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Jane Elizabeth Manning James (September 22, 1822 – April 16, 1908) was an early African-American member of the Latter Day Saint movement who lived with Joseph Smith and his family for a time in Nauvoo, Illinois. == Biography == Jane was the first documented African-American woman to come to the Utah Territory as a Mormon pioneer. With her husband Isaac James, she had eight children. Their daughter Mary Ann was the first black child born in Utah. After Isaac left the family in 1869, Jane repeatedly petitioned the First Presidency to be endowed and to be sealed, along with her children, to Walker Lewis, a prominent African-American Mormon Elder. Lewis, like Elijah Abel, had been ordained to the priesthood during Joseph Smith's lifetime, and Jane therefore assumed that he would be eligible for temple ordinances. However, her petitions were consistently ignored or refused. After Isaac died in 1891, Jane asked that she and her family be given the ordinance of adoption so that they could be sealed in that manner. Her justification, according to her correspondence with church leaders, was that Emma Smith had offered to have her sealed to the Smith family as a child. She was now reconsidering her decision, and asked to be sealed to the Smiths. Her request was refused. Instead, the First Presidency "decided she might be adopted into the family of Joseph Smith as a servant, which was done, a special ceremony having been prepared for the purpose." The ceremony took place on May 18, 1894, with Joseph F. Smith acting as proxy for Joseph Smith, and Bathsheba W. Smith acting as proxy for Jane James (who was not allowed into the temple for the ordinance). In the ceremony, Jane was "attached as a Servitor for eternity to the prophet Joseph Smith and in this capacity be connected with his family and be obedient to him in all things in the Lord as a faithful Servitor". Jane was dissatisfied with that unique sealing ordinance, and applied again to obtain the sealing that was offered to her by Emma. According to the diary of Franklin Richards, the LDS First Presidency met on August 22, 1895, to consider Jane's appeal, but again turned her down. (At this same meeting, they also considered the case of Mary Bowdidge Sojé Berry Smith, "a white Sister who () a negro man () entreats for permission to receive her ordinances but is refused.") A few years before her death, James dictated a brief life story to Utah biographer Elizabeth J. D. Roundy, including information on her childhood, religious conversion, interaction with the Joseph Smith family in Nauvoo and with the Latter-day Saints in Utah. The document is held in the Wilford Woodruff Collection in the LDS Church Archives. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jane Elizabeth Manning James」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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