Now when Appleby arrived in Winter Quarters in December 1847 to personally report to Brigham Young about this situation, the Quorum of the Twelve minutes for the meeting specifically states, “bro Appleby relates…Wm. Smith ordained a black man Elder at Lowell & he has married a white girl & they have a child”. Once again, the existence of the [mixed-race] child seems an important point. That’s when Brigham Young introduced his theories that when a black and white couple “mingle seed it is death to all” and that “mulattoes r like mules they cant have children.” Young’s big pronouncement that day is “The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated.” In this meeting he stated that the only way a mixed-race person like Enoch Jr. “may have a place in the Temple” was to be a “Eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven.” Therefore I would tend to link the beginning of the ban more toward inter-racial reproduction, rather than “Mary’s beauty.” (Although I do agree that Appleby’s libido clearly is a factor in his shame and disgust. I wonder as well if he didn’t secretly find black women attractive.)

David – one of my favorite early synonyms for “miscegenation” (not coined until 1863?) was the use in the 1830s and 1840s of the word “promiscuity” (as in “thoroughly mixed together”). However it was not limited to just sex and marriage, but seems more like our word “integrated”. Thus anti-abolitionists often complained of “promiscuous meetings” held by abolitionists in which white people actually sat next to black people.

The word in Latin America is “mestizaje,” which includes not only interracial sex but also the broad cultural phenomenon of mixing and combinations. I’m not sure if miscegenation carries the same broad connotations.

So it’s a problem, for the reasons Sam points out, but other than Hodes, I haven’t seen any indication that scholars are debating the usability of the word.

1) Appleby meets Walker Lewis in Lowell Mass., hears that he is a priesthood holder, and thinks nothing of it (the part about the seed of Ham is added later.) Note, Appleby kept a journal at this time (it started in 1841). I believe that what we have now is a “polished” version with corrections here and there.

2) A couple of weeks later Appleby hears that Walker Lewis’s son is married to a white woman. He’s concerned and decides to write Birgham Young.

3) Appleby decides to go and meet Enoch and Mary and is irate at what he sees.

The question is, what did Appleby learn from his visit with Enoch and Mary? From the letter to Young, he already knew about their marriage. It would seem that the only new information was how good looking Mary was (he gives this quite a bit of detail). Appleby then brought this information with him when he met Brigham Young in winter quarters at the end of the year and Brigham was also irate.

So the question is, can we trace the priesthood ban back to Mary’s beauty?

You should do another post David.

I just let Steve Fleming know this but thought I’d post here too. The Appleby journal entry you quote for “Oh Woman…where is they shame” is actually in regard to Enoch and Mary Matilda Lewis, and their infant, Enoch Lewis Jr. Fleming misread Appbleby’s journal and thought Appleby was in Nashua, New Hampshire. But he had LEFT Nashua for Lowell on June 15, 1847, spent the night in Lowell, and the next morning is when he found the mixed-race couple there. Where Appleby wrote of his shock that they “were both members of a Church”, he meant “members of an LDS branch”.

Connell