Abide #11 Doctrine and Covenants 98-101
Channel: Maxwell Institute
Date: 2021-10-27

It had been three years since the LDS began to settle in Jackson County, Missouri--the place that the Lord revealed would be Zion. There were now more Saints in Missouri than Ohio and they made up a third of the county. The Saints were from the North and Missouri  became a slave state 10 years earlier with the Missouri COmpromise. Tensions simmered as W.W. Phelps and a Protestant minister, Benton Pixley traded jabs labelling each other false prophets. In the same issue of the church newspaper--the Evening and Morning Star-- W.W. Phelps printed an article entitled Free People of Color. The article quoted the  Missouri code regarding proselytizing amongst enslaved people and formerly enslaved people (free people of color)--whose movements were curbed in Missouri.  Though the article began “to prevent any misunderstanding” ....though misunderstanding was all that came from the article. 

In the 1830s the church was considered too liberal and too welcoming to too many different peoples. The Missourians claimed the Saints were “tampering with their slaves” and “inviting free blacks from other states to come to Missouri.” amongst other  Phelps attempted to write a extra correction, but it could not extinguish the spark. The article lit a fire under the Missiourians which exploded   in the town square of Independence. Missouri citizens demanded the church stop its printing operation and close the bishop’s storehouse. Church members refused and things escalated as the townspeople destroyed the church’s printing press and ransacked Phelps’ home. Bishop Edward Partridge and new convert Charles Allen were then tarred and feathered in the town square when they would not deny the book of Mormon. Two weeks later, Joseph Smith received the revelation in section 98.