BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE IN UTAH :

Although slavery and slave trade was not widespread, some Utah pioneers held African American slaves untill 1862 when Congress abolished slavery in the territories. Those slaves came west with the fist pioneer company in 1847 and the census of 1850 reported 26 Negro Slaves in Utah and the 1860 census 29. Slavery was legal in Utah as a result of the Compromise of 1850 which brought California into the Union as a free state, while allowing Utah and New Mexico territories the option of deciding the issue by " Popular Sovereignty."  Some Mormon pioneers from the south had brought African American slaves with them when they migrated west. Some freed their slaves in Utah, others went on to California and had to Emancipated them there.

Utah Legislature formally sanction slave holding in 1852 but cautioned against inhuman treatment and stipulated that slaves could be declared free if there masters abused them. Records documents the sale of a number of slaves in Utah. Utah was the only western territory in which Negroes and native American were held and sold as slaves simultaneously. Trading in Negro Slaves existed to a small extent and the rest of slaves was comparatively small.