Today, the LDS Church no longer condones slavery, and leaders assert that the church has always been against slavery and racism, but there is a hidden history of racism and even slavery in the church. There are even instances where slaves were given as tithing to the church—the church used slave labor in temple construction.
Green Flake
Green Flake was born into slavery in 1828 on a plantation in North Carolina. In 1838, at 10 years old, Green was given as a wedding gift to James Madison and Agnes Flake. His enslaver took Green along when he moved to Mississippi. In 1844, the Flake family (including Green at 16) joined the Mormon Church and then moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1845.
The white Flakes tend to tell Green’s story starting with his baptism (April 7, 1844), claiming that Green and all the Flake slaves were freed when the Flakes joined the LDS Church
Margaret Blair Young, Patheos > Green Flake: Who Can Tell His Story? September 23, 2012
https://www.patheos.com/latter-day-saint/green-flake-margaret-blair-young-09-24-2012
The church tells an abridged version of Green’s life story, of course, leaving out anything related to his slavery to the church or church leaders. It only mentions that he was born a slave, and is told as if he had a choice in being baptized, moving to Nauvoo, and leading the vanguard company west. They mention he was respected, but are sure to point out that while he drove the first wagon into Emigration Canyon, that it was under the direction of the white LDS Apostle, Orson Pratt.
Green Flake: Born into slavery in 1828, Flake lived on the Jordan Flake plantation in Anson County, North Carolina, until he was separated from his mother and given to James and Agnes Flake at age 10. The Flakes moved to Mississippi, where the 16-year-old Flake listened to a Latter-day Saint missionary and was baptized. After joining the church, Brigham Young assigned Green to the vanguard company, a group of 44 men and 23 wagons, that led the pioneer trek west. Flake is known to have driven the first wagon into Emigration Canyon under the direction of Orson Pratt. Flake was a respected Latter-day Saint who spoke at many Pioneer Day celebrations alongside church leaders. He was laid to rest next to his wife Martha in the Union Pioneer Cemetery in Cottonwood Heights in 1903.
Deseret News: Public invited to see new monument honoring Black pioneers at This is the Place Heritage Park, June 30, 2022
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2022/6/30/23189790/public-invited-to-see-new-monument-honoring-black-pioneers-this-is-the-place-heritage-park-lds/
He is memorialized, alongside Jane Elizabeth Manning James, at This is the Place Heritage Park with a plaque that reads:
Green Flake was born into slavery on January 6, 1828, on the Jordan Flake plantation in Anson County, North Carolina. At the age of ten, Green was separated from his mother and given to James and Agnes Flake. The Flakes moved to Mississippi, where at age sixteen, Green heard the testimony of a Latter-day Saint missionary promising the reunification of families for eternity.
As a new convert to the church, Brigham Young assigned Green to the vanguard company that led the trek west. Green was joined by his future brothers-in-law, Hark Wales and Oscar Smith. The group of forty-two men and twenty-three wagons blazed the trail for tens of thousands to follow. Green is known to have driven the first wagon into Emigration Canyon under the direction of Orson Pratt. They arrived at Parley’s Creek on July 22. The first pioneers of 1847 plowed the land and planted crops for those who came in the following days and months.
Green remained a well-respected saint throughout his life. He spoke at multiple Pioneer Day celebrations alongside church leaders. Brother Flake and many others like him trusted in God’s promise of a reunited family after this life. Many of the enslaved were buried in unmarked graves. Knowing that, Green carved his own headstone which reads, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” He was laid to rest next to his wife Martha in the Union Pioneer Cemetery, in Cottonwood Heights Utah, in 1903.
https://www.thechurchnews.com/2022/7/22/23278589/the-story-behind-the-new-pioneers-of-1847-monument-honoring-black-pioneers/
https://kjzz.com/news/local/gallery/ceremony-scheduled-to-reveal-first-utah-monument-honoring-black-pioneers-green-flake-history-this-is-the-place-heritage-park-brigham-young-salt-lake-valley-jane-manning-robert-burch?photo=1
https://www.greenflakemovie.com/monument-dedication
Green Flake, an enslaved worker and Latter-day Saint, arrived in the Salt Lake Valley with two other Black pioneers July 22, 1847 — two days before Mormon prophet Brigham Young reportedly declared, “This is the right place.”
Flake, Hark Wales and Oscar Smith scouted the valley, tilled the ground, planted crops and laid down a trail for their enslavers and vanguard wagons that soon would arrive.
