History of slavery in Indiana

Many of the territory's early settlers came from the South. Southern immigrants who were anti-slavery settled in Ohio, where a strong anti-slavery movement was underway. The immigrants in favor of slavery generally moved to Indiana, where the government was friendly to slaveholders.[3] When they relocated to the Indiana Territory, they brought what few slaves they owned with them. An 1810 census recorded 393 free blacks and 237 slaves in the Indiana Territory.[4] Knox County, where the territorial capital of Indiana, Vincennes, was located, was the center of Indiana slavery. A young Army officer named Charles Larrabee, who was serving in Governor William Henry Harrison's army, summed the Vincennes populace as "chiefly from Kentucky and Virginia ... slavery is tolerated here."[5]

Most of the initial immigration was attributed to the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. After the Revolutionary War, George Rogers Clark and his soldiers, all Virginians, were given land grants in southern Indiana. Many settled in Indiana, bringing Southern habits and ideas with them. After the War of 1812, many veterans of the Western theater were granted land in central Indiana. These soldiers were mostly from Kentucky and the South. They also moved into Indiana, bringing more Southern influence to the state.

Southerners of all classes migrated to Indiana. William Henry Harrison, longtime Indiana Territory governor and future United States President, was from the long-established aristocratic class of the lowland and coastal South. His class supported slavery. From the non-slaveholding class of the Upland South were migrants such as Abraham Lincoln, whose family is representative of the migration to Indiana from Kentucky and Tennessee. Some of his social class, while not owning slaves, typically condoned the institution. Lincoln's father worked as a slave catcher and the family of Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd, owned slaves. But others immigrated to Indiana such as Levi Coffin, a North Carolina Quaker who was an outspoken abolitionist.

U.S. President Thomas Jefferson

Harrison's move to legalize slavery was not taken lightly by President Thomas Jefferson. Although Jefferson was himself a slaveholder, he was opposed to the spread of slavery. Jefferson had been working with James Lemen since at least 1784 and used him as an agent in the Northwest to organize an anti-slavery movement. Lemen succeeded in helping to establish an anti-slavery Baptist church that drew many members. Jefferson sent Lemen to the Indiana territory again in 1807 with the mission to seek out and organize the anti-slavery men of the state and encourage them to take action.[27] Several prominent men had already been stirred by Harrison's moves to legalize slavery. Dennis Pennington, a former slave holder who had freed his slaves when he moved to Indiana,[14] was chief among the anti-slavery men. Jonathan Jennings, who also attended the meeting, would quickly grow into the party's leader.[28] Other prominent anti-slavery men included Richard Rue, John Paul, and General William Johnson, all veterans of the Revolution.

Later in 1807, at Lemen's urging, a mass meeting was held in Springville attended by many of the anti-slavery men within the state.[27] The meeting was held largely in response to Harrison's attempt to legalize slavery and the fact that he almost succeeded, and likely would soon unless a large anti-slavery faction came to power. The meeting was chaired by John Beggs, with Davis Floyd acting as secretary. Dennis Pennington and others put forth speeches, and resolved to stop the attempt to legalize slavery. They declared their intentions to end the "despised institution".[29][30] Their resolution stated:

... a great number of citizens, in various parts of the United States, are preparing, and many have actually emigrated to this Territory, to get free from a Government which does tolerate slavery ... And although it is contended by some, that, at this day, there is a great majority in favor of slavery, whilst the opposite opinion is held by others, the fact is certainly doubtful. But when we take into consideration the vast emigration into this Territory, and of citizens, too, decidedly opposed to the measure, we feel satisfied that, at all events, Congress will suspend any legislative act on this subject until we shall, by the constitution, be admitted into the Union, and have a right to adopt such a constitution, in this respect, as may comport with the wishes of a majority of the citizens. ... The toleration of slavery is either right or wrong; and if Congress should think, with us, that it is wrong, that it is inconsistent with the principles upon which our future constitution is to be formed, your memorialists will rest satisfied that, at least, this subject will not be by them taken up until the constitutional number of the citizens of this Territory shall assume that right.[31]

