Messenger and Advocate, Sept. 11, 1833)

Brigham Young second President and Prophet:

“I have never preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men that you cannot call Scripture.” (Jounral of Discourses 13:95)

"You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind. . . . Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which was the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another cursed is pronounced upon the same race--that they should be the "servants of servants;" and they will be until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree (Journal of Discourses, 7:290; emphasis added)

“Ham [blacks] will continue to be a servant of servants, as the LORD decreed, until the curse of removed. Will the present struggle [American civil war] free the slave? No, but they are now wasting away the black race by thousands. Treat the slave kindly, and let them live, for Ham must be the servants of servants until the curse is removed. Can you destroy the decrees of the Almighty? You cannot.” (JD 10: 250) "Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be." (Journal of Discourses, 10:110; emphasis added)

“Let me consent today to mingle my seed with the seed of Cain, it would bring the same curse upon me and it would any man. And if any man mingles his seed with the seed of Cain the only way he could get rid of it or have salvation would be to come forward and have his head cut off and spill his blood upon the ground. I would also take the life of his children.” (Brigham Young, quoted in the Journal of Wilford Woodruff, entry between January 4 and February 8th, 1852)

John Taylor, third President and Prophet:

"After the flood we are told that the curse that had been pronounced upon Cain was continued through Ham's wife, as he had married a wife of that seed. And why did it pass through the flood? Because it was necessary that the devil should have a representation upon the earth as well as God. . . ." (ibid., 23:304; emphasis added). "When he [Satan] destroyed the inhabitants of the antediluvian worlds, he suffered a descendant of Cain to come through the flood in order that he might be properly represented upon the earth." (Journal of Discourses, 23:336; emphasis added) “For instance, the descendants of Cain cannot cast off their skin of blackness at once, and immediately, although every soul of them should repent. Cain and his posterity must wear the mark which God put upon them; and his friends may wash the race of Cain with Fuller’s soap every day, yet they cannot wash away God’s mark.” (Millennial Star 14:418)

Wilford Woodruff, who became the fourth President and Prophet of the LDS Church: "What was that mark of Cain? It was a mark of blackness. That mark rested upon Cain, and descended upon his posterity from that time until the present. Today there are millions of the descendants of Cain, through the lineage of Ham, in the world, and that mark of darkness still rest upon them."(Millennial Star, 51:339; emphasis added).

George Reynolds (Seventy):

"We will first inquire into the results of the approbation or displeasure of God upon a people, starting with the belief that a black skin is a mark of the curse of Heaven placed upon some portions of mankind. . . . We understand that when God made man in his own image and pronounced him very good, that he made him white. We have no record of any of God's favored servants being of a black race. . . . When God cursed Cain for murdering his brother Abel, He set a mark upon him that all meeting him might know him. . . . After the flood this curse fell upon the seed of Canaan, through the sin of their father [Ham], and his descendants bear it to this day. . . . We are told in the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, that Egypt was discovered by a woman, who was a daughter of Ham, the son of Noah. . . . The pure Negro, as represented by the people of Guinea and its neighboring countries, is generally regarded as the unmixed descendant of Ham. . . . Their skin is quite black, their hair woolly and black, their intelligence stunted, and they appear never to have arisen from the most savage state of barbarism (Juvenile Instructor, October 15, 1868, p. 157).

Brigham H. Roberts (Seventy):

“That the Negro is markedly inferior to the Caucasian, is proved both craniologically and by six thousand years of planet-wide experimentation. The comingling of the inferior with the superior must only lower the higher.” (A Seventy’s Course in Theology, p.233)

George Albert Smith (8th President of the Church):

“From the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith even until now, it is the doctrine of the Church, never questioned by any of the Church leaders, that the Negroes are not entitled to the full blessings of the Gospel [the priesthood or temple rites]. Intermarriage between the Negro and White races is a concept which is most repugnant to most normal-minded people, and is contrary to Church doctrine.” (Letter of the First Presidency to Prof. Lowry Nelson, June 16th, 1947, quoted in Mormonism and the Negro p.16)