The three are memorialized at This Is the Place Heritage Park, near the mouth of Emigration Canyon in the eastern foothills, as “colored servants.” They were, in fact, slaves. And this month — on the 175th anniversary of their arrival — new monuments to them will be unveiled in the same park.
Salt Lake Tribune: ‘Mormon Land’: How new monuments to Black pioneers may help heal LDS racial divides, July, 13 2022
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/07/13/mormon-land-how-new-monuments/
Kudos to the church for allowing and even supporting a monument to honor Black pioneers. It was dedicated in June of 2022–the church is finally, after 175 years, acknowledging in a public way the story of these often forgotten pioneers. There is still a long way to go in facing the troubling full story, though.
The monument was funded mainly through a film about Green Flake. At the dedication, Mauli Junior Bonner, the film’s writer, producer and director, and active member of the LDS church, said:
“We don’t tell these stories of enslavement to cause guilt or pain or shame,” Bonner said. “We tell them because they’re true. … Can we not draw strength from them?”
If Black Utahns “don’t know where we came from,” he added, “how will we know how far we’ve come?”
In this moment, “we will not be divided,” Bonner said. “In this moment, we can be who we hope to be.”
Mauli Junior Bonner, Monument coordinator, Dedication of the Black pioneers Monument at This Is the Place Heritage Park, Friday, July 22, 2022
View photos of monumental day for Utah’s Black pioneers as their story is celebrated in stone
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/07/22/monumental-day-black-pioneers/
The church’s whitewashed, faith-promoting history glosses over many crucial parts of Green Flake’s story. It omits that in Nauvoo, the Flake family donated his slave labor to help build the temple. It skips the fact that he was sent west not as a free pioneer, but to perform slave duties—and that when he arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, he plowed the land, planted the first crops, and built a log cabin, all in preparation for the arrival of his enslavers. The church also fails to mention that Green was later given to the church itself as tithing and “served” Brigham Young as a personal servant—a euphemism for slave—for at least a year. Even his eventual emancipation is left unspoken, likely because the details remain unclear and uncomfortable to confront.
Nauvoo Temple Construction Used Slave Labor
The Flake family used their slave, Green Flake, to fulfill their tithing commitment (giving one day of labor in ten) during the construction of the Nauvoo temple. Historians and scholars must agree that the LDS Church accepted slave labor as a form of tithing, at least during the construction of the Nauvoo temple.
One family of enslavers in Nauvoo was the Flake family. They enslaved a man named Green Flake. While building the Nauvoo Temple, families were asked to donate one day in ten to work on the temple. The Flake family used Green’s forced labor to fulfill their tithing requirement.
Flake, Joel. “Green Flake: His Life and Legacy” (1999) Americana Collection, Box: BX 8670.1 .F5992f 1999, p. 8. Provo, Utah: L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_slavery#In_early_Mormonism
So the Nauvoo Temple was built with some slave labor. Odd then that Quentin L. Cook states that the reasons for the violent opposition to the church in Missouri was most of them were opposed to slavery. How then did they go from Missouri, opposing slavery, to allowing slave labor in building their sacred temple?
Slave Labor En Route To Utah
Green also accompanied Brigham Young in the first wagon company out of Nauvoo. He was sent by his enslavers, volunteering their slave as an advance party to set up their home and plant crops in Utah before they arrived. Green even drove Brigham Young’s wagon and was there when Brother Brigham famously said, “This is the place”. Upon his arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Green built a log cabin in Cottonwood (now known as Holladay, Utah) and planted crops as James Flake, his enslaver, instructed.
A few days before they reached the valley, Brigham fell sick. Green Flake drove the first wagon down into the Salt Lake Valley in an advance party. Along with Green, the two other enslaved people in the party, Oscar Crosby Smith and Hark Lay Wales, arrived in the valley on July 22, 1847. When Brigham arrived two days later, the three men were already planting crops and starting to build homes for their enslavers’ families who would arrive the next year.
Utah.gov: Utah’s Black History: Green Flake
https://archives.utah.gov/2023/02/10/utahs-black-history-green-flake/
The Flake household, which pledged to follow in Young’s footsteps, traveled first to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1844, where the church accepted Green’s labor as part of the Flake family tithing. When Young led the first LDS wagon companies out of Nauvoo in 1846, three Mormon families from Mississippi volunteered their enslaved men – Green Flake, Oscar Crosby, and Hark Lay – to go along as laborers. (Flake, at the time, weighed nearly two hundred pounds and was respected as a laborer.) Brigham Young instructed that his vanguard party, which would be followed by the rest of the saints fleeing Nauvoo later in the spring, should include the slaves Green Flake, Oscar Crosby, and Hark Lay to chart the path into the Salt Lake Valley and to prepare homes for the oncoming families. The journals kept by company members, therefore, consistently referred to Flake, Crosby, and Lay. These African American men made vital contributions during the pioneer trek, with Flake acting as Brigham Young’s personal wagon driver.
