Early Mormonism had a range of doctrines related to race with regards to Black people of African descent. References to Black people, their social condition during the 19th and 20th centuries, and their spiritual place in Western Christianity as well as in Mormon scripture were complicated.
According to Latter Day Saint belief, the golden plates are the source from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the faith. Some accounts from people who reported handling the plates describe the plates as weighing from 30 to 60 pounds, gold in color, and composed of thin metallic pages engraved with hieroglyphics on both sides and bound with three D-shaped rings.
Martin Harris was an early convert to the Latter Day Saint movement who financially guaranteed the first printing of the Book of Mormon and also served as one of Three Witnesses who testified that they had seen the golden plates from which Joseph Smith said the Book of Mormon had been translated.
Oliver H. P. Cowdery was an American religious leader who, with Joseph Smith, was an important participant in the formative period of the Latter Day Saint movement between 1829 and 1836. He was the first baptized Latter Day Saint, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon's golden plates, one of the first Latter Day Saint apostles and the Assistant President of the Church.
The Church of Christ was the original name of the Latter Day Saint church founded by Joseph Smith. Organized informally in 1829 in Upstate New York and then formally on April 6, 1830, it was the first organization to implement the principles found in Smith's newly published Book of Mormon, and thus its establishment represents the formal beginning of the Latter Day Saint movement. Later names for this organization included the Church of the Latter Day Saints, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church of God, the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, often shortened to Messenger and Advocate, was an early Latter Day Saint monthly newspaper published in Kirtland, Ohio, from October 1834 to September 1837. It was the successor to The Evening and the Morning Star and the predecessor to the Elders' Journal.
The Latter Day Saint movement is a religious movement within Christianity that arose during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century and that led to the set of doctrines, practices, and cultures called Mormonism, and to the existence of numerous Latter Day Saint churches. Its history is characterized by intense controversy and persecution in reaction to some of the movement's doctrines and practices and their relationship to mainstream Christianity. The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the different groups, beliefs, and denominations that began with the influence of Joseph Smith.
David Whitmer was a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who eventually became the most interviewed of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon's golden plates.
Thomas Baldwin Marsh was an early leader in the Latter-day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who served as the quorum's first president in the Church of the Latter Day Saints from 1835 to 1838. He withdrew from the church in 1838, was excommunicated from it in 1839, and remained disaffected for almost 19 years. Marsh was rebaptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in July 1857, but never again served in church leadership positions.
David Wyman Patten was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was killed at the Battle of Crooked River and is regarded as a martyr by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is referred to twice in the Church of Jesus Christ's Doctrine and Covenants—once in section 114 and posthumously in section 124.
The Kirtland Temple is the first temple built by adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement and is located in Kirtland, Ohio, United States. Designed by Joseph Smith, the founder and original leader of the movement, the architecture mixes the Federal, Greek Revival, and Gothic Revival architectural styles. The temple is currently owned and operated by the Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It has been a National Historic Landmark since 1969.
The Three Witnesses is the collective name for three men connected with the early Latter Day Saint movement who stated that an angel had shown them the golden plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon; they also stated that they had heard God's voice, informing them that the book had been translated by divine power. The Three are part of twelve Book of Mormon witnesses, who also include Smith and the Eight Witnesses.
John Whitmer was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement. He was one of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon's golden plates. Whitmer was also the first official Church Historian and a member of the presidency of the church in Missouri from 1834 to 1838.
William Wines Phelps was an early leader of the Latter Day Saint movement. He printed the first edition of the Book of Commandments that became a standard work of the church and wrote numerous hymns, some of which are included in the current version of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' hymnal. He was at times both close to and at odds with church leadership. He testified against Joseph Smith, providing evidence that helped persuade authorities to arrest Smith. He was excommunicated three times and rejoined the church each time. He was a ghostwriter for Smith. Phelps was called by Smith to serve as assistant president of the church in Missouri and as a member of the Council of Fifty. After Smith's death, Phelps supported Brigham Young, who was the church's new president.
The Elders' Journal of the Church of Latter Day Saints was an early Latter Day Saint periodical edited by Don Carlos Smith, younger brother of Joseph Smith. It was the successor to the Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate and was eventually replaced by the Times and Seasons.
The life of Joseph Smith from 1827 to 1830, when he was 22–25 years old, begins in late 1827, after Smith announced he had obtained a book of golden Plates buried in a hill near his home in Manchester, New York. Because of opposition by former treasure-seeking colleagues who believed they owned a share of the golden plates, Smith prepared to leave the Palmyra area for his wife's home town of Harmony, Pennsylvania. From late 1827 to the end of 1830, Smith would translate the golden plates, publish the Book of Mormon, and establish the Church of Christ.
Warren A. Cowdery was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and an editor of Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, an early Latter Day Saint periodical. He was the eldest brother of Oliver Cowdery, who with Joseph Smith was a primary initiator of the Latter Day Saint movement.
In the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, an endowment refers to a gift of "power from on high", typically associated with the ordinances performed in Latter Day Saint temples. The purpose and meaning of the endowment varied during the life of movement founder Joseph Smith. The term has referred to many such gifts of heavenly power, including the confirmation ritual, the institution of the High Priesthood in 1831, events and rituals occurring in the Kirtland Temple in the mid-1830s, and an elaborate ritual performed in the Nauvoo Temple in the 1840s.
This is a chronology of Mormonism. In the late 1820s, Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, announced that an angel had given him a set of golden plates engraved with a chronicle of ancient American peoples, which he had a unique gift to translate. In 1830, he published the resulting narratives as the Book of Mormon and founded the Church of Christ in western New York, claiming it to be a restoration of early Christianity.
The Expulsion of Mormons from Jackson County, Missouri in 1833 resulted in the forced removal of Latter Day Saints from Jackson County, Missouri. The expulsion occurred amidst escalating violence between Mormon residents and non-Mormon vigilantes.
