IF TRAFFIC does not deter, you may discover on the Brigham Young Monument at the intersection of Main and South Temple streets in Salt Lake City these names: "Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, Colored Servants."
This plaque honoring the original pioneers of 1847 thus pays tribute to the three black slaves in the vanguard of the Mormon migration. Though they were the first slaves in Utah, they were not the only slaves to reside here.Oddly enough, Utah was the only Western territory in 1850 in which blacks were held as slaves. This was a result of the Compromise of 1850, in which California was admitted into the Union as a free state and New Mexico and Utah territories were ambiguously given popular sovereignty.
Since some of the Mormon settlers in Utah were Southerners, it is not surprising that slavery would be practiced. Green Flake, for instance, was born in 1825 in Anson County, N.C., where he remained until the Mormon exodus West in 1846.
Originally, Flake was one of many slaves belonging to Jordan Flake on a North Carolina plantation. When his master died, he was willed to James Flake, who was baptized into the LDS Church in the winter of 1843-44 in Mississippi.
Green Flake was baptized into the LDS Church in April 1844, by John Brown, a white LDS convert from Tennessee. The Flakes migrated to Utah in 1848, with a company of Southern Mormons consisting of 502 whites and 24 blacks.
When James Flake was killed in an accident in 1850, Flake's wife donated Green Flake to the LDS Church as tithing. He then worked for Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball before acquiring his freedom and settling in Union. In 1897, the Deseret News reported that Flake, age 70, visited the editorial offices.
Hark Lay was born in 1825 in Monroe County, Miss. He was named after William Lay, his master. Together with Oscar Crosby, a slave who belonged to William Crosby, they entered the valley as part of the John Brown company, becoming the first black pioneers in the Salt Lake valley.
As of 1848, seven of the 13 Southern Mormons were active slaveholders. Like James Flake, John Bankhead, an LDS convert from Tennessee, brought his several slaves with him to the Salt Lake Valley. Among those 11 slaves were Nathan, his wife, Susan, Dan, George, Alex, Sam, Lewis, Ike, John, Nancy and Rose.
Betsy Crosby Brown Flewellen, from Mississippi, was a black slave belonging to Elizabeth Crosby Brown. Vilate Crosby, also a slave, came to Utah from Mississippi in 1848 in the Heber C. Kimball company. She was the mother of Hark Lay.
Martha, one of her daughters, became the wife of Green Flake. The other daughter, Rose, became the wife of Miles Litzford and the mother of Dan Freeman, the first freeborn black in Utah in 1850.
Reuben Perkins came to Utah from North Carolina in October 1848, and settled in Bountiful with several slaves. There were also some slaves in Spanish Fork owned by John J. Redd, a pioneer from North Carlina.
Other slaves mentioned in personal histories were Mammy Chloe, originally from Kentucky - and Ike and Caroline, slaves belonging to Williams Washington Camp from Tennessee.
William Taylor Dennis, also a Southern convert, brought Mammy Dennis, Jim Valentine, his wife and their son, Jim.
William Hooper, T.S. Williams, J.H. Johnson and federal Judge W.W. Drummond were among other well-known Utah residents who owned slaves.
According to the U.S. Census of 1850, there were 24 "free persons of color" and 26 black slaves in Utah.
According to the census of 1860, there were 30 free "colored persons" and 29 slaves in Utah. Of these, 18 were males and 11 were females. Ten resided in Davis County, and 19 lived in Salt Lake County.
Today, a number of black families in Utah, such as the Chambers, Bankheads and Leggroans, trace their ancestry to this pioneer period of Utah history.
During this sesquicentennial year, we ought to turn equal attention to the sufferings, sacrifices and contributions of our black pioneers.