National Park Service: Green Flake, the Mormon Pioneer Trail
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/green-flake-the-mormon-pioneer-trail.htm
“Fifty Years Ago Today,” Salt Lake Tribune, 31 May 1897; and Jonathan A. Stapley and Amy Thiriot, “‘In My Father’s House are Many Mansions’: Green Flake’s Legacy of Faith,” Church History, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, accessed 12 June 2017, https://history.lds.org/article/green-flake-pioneer?lang=eng
This cup belonged to Green Flake, one of three African American slaves in Brigham Young’s vanguard company…
This cup belonged to Green Flake, one of three African Americans in Brigham Young’s vanguard company. Green was once a slave of the James Madison Flake family of Anson County, North Carolina. He joined the Church in April 1844. Green obtained his freedom some years before an act of Congress freed slaves in all U.S. territories in 1862.
https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/exhibit/mormon-trails?lang=eng
In 1897, Green Flake was invited to participate in the jubilee celebration of the pioneers’ arrival in Utah. Evidence supports the Flake family lore that he was the driver of the wagon carrying Brigham Young, and that it was to him that Young said the words, “This is the right place. Drive on.”
Margaret Blair Young, Patheos > Green Flake: Who Can Tell His Story? September 23, 2012
https://www.patheos.com/latter-day-saint/green-flake-margaret-blair-young-09-24-2012?p=2
Slaves as Tithing
Brigham Young asked the Flake family to go help establish a colony in San Bernardino, California. Young instructed the group that California was a free state, and their slaves would be free when they arrived in California. Soon after, in 1850, James Flake was killed in a farming accident when his mule kicked him. Green didn’t want to dwell on the tragic event or wish ill on his master.
When asked if perhaps his master had been punished by the mule’s kicks because he had kicked Green so often, Green replied, “I would hate to think so. Let it pass. No good can come of it. Let it pass!” (Fretwell’s interview with Udell, 11).
Margaret Blair Young, Patheos > Green Flake: Who Can Tell His Story? September 23, 2012
https://www.patheos.com/latter-day-saint/green-flake-margaret-blair-young-09-24-2012?p=2
James Flake’s widow, Agnes Flake, still decided to go to California with her son, but she left Green Flake behind. California did not enforce or allow slavery, so taking him with them would essentially have freed him. California was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1850.
Multiple sources, including Agnes’ son, William J. Flake, indicate that Green, their enslaved man, was donated to Brigham Young by the Flake family as tithing. In early Mormon history, tithing could be paid in various forms, including livestock, produce, and property, which at the time could include slaves. Agnes died in California in 1854.
Brigham asked the Flake family to move to California and set up a colony in Rancho San Bernadino. James Madison Flake died in 1850, never able to make the move. His widow, Agnes, and her children did move to California. For unknown reasons, Green did not make the move to California with the Flakes. Agnes did not have a lot of money. She entreated Brigham Young to sell Green to raise funds for her family. It’s unclear if Green was actually sold—some speculate that Brigham bought Green and then freed him.
Utah Archives and Records Service: Utah’s Black History: Green Flake
https://archives.utah.gov/2023/02/10/utahs-black-history-green-flake/
Those speculating that Brigham bought Green and freed him, are working to reconcile the complicated emotions coming up when facing the evidence that the church was involved in slavery. It appears that Brigham Young briefly owned a slave, perhaps on behalf of the church, before freeing him and also received slaves as tithing payments. He used the labor of enslaved people who had been donated to the church.
Stories have been told about Green Flake being donated as tithing to the LDS Church, and Young in particular, by the then-widowed Agnes Flake.
Thiriot has serious doubts about those tales. She argues that her research indicates that the widow “hired him out to Brigham Young for a year to solve a complex problem that involved her family’s poverty.”
“Green Flake worked for him about a year and then became a freeman,” she says. “One of the interesting things I found during my research is that the descendants of the enslaved . . . almost uniformly recalled that their families loved and respected Brigham Young.”
Flake, who had been baptized into the LDS Church in 1844 and drove the wagon that brought Young into the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, was freed by Young in 1854 after a year’s personal service to the leader.
