Lorenzo Snow’s recollection of the Council of Twelve meeting, February 13, 1849, where Lorenzo queried Brigham Young concerning the “case of the African race for a chance of redemption & unlock the door to them”:
President
Snow . . said that he asked President Brigham Young on one occasion why it was
that millions and millions of people were cursed with a black skin, and when,
if ever, this curse would be removed? President Young explained it to him in
this way, but whether the President had had this revealed to him or not, he
did not know, or whether he was giving his own persona views or what had been
told him by the Prophet Joseph. He said that when Cain slew Abel he fully
understood that the effects would not end with the killing of his brother, but
that it extended to the spirits in eternity. He said that in the spirit world
people were organized as they are here. There were patriarchs standing at the
head of certain classes of spirits, and there were certain relationships
existing which affected their coming into the world to take tabernacles; as,
for instance, when Abel came into the world it was understood by Cain that the
class of people he presided over as a prince, if they ever came into the world
in the regular way, they would have to come thru him.
So
with Cain, he was a prince presiding over a vast number of certain class of
spirits, and it was natural that they should come through him if at all, and
therefore when Cain slew Abel he understood that the taking of his brother’s
life was going to deprive the spirits whom he presided over from coming into
the world, perhaps for thousands and thousands of years; hence the sin was
immense because the effects were immense. Then there was this understanding
when the Lord executed judgment upon Cain; the spirits under his leadership
still looked up to him, rather than forsake him they were willing to bear his
burdens and share the penalty imposed upon him. This was understood when the
curse was pronounced upon him, and it was understood that this curse would
remain upon his posterity until the class of spirits presided over by Abel
should have the privilege of coming into the world and taking tabernacles, and
then the curse would be removed. (Quorum of the Twelve, Minutes, March 11,
1900, typescript, George Albert Smith Family Papers, Box 78, fd. 7, University
of Utah, in Russell Stevenson, Black Mormon: The Story of Elijah Ables [2013],
52-53, emphasis in bold added)