George F. Richards (Apostle):

“The Negro is an unfortunate man. He has been given a black skin. But that is as nothing compared with that greater handicap that he is not permitted to receive the Priesthood and the ordinances of the temple, necessary to prepare men and women to enter into and enjoy a fullness of glory in the celestial kingdom [i.e., godhood].” (Conference Report, April 1939, p. 58)

Joseph Fielding Smith (10th President of the Mormon Church):

"Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race. A curse was place upon him and that curse has been continued through his lineage and must do so while time endures. Millions of souls have come into this world cursed with black skin and have been denied the privilege of Priesthood and the fullness of the blessings of the Gospel. These are the descendants of Cain. Moreover, they have been made to feel their inferiority and have been separated from the rest of mankind from the beginning… we will also hope that blessings may eventually be given to our Negro brethren, for they are our brethren--children of God---notwithstanding their black covering emblematical of eternal darkness." (The Way to Perfection, 101-02; emphasis added).

"There is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages... The Negro, evidently, is receiving the reward he merits." (Doctrines of Salvation, 1:61, 66; emphasis added)

Alvin R. Dyer (Apostle):

“Is God such an unjust person that He would make you white and free and make a Negro cursed under the cursing of Cain that he should not hold the Priesthood of God? There is an imposed judgment placed upon everyone who leaves the Spirit- World. When they [blacks] left the Spirit-World they have already been judged by what they had done in the Spirit-World and in their previous life. Everything is in order. Why is a Negro a Negro? The reason that spirit are born into Negro bodies is because those spirits rejected the Priesthood of God in the pre-existence. This is the reason you have Negroes upon the Earth. You will observe that when Cain was influenced by the power of Lucifer to follow him, Cain rejected the counsel of God. He rejected again the Priesthood. Consequently, you have the beginning of the race of men and women into which would be born those who had rejected the Priesthood of God in the pre-existence.” (Alvin Dyer, Counselor in the First Presidency, speech before the Norwegian LDS Mission Conference, quoted in “The Negro in Mormon Theology” pages 48-9)

Mark E. Peterson (Apostle):

“Think of the Negro, cursed as to the priesthood. This Negro, who, in the preexistence [War in Heaven], lived the type of life which justified the LORD in sending him to the Earth in the linage of Cain with a black skin, and possibly being born in the darkest Africa. If the Negro is willing, when he hears the [Mormon] Gospel to accept it, he may have many of the blessings of the Gospel. In spite of all he did in the pre-existence [War in Heaven], the LORD is willing, if the Negro accepts the [Mormon] Gospel with real, sincere faith and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If that Negro is faithful in all his days, he can and will enter the Celestial Kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory.” (“Race Problems as they Affect the Church”, address before teachers of religion at Brigham Young University, August 27, 1954)

Bruce R. McConkie (Apostle):

"In a broad general sense, caste systems have their root and origin in the gospel itself, and when they operate according to the divine decree, the resultant restrictions and segregation are right and proper and have the approval of the Lord. To illustrate: Cain, Ham, and the whole Negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry. (Gen. 4; Moses 5.)" (Mormon Doctrine, p.114)

"Though he was rebel and an associate of Lucifer in pre-existence, and though he was a liar from the beginning whose name was Perdition, Cain was cursed with a dark skin; he became the father of the Negroes, and those sprits who are not worthy to receive the priesthood are born though his lineage. He became the first mortal to be cursed as a son of perdition. As a result of his mortal birth he is assured of a tangible body of flesh and bones in eternity, a fact which will enable him to rule over Satan." (Mormon Doctrine, p.104)

"Through Ham (a name meaning black) the blood of the Canaanites was preserved through the flood, he having married Egyptus, a descendent of Cain. Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty." (Mormon Doctrine, p.343)