Salt Lake Tribune: Historian to discuss black Mormon pioneers such as Green Flake and Utah’s relationship with slavery, February 12, 2018
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/local/2018/02/13/historian-to-discuss-black-mormon-pioneers-such-as-green-flake-and-utahs-relationship-with-slavery/
In explaining the history of Green Flake, sympathizers want to absolve Brigham Young and the church by pointing out that Flake became free before slavery became illegal. They include the faith-promoting tidbit that Flake’s descendants “almost uniformly recalled” love and respect toward Brigham Young. But they state Young freed him after only 1 year of personal service.
In 1851, his mother and family went with C. C. Rich and A. M. Lyman to settle San Bernardino. Previous to going she gave her negro slave Green Flake (one of the Pioneers of 1847) to the Church as tithing. He then worked two years (with his wife worked for) Pres Young and Heber C. Kimball, and then got his liberty and settled near Union.
William J. Flake, entry for Biographical Encyclopedia, February 14, 1894
https://mormonr.org/qnas/S5bTch/slavery_in_utah/research#re-dAzxtc-snELxc
The 1851 census lists Green Flake as a slave (colored) owned by Brigham Young.
Schedule 2 Slave (colored) Inhabitants Utah Co Terriroty of Utah
[Name of slave owners] Brigham Young
[Slaves] 1, Greene
[Description: age, sex, color] 23, M, Yellow
Utah Territorial Census Schedule 2 for Salt Lake County and Davis County, 1851, MS 2672, The Church History Library (At the top of the page the word slave is crossed out and replaced with colored)
https://bhroberts.org/records/dAzxtc-Fdmxch/the_draft_1850_census_lists_slaves_in_salt_lake_county_and_davis_county
https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/eadde8a9-1f07-4f12-a10b-7175c5969887/0/14?lang=eng
Allegedly, by 1854, Flake was freed, and while this is positive, to praise Brigham Young for only having a personal slave for a year or two is pathetic. The defense states the Flake family “hired [Green] out to Brigham Young for a year to solve a complex problem that involved her family’s poverty” and that “Green Flake worked for him about a year and then became a freeman.” Being hired out for a year while not being a freeman is called slavery. There’s no apologetic way to spin this.
Flake had already served the church in the 1840s to build a temple, and drive Young’s wagon in the trek west. What a generous church president, to free a slave after ONLY a year of personal service, following a lifetime of servitude.
Furthermore, if Flake was freed, it was either against the wishes of Agnes Flake, or because of her request that he be sold. Since in 1854, Amasa Lyman, asked Brigham Young on behalf of Agnes Flake, to send “the negro man she left” so she could sell him.
Sister Agnes Flake wishes me to inquire of you if there is any chance for her to receive any help by way of the negro man she left when she came here. She has a family on her hands for which to provide. Her health is also very delicate health and if she could realize something from this quarter it would be a benefit to her. Thomas I. Williams told me if he could, he would purchase the negro and pay for him. A word from you on this subject would be received a favor.
Amasa Mason Lyman, Letter to Brigham Young, July 21, 1854, Brigham Young Office Files, CR 1234 1, CHL
https://bhroberts.org/records/dAzxtc-Ylgsjc/amasa_lyman_writing_for_agnes_flake_asks_for_green_flake_to_be_returned
Brigham responded to Amasa Lyman in a letter on August 18, 1954:
Green Flake worked for me about a year, some time ago, & when he went into Cottonwood his health was quite feable, & from all I learn he <is> still unable even to support himself & family entirely; should he regain his health, so as to <be> able to be of any benefit to Sister Flake, I will inform you.
Brigham Young, Letter to Amasa Lyman and Charles C. Rich, August 19, 1854, Brigham Young Office Files
https://bhroberts.org/records/dAzxtc-QVOhPb/brigham_comments_on_green_flakes_health
There is no way to confrm or disprove Young’s claim about Flake’s health. Whether or not Flake was ailing, Young sidestepped the issue of legal ownership and ensured Flake’s freedom. Not long after Brigham Young refused to sell Flake to Williams, Agnes Flake died in San Bernardino. Maria Tanner Lyman took the orphaned children and Elizabeth into her home, and Elizabeth soon discovered she was free and began her own life.