Jesse B. Thomas

When the petition was signed and circulated, it gained six hundred more signatures than the petition circulated to request the legalization of slavery.[32] The same year, the abolitionists won their first victory over the Harrison faction. In the election for territorial delegate, Jesse B. Thomas, the anti-slavery factions candidate, defeated Harrison's candidate.[32]

By 1809 the territory's population had climbed to over 20,000. Congress passed legislation that allowed the Indiana Territory to elect a bicameral legislature and made the Legislative Council the upper house It also ordered Harrison to dissolve the existing one[33] and created the Illinois Territory. The effect of these actions, was to cut the pro-slavery faction remaining in the Indiana Territory in half. The election resulted in a sweeping victory for the anti-slavery party. The new assembly quickly passed legislation revoking the indentured servitude laws of 1803, and introduced legislation to prevent its reintroduction. They also passed laws aimed at preventing slave hunters from removing escaped slaves from the state.[34]

The repeal of the laws was met with resentment and violence in Vincennes. An effigy of Jesse Bright was burnt in the street, and Rice Jones, a popular abolitionist, was murdered.[35]

Governor and Congressman Jonathan Jennings

In 1809, Dennis Pennington, one of the most outspoken anti-slavery men and a friend of Henry Clay, was elected to the legislature as the representative from Harrison County, and became speaker of the assembly. His prominence allowed him to dominate the legislature. Before the constitutional convention in 1816, Pennington was quoted as saying "Let us be on our guard when our convention men are chosen that they be men opposed to slavery."[36] At the constitutional convention, the anti-slavery party was able to take control, electing Jennings as the president of the convention. It was by their actions that slavery was banned by the first constitution.

When Indiana sought statehood in 1816, there was talk of its entering as a slave state among the dwindling group of slavery supporters as illustrated in the March 2, 1816 edition of the (Vincennes) Western Sun, where a "citizen of Gibson" stated, "the best interests of humanity required the admission of slavery into the state." The eastern half of the state saw much debate over the slavery issue. While the state constitution did outlaw slavery and indentures, much of the population that had immigrated from the South were commoners and not landed slaveholders. Of the 43 men who wrote the constitution, 34 were either born or had once lived in the South, and the constitution was a near copy of the Kentucky constitution, save for the anti-slavery clause.[37]

During the first gubernatorial election, Jonathan Jennings's campaign motto was "No Slavery in Indiana". He easily defeated pro-slavery candidate Thomas Posey, and upon his victory he declared that Indiana was a "Free State". He also asked the legislature to pass laws that would stop the "unlawful attempts to seize and carry into bondage persons of color legally entitled to their freedom: and at the same time, as far as practical, to prevent those who rightfully owe service to the citizen of any other State of Territory, from seeking, within the limits of this State (Indiana), a refuge from the possession of their lawful masters." He stated that such laws would help secure the freedom of many. This request resulted in the creation of a Man Stealing Act aimed to prevent slave hunters from operating in the state.[38]

In 1818 Dennis Pennington, then a state senator, had three Kentuckians indicted for violating the Man Stealing Act when they forcibly took a black woman from a home in Harrison County and removed her to Kentucky. Governor Jennings requested the Kentucky Governor send the men to Indiana for trials; after several years of correspondence the Kentucky governor refused on constitutional grounds. These events led Jennings to eventually have to reverse his position and request that the legislature pass laws to discourage runaway slaves from seeking refuge in Indiana.[39] Jennings said it was needed to "maintain harmony between the states".[40]

From 1810 to 1820, the number of free blacks in Indiana increased from 400 to 1200.[41] In 1820 the State Supreme Court case of Polly v. Lasselle ordered all slaves, except those held before the 1787 Northwest Territory Ordinance, to be freed.[41] The new ruling led to a sharp decline in the state's slave population. In 1820 the census recorded 190 slaves; by the 1830 census there were only three.[16]

In 1823, when Ohio passed resolutions asking the Federal government for a national ban on slavery, at the urging of Governor William Hendricks, the Indiana General Assembly issued a resolution which was forwarded the Federal government stating:

