Mormons in Mexico: A brief history of polygamy, cartel violence and faith


Mormons in Mexico: A brief history of polygamy, cartel violence and faith

by Rebecca Janzen
Along with the Romneys – relatives of Sen. Mitt Romney, whose father was born in Mexico – the LeBarons are among the most storied families in Mormon history.
Members of Utah’s Latter-Day Saints community emigrated to Mexico in the 1880s to follow their religious beliefs by living in polygamous families, which was illegal in the United States.
+Members of this community report enduring beatings, underage marriage and other abuse, as the escapee Anna LeBaron recounts in her 2017 memoir “The Polygamist’s Daughter.” 

Legal definition of polygamy:

The offense of willfully and knowingly having more than one wife or husband at the same time. The offense of willfully and knowingly entering into a second marriage while validly married to another individual is bigamy.

Anti-polygamy laws in the United States also sprang from religious conflict. In the mid-1800s, widespread public hostility arose toward the practice of polygamy by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known as Mormons. A small religious sect in the territory of Utah, the Mormons believed that their founder and prophet, Joseph Smith, had a divine revelation in 1843 that called for men to marry more than one woman; in 1852 the church announced that the practice was religiously superior to monogamy. This position angered critics throughout the country, ranging from religious leaders to novelists, editorialists, and particularly politicians. In 1856 the Republican party's first national platform denounced polygamy and Slavery as "those twin relics of barbarism."
Legal controversies over the propriety of prohibiting polygamous marriages persisted in the United States for 150 years and were expected to continue as long as sects within the Mormon religion continued to openly support the practice of plural marriage. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disavowed polygamy in 1890 and excommunicates those members who practice plural marriage.
Source
 
Author, Small Press Publisher, Mosaic Artist, maybe a Poet, Blog Experimenter

Comments

Post a Comment

White Fragility

Little Man Little Man

Popular posts from this blog

Committing to Anti-Racism in Galleries of European Art

Image
Amidst a surge in white supremacist violence across the country, the time has come to reconsider how American museums are presenting European art.
“Globalization,” “interconnectivity,” and “diversity” are more than museum “buzzwords”; they are the battles white supremacists are fighting.

BIG READ: Committing to Anti-Racism in Galleries of European Art

#Whitenationalists and American #NeoNazis want the rest of us to see them as legitimate social and political movements

Beware of #Greeks Bearing Gifts: How Neo-Nazis and Ancient Greeks Met in Charlottesville | https://t.co/hXsbHuKxXkpic.twitter.com/HzKr964XKl — Origins (@OriginsOSU) July 22, 2018
Read more

They were once America’s cruelest, richest slave traders. Why does no one know their names?

Image
They were once America’s cruelest, richest slave traders. Why does no one know their names?
Hannah Natanson, September 14, 2019, The Washington Post



The two most ruthless domestic slave traders in America had a secret language for their business.

Slave trading was a “game.” The men, Isaac Franklin and John Armfield, were daring “pirates” or “one-eyed men,” a euphemism for their penises. The women they bought and sold were “fancy maids,” a term signifying youth, beauty and potential for sexual exploitation — by buyers or the traders themselves.

Rapes happened often.

“To my certain knowledge she has been used & that smartly by a one eyed man about my size and age, excuse my foolishness,” Isaac Franklin’s nephew James — an employee and his uncle’s protege — wrote in typical business correspondence, referring to Caroline Brown, an enslaved woman who suffered repeated rape and abuse at James’s hands for five months. She was 18 at the time and just over five feet tall.

continu…
Read more

1619 Might Not Be the Right Year: 6 Shocking Facts About Slavery, Natives and African Americans

Image
Wikimedia Commons “Slaves working in 17th-century Virginia,” by an unknown artist, 1670. by Sep 12, 2017
1619, the year slavery was born, or was it?

The Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center at Norfolk State University (NSU) held a conference called 1619: The Making of America in September of 2013. That year is historically significant because it was the first year Africans were brought to the colonies, slavery was born and it was the year America’s first legislative body was founded.

In an admirable gesture to honor all of the cultural relations happening in the America’s in 1619, NSU hosted several Native speakers and those familiar with Native history to address many issues not often covered in today’s classrooms. During these sessions, many little known facts about African Americans, Native Americans and slavery were addressed in the years following 1619.

The Term Negro May Have Been Meant For American Indians
During the session Native Americans at 1619 Dr. Arica Co…
Read more