In summary, Agnes Flake seems to have hired out Green Flake to Brigham Young for a year to help solve a problem involving the separation of enslaved families and the control of Flake’s labor. Brigham Young then freed Green Flake. William J. Flake reported more than forty years later that his mother donated Flake as tithing, but no known record confirms that Agnes understood tithing to be involved in the transaction… Green Flake left no record of his understanding of the entire incident…
Amy Tanner Thiriot, Slavery in Zion: A Documentary and Genealogical History of Black Lives and Black Servitude in Utah Territory, 1847–1862 (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2022), 113-114
https://bhroberts.org/records/dAzxtc-W96DJc/historian_amy_tanner_thiriot_summarizes_how_green_flake_became_enslaved_to_brigham_young
So William, the son of Agnes Flake states that Greene was given to the church as tithing. The census shows Green Flake as Brigham Young’s slave. Agnes asked, via Apostle Amasa Lymon, for her slave back from Brigham Young. Brigham Young says that Green worked for him “about a year” until his health became feable and he went to live in Cottonwood. Brigham didn’t share that Green was freed or that he’d freed him, but that if he regained his health he’d let her know. There’s no indication other than speculation that Brigham would have freed a slave, and we have multiple accounts of Brigham Young’s support of slavery and racism.
Brigham Young, the infamous racist that he was, not only enacted the priesthood ban on black members of the church, he also enacted slave laws in Utah Territory. Slavery was legal, by choice, in Utah, while if Mormons were against slavery, it would have easily been made illegal. It was a Theocratic Territory, with Brigham Young at the head of the church AND Governor of the Territory, so had it been God’s will, he would not have made the territory recognize and allow slavery. This flies in the face of church leaders today who want to rewrite history and claim that the church was against slavery or that it has always been against slavery.
So without a record to show it, we can’t infer that Brigham Young freed Green. We do have records of Green being given to the church or the church leadership as tithing, and that at that time he was listed as Brigham Young’s slave, and Brigham shares that Green Flake worked “for” him for about a year, which lines up with William Flake’s statement too.
Pioneer Resiliance
Green Flake’s life is a powerful reminder of the resilience and strength of Black pioneers whose faith and labor helped shape the early Mormon Church. As an enslaved man, he led the first group of Latter-day Saint pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley, planted the first crops in Utah, and later built temples he would not be allowed to enter. For decades, his remarkable story was buried—erased from the dominant church narrative that preferred to portray early Mormonism as a story of brave white families trekking westward. Instead of honoring Green as a hero, the church allowed his legacy to be forgotten, even as it benefited from his unpaid labor and loyalty.
This erasure was not accidental. For over 175 years, the institutional church failed to acknowledge the reality that it sanctioned slavery among its members and even received enslaved people like Green as tithing. Only recently has the church begun to recognize figures like Green Flake through public mentions and even a monument, but that progress comes late and remains incomplete without a deeper reckoning. A true celebration of Green’s life must go hand in hand with a candid examination of how the church treated Black members historically—and how that legacy continues to affect members today.
If Green Flake’s story moves you, troubles you, or inspires you, we invite you to join the conversation. Leave a comment below or consider sharing your own faith journey at wasmormon.org, where others are telling the truth about their experiences inside and outside the church. Remembering Green Flake isn’t just about the past—it’s about shaping a future where every story is told with honesty, every voice is valued, and no one is erased.
More reading:
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Green_Flake_Colorized.jpg
https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/exhibit/mormon-trails?lang=eng#mv19 - https://exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/century-of-black-mormons/page/flake-green
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_slavery
- https://www.sltrib.com/religion/local/2018/02/13/historian-to-discuss-black-mormon-pioneers-such-as-green-flake-and-utahs-relationship-with-slavery/
- https://wheatandtares.org/2023/03/19/11-though-shalt-not-keep-slaves-nor-anything-like-unto-it/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/9jc2x0/paying_tithing_with_slaves/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/osyztc/this_is_green_flake_he_was_given_to_brigham_young/
- https://archives.utah.gov/2023/02/10/utahs-black-history-green-flake/
- https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/indian-slavery-and-indentured-servitude?lang=eng
- https://www.deseret.com/faith/2022/6/30/23189790/public-invited-to-see-new-monument-honoring-black-pioneers-this-is-the-place-heritage-park-lds/
- https://www.greenflakemovie.com/monument-dedication
- https://www.patheos.com/latter-day-saint/green-flake-margaret-blair-young-09-24-2012
- https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/07/13/mormon-land-how-new-monuments/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20160923143505/http://www.sbcity.org/about/history/lizzy_flake_rowan___slave.asp
- https://mormonr.org/qnas/S5bTch/slavery_in_utah
- https://bhroberts.org/records/dAzxtc-snELxc/william_j_flakes_submission_for_the_latter_day_saint_biographical_encyclopedia
- https://bhroberts.org/records/dAzxtc-Fdmxch/the_draft_1850_census_lists_slaves_in_salt_lake_county_and_davis_county
- https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/eadde8a9-1f07-4f12-a10b-7175c5969887/0/14?lang=eng