Resolved, That it is expedient that such a system should be predicated upon the principle that the evil of slavery is a national one and that the people and the States of this Union ought mutually to participate in the duties and burdens of removing it Therefore,

Resolved, By the General Assembly of the State of Indiana that we do approve of and cordially concur in the aforesaid resolutions of the State of Ohio and that His Excellency the Governor be requested to communicate the same to the Executives of each of the several States in the Union and each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress requesting their cooperation in all national measures to effect the grand object therein embraced.[42]

Even with statehood, there was still slavery in Indiana. Despite slavery and indentures becoming illegal in 1816 due to the state constitution, the 1820 federal census listed 190 slaves in Indiana. Many Hoosier slaveholders felt that the 1816 constitution did not cover preexisting slavery; others just did not care if it was illegal. In eastern Indiana nearly all slaveholders immediately freed their slaves. But the majority of slaveholders in western counties, especially in Knox, decided to keep their slaves. The Vincennes newspaper Western Sun had numerous times advertised "indentured Negroes and other slaves", a sign of the approval of slavery in the area.[43] "In Knox County, virtually all of the (slave) suits were denied by the County Court in 1817 and 1818." A black woman known as Polly was held slave by French trader Hyacinthe Lasselle of Vincennes. Polly sued in 1820 for her freedom, but was denied in the Knox County Court. She appealed to the Indiana Supreme Court, who ruled in her favor that she should be free. But even after this decision, there was slavery in Indiana. The federal census of 1830 still showed three slaves in Indiana: one each in Orange County, Decatur County, and Warrick County. A separate local census in Knox County in 1830 showed the presence of 32 slaves. Even in 1840 there were three slaves listed in the federal census as being in Indiana: a girl in Putnam County and a man and girl in Rush County.[44][45]

Town Clock Church in New Albany was used in the Underground Railroad

A traveler from New York, Dr. Samuel Bernard Judah, described Vincennes in 1829 as having many blacks, making the observation of them being "generally poorly clad ... poor miserable race".[46] Indiana Governor Noah Noble spoke with pride in December 1837 on how Indiana helped slaveholders recapture their escaped slaves. When Kentucky expressed displeasure at how some Hoosiers helped runaways, the Indiana legislature passed a resolution that stated acts by Northerners to interfere with the capture of runaways was "unpatriotic and injurious to the stability of the Union."[47]

In 1851 Indiana adopted a new constitution, and among its new clauses was one that prohibited blacks from immigrating to Indiana. The prohibition was intended to be a punishment to the slavery states. Like several other northern states, Indiana lawmakers believed the majority of free blacks were uneducated and ill-equipped to care for themselves. They believed since the South put them in that condition, they should be responsible for the "burden" of caring for them. This view, that the South should clean up its own mess, remained dominant even after the Civil War, and the clause in Indiana's constitution was not repealed until the 20th century.[48]

Abraham Lincoln lived in Indiana from 1816 until 1830, age 7 to 21. It was during these years that Lincoln first encountered slavery and began to form his opinions. Growing up in a climate where the state politics were run by men like Jennings and Pennington would have much influence on the development of Lincoln's views.[49]

Map of the Underground Railroad from 1830-1865 including escape routes that went through Indiana

Many Indiana residents participated in the underground railroad. Two major arteries in the underground railroad traveled through Indiana. Tell City, Evansville, and Jeffersonville were gateways to the underground railroad. An important stopover was Westfield, where food and hiding places were provided to slaves trying to reach Canada. Other safe houses dotted Indiana, including one in Town Clock Church (pictured). Escaping slaves who entered Indiana would be ferried from safe house to safe house northward, usually into Michigan, where they could cross safely to Windsor, in Ontario, Canada.[50]

In one of the more famous events of the underground railroad, Eliza Harris, a slave from Kentucky, crossed the Ohio River one winter's night when it froze over. She was aided in her escape by Levi Coffin of Fountain City, and eventually escaped to Ontario after being guided by Hoosiers from safe house to safe house through Indiana. Her story was the inspiration for the book Uncle Tom's Cabin. Coffin and his wife would help as many as two thousand slaves escape the South.[51]