Abolitionists on the Underground Railroad: Legends from Montgomery County, Indiana

By Shannon Sullivan Hudson

This book is a collection of personal vignettes, a mystery detective novel that turns oral legend into history.  Montgomery County, Indiana’s history of the Underground Railroad focuses on the people involved.  Documentation recounts few feats of derring-do and midnight runs through the woods in our county’s past.  While this book does have a few escape stories, both successful and unsuccessful, it tells more about the lives and backgrounds of the people who made the choice to help those seeking freedom and those who made their homes here after leaving lives of oppression.  What is included within these pages is a story about people who, by choice, were bound together by a common purpose.  

Montgomery County, Indiana holds a special place on the Western spur of Indiana’s Underground Railroad.  Indiana’s landscape provided all the natural formations that allowed runaways traversing the state to conceal themselves and to follow nature’s signs northward.  Montgomery County boasted existing footpaths, flat terrains, Sugar Creek that ran northeast to southwest, tree hollows, caves, forests, thickets, geese flying north, moss growing thicker on the north side of the trees, rising and setting of the sun, and, of course, the most notable of nature’s gifts, the North Star.  Abolitionists/Activists smuggled escapees in boats, carriages, stagecoaches, railroad cars, false bottom wagons, and skiffs while they hid them in barns, haystacks, corn cribs, drainpipes, barrels, trunks, old furniture, coffins, and overturned canoes.  Slave songs and spirituals often gave directions, coded messages, and helpful suggestions for those preparing to or travelling on the Underground Railroad.  

Indiana’s Underground Railroad western spur came up through places like Leavenworth, Lawrenceburg, New Albany, and Evansville.  Depending on circumstances (patrollers, bounty hunters, weather), conductors routed runaways northward through Vincennes, Terre Haute, Bloomingdale, Alamo, Yountsville, Crawfordsville, Garfield, Darlington, Michigan, and eventually to Canada.  However, these inner workings of our western route have remained shrouded in mystery.  Historians have suggested many reasons for this.  Those who did settle here brought their secret tactics from the East Coast knowing how to conceal their movements.  Local conductors had a greater fear for their own protection and the safety of their families.  The Western side of the state was sparsely settled until later in the state’s history.  In 1824, Crawfordsville found itself isolated being the only town between Terre Haute and Fort Wayne.  Conductors hid or destroyed journals, or chose never to keep them.  The total number aided to freedom, or where they stayed during their journey through this area of the state will never be known.  

Specific details about how the Underground Railroad organization began in Montgomery County have been lost to time.  Because very few specific written records exist, some historians have classified all local stories as Montgomery County legends.  But like all legends, the stories had facts at the core.  While historians assumed the traffic was never very heavy since more legends haven’t been told, it may have instead been a matter of self-preservation with carefully guarded secrets.  The only real concrete remnants of these legends include verified homes such as Crawfordsville’s Speed Cabin, Alamo’s Hiram Powell home, and Yountsville’s Abijah O’Neall home, the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Crawfordsville’s Northend, and some letters preserved by descendants.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shannon Sullivan Hudson
• Release date: Jun 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386469568

Shannon Sullivan Hudson

A science teacher by day, a history buff by night!  I fell in love with both subjects in elementary school.  My parents, also scientists and history buffs, encouraged me to learn more about both.  My maternal first cousins traced our family history discovering we descended from a very long line of Quakers who settled on the eastern side of Indiana, right in the middle of Levi Coffin’s operation near Richmond.  Like many other groups, my ancestors faced a great dilemma when deciding what to do about the issue of slavery; should man’s law or God’s law be followed.  No documentation of my ancestors’ decisions regarding slavery has surfaced, so I am left wondering which side of the issue they chose to acknowledge.  When I was in high school, my parents and I visited Charleston, South Carolina, and I saw the Slave Market.  I remember standing before this monument transfixed by what had transpired there.  The memory indelibly etched in my mind; it is as clear today as it was when I was 16 years old.  I knew then I had to know more, and so my journey to this book began.    When I moved to Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1990, the late Jan and Don Avery introduced me to the fascinating history of Montgomery County.  In one day, we visited Lane Place, the Rotary Jail, the Lew Wallace Study, and the Speed Cabin that stood in Milligan Park.  Soon after, fellow teacher and Underground Railroad enthusiast Pete Utterback and I met local expert historian Martha Cantrell, spending the afternoon listening to her stories of Montgomery County’s Underground Railroad.  Her passion, enthusiasm and vast resources renewed my interest.   My research opportunities presented themselves in two Lilly Teacher Creativity Grants in 2003 and 2016.  I began to study a broad set of information relating to the Underground Railroad, to expand on existing information, and to complete my journey by telling Montgomery County’s piece of the Underground Railroad puzzle.  This book is the culminating document of my findings from that very long journey. 

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Table of Contents

Title

1746- 1850

Stepping Back in Time

The Peculiar Institution

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Abbreviated Timeline of Indiana Slavery

Article 13 Blacks and Mulattoes

1850- 1861

Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad

Black Migration and the Underground Railroad in Montgomery County

Quakers

Cities, Towns, People and Stories from Montgomery County

Map of Montgomery County

The Underground Railroad Poem

Alamo, Ripley Township

Crawfordsville, Union Township

Darlington/Garfield area, Franklin Township

Ladoga, Clark Township

Wingate, Coal Creek Township

Yountsville, Ripley Township

Blacks and Mulattoes Registry

Thorntown’s Colored Cemetery

Wabash College

Civil War soldiers of the United States Colored Troops

Montgomery County U.S.C.T. members

Acknowledgements

Books read and referenced

This book was made possible by a generous grant from the Teacher Creativity Fellowship Program sponsored by the Lilly Endowment Inc., an Indianapolis-based private philanthropic foundation.

For further information and pictures about many of the topics in this book, please visit http://abolitionmontgomerycountyindiana.com.

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2017 by Shannon Sullivan Hudson. All rights reserved. This material may not be duplicated for any profit-driven enterprise, but may be for educational purposes.

Print ISBN-13: 978-1547105847

First Edition

We are all members of the family of mankind, not different races. Your difference of skin color does not add to or cancel out the more important qualities of your personality.

-Dr. Bryan E. Walls, The Road That Led to Somewhere

Dedication

This book is dedicated…

…to Ray and Marilyn (Shepherd) Sullivan, my parents, who taught me four essential mantras; to appreciate my past, love the present, and look forward to the future; to accept challenges and give 110% effort to ensure they are done correctly; respect, trust and honor are earned based on people’s humanity, not position or color of skin; and there is only one human race, we all just have different characteristics stemming from different ethnic backgrounds.

...to Doug, my husband, who doesn’t care for history, but will visit any historical site if a motorcycle ride and a trip to Darilicious are involved, and who allowed me to commandeer the kitchen table for months.

…to Tyler Andrew, my son, who listened to my crazy ideas, humored me by writing down my dictated notes while we drove down the road singing to the Hairspray soundtrack, and shared his honest opinions when I needed them the most.

…to all the people who risked so much to help those who found passage on the Underground Railroad and asked for nothing in return.

I Want to Tell You a Story

This book is a collection of personal vignettes, a mystery detective novel that, as noted Canadian author Dr. Bryan E. Walls suggests, turns oral legend into history. Montgomery County’s history of the Underground Railroad focuses on the people involved. Documentation recounts few feats of derring-do and midnight runs through the woods in our county’s past. While this book does have a few escape stories, both successful and unsuccessful, it tells more about the lives and backgrounds of the people who made the choice to help those seeking freedom and those who made their homes here after leaving lives of oppression. When determining the title for the book, Troy Mitchell suggested using legend in the title highlighting the word’s double entendre; the legendary stories, tales, and anecdotes as well as the legendary people involved. What is included within these pages is a story about people who, by choice, were bound together by a common purpose. 

While I have tracked and traced people, stories, circumstances, and legends, this book cannot represent a comprehensive list of all those involved. People working on any part of the Underground Railroad risked loss of property, finances, and even lives if suspected or caught. These selfless people could not simply post a neon sign announcing their intentions. Secrecy defined their every action, conversation, and decision. While history has swept away many accounts and people’s names involved in the complicated web of travel on our spur of the Underground Railroad, many were found and documented in this book.

As you read, you will discover many people, places, and stories overlap. I chose to include them in what I felt was the most logical and significant place while mentioning them elsewhere in other sections in which they naturally fit.

Dilemma, Dilemma, Dilemma

I grew up deep in Alabama during 1970’s Desegregation and felt firsthand the tension among ethnic backgrounds. At that time, people struggled with how to refer to those of African descent. The dilemma still exists. Historical records and books use different terms such as African-American, Black, people of color, colored, and Negro. None of the books I read as I prepared to write held a distinct pattern, so I chose to poll many people of various ethnic backgrounds as to their preference, research trends, and email experts. As I learned from this research, Negro is a dated term, colored and people of color refers to all those not Caucasian, and African American assumes descent from Africa. In the final analysis, it seemed best in this work to use Black and Mulatto since those terms were used in most United States censuses of that time. However, when quoting historical sources, I stayed true to the author.

A similar dilemma presented itself regarding how to refer to those who chose to leave their life of slavery. Today we call them human beings; then, various names included runaways, runaway slaves, indentured servants, contraband, freedom seekers, Underground Railroad travelers, enslaved Africans, fugitives- the list seems to grow daily. Rather than choose just one, I used the term that best described each unique situation.

I present the list of references differently than other works. With hundreds of Ancestry.com references, it became obvious that the easiest way to share the resources was to compile a list following each section. A complete list of books and other documents I used can be found at the back of the book.

I hope you enjoy reading about a snippet of Montgomery County’s inspiring past as much as I loved writing it.

Why This Book?

Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.

-George Santayana

Over time, many experiences in my youth shaped my interest in the Underground Railroad. My maternal first cousins traced our family history, discovering we descended from a very long line of Quakers who settled on the eastern side of Indiana, right in the middle of Levi Coffin’s operation near Richmond. Curiosity piqued, I chose to read to understand exactly what Quakers believed discovering along the way that I identified with many of their ideals. They, along with many other groups, faced a great dilemma when deciding what to do about the issue of slavery; should man’s law or God’s law be followed. No documentation of my ancestors’ decisions regarding slavery has surfaced, so I am left wondering which side of the issue they chose to acknowledge.

My parents organized vacations for both fun and education. We always visited places with historical significance as well as great sources of entertainment. When I was in high school, my parents and I visited Charleston, South Carolina, and I saw the Slave Market. I remember standing before this monument transfixed. The memory indelibly etched itself in my mind; it is as clear today as it was when I was 16 years old.

When I moved to Crawfordsville in 1990, Jan and Don Avery introduced me to the fascinating history of Montgomery County. We visited the Lane Place, the Rotary Jail, the Lew Wallace Study, and the Speed Cabin that stood in Milligan Park. Soon after, Pete Utterback and I met Martha Cantrell, spending the afternoon listening to her stories of Montgomery County’s Underground Railroad. She graciously offered her passion, enthusiasm, and vast resources which renewed my resolve to continue towards my goal.

And so, with these events and many more, my journey to this book began.

Research opportunities presented themselves in two Lilly Teacher Creativity Grants in 2003 and 2016 to begin a broad study of the Underground Railroad, to expand on existing information, and to complete my journey by telling Montgomery County’s piece of the Underground Railroad story.

Abolition Hymn

All hail the flaunting lie; the stars grow pale and dim.

The stripes are bloody scars, a lie the vaunting hymn.

It shields a Pirates deck; it binds a man in chains.

It yokes the captives neck and wipes the bloody stains.

Tear down the flaunting lie! Half-mast the starry flag!

Insult no sunny sky with hate’s polluted rag.

Destroy it ye who can; deep sink it in the waves.

It bears a fellow man to groan with fellow slaves.

Unfurl the boasted lie till freedom lives again!

To rule once more in truth among untrammeled men.

Roll up the starry sheen and conceal its bloody stains.

For in its folds are seen the stamp of wrestling chains.

Abolition Hymn. Crawfordsville Review 15 July 1854: 2. Print.

1746- 1850

Stepping Back in Time

Natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race.

-Alexander Hamilton

Imagine stepping into a time machine and traveling back to Montgomery County during the 1830s until the end of the Civil War. What did people talk about? What were their concerns?

Three of Crawfordsville’s newspapers shared the news of the day. The Crawfordsville Record, published from 1831 to 1837, the Crawfordsville Review, published from 1841 to 1929, and the Crawfordsville Weekly Journal, published from 1848 to 1920, revealed the lively topics of the day.

Fear of cholera, tuberculosis among printers, mumps, whooping cough, measles, croup, smallpox, dysentery, cancer, diphtheria, and baldness, led to ads of all varieties for medieval cure-all’s and the latest elixirs that promised to treat them.

Social behavior articles included why boys used profanity (and girls did not), how women should behave, advice to women to keep their home a happy place, canning and preserving recipes, proper behavior for young women, politeness tips on being a gentleman, how to propose, how to ask for a divorce, and elopement, marriage, divorce and suicide announcements. Many ads featured new and improved machines for all aspects of life such as commercially available Singer sewing machines, reapers and sowers, carriages, and clothing of all varieties.

National topics showcased the Great Bank Establishment Crisis, annexation of Mexico, starvation in Spain, fires and floods, the Native American relocation issue, and the Homestead Bills. Arrival of steamships and passengers on the East and West Coasts, shipwrecks, capture of slaver ships and subsequent trials usually earned front page status. Writers penned editorials on free education and the science of phrenology. Astronomers shared news of appearances of planets, comets, solar eclipses, and other celestial bodies. Political topics included the incompetence and corruptness of politicians, rise of the Know Nothings political party, the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas Nebraska Act, John Brown’s attack on Harper’s Ferry, the creation of the Fusion Party, the Dred Scott case and its repercussions, Abolitionism, states’ rights, secession, the Irish Exodus, hatred of the Irish, and Temperance. Letters and editorials from many presidents, governors, and politicians caught readers’ attention.

Local topics included Montgomery County the development of the Crawfordsville Female Seminary, agricultural fair results, revivals, prices for dry goods and feed for stock, visits by Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and how to survive a tornado. Editors sprinkled stories about railroad development, railroad accidents, railroad dishonesty, train schedule delays, and railroad robberies throughout almost every printed edition. Money issues ranged from dissolution of business partnerships, a list of delinquent subscribers including the amount of money owed, delinquent taxpayer lists, store openings, store closings and store foreclosures, new shipments of goods, sheriff sales, and new stock shipments from the East. Serial stories printed in installments and the on-going Jonathan Owens trial of 1859 kept the readers in suspense. Writers shared our county’s patriotism with articles about Fourth of July celebrations, evolution of the Montgomery County Guards, and notices of rallies supporting candidates from all townships. National, state, and township election results kept readers informed about the latest news in local politics. During the Civil War, lists of dead, missing, and prisoners often covered the entire front page.

The Peculiar Institution

In the United States

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

Abraham Lincoln

To understand why Indiana, and specifically Montgomery County residents, made the choices they did during the ante-bellum era, the history of slavery and slave laws must be examined. The conflict over states’ rights and slavery did not develop overnight, but it did force people to choose sides, the consequences of which are evident in present time.

In 1619, the first slaves arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, to cultivate the tobacco crops. Within the next 20 years, the Peculiar Institution had woven its way up and down the United States East Coast. In 1640, the first documented runaway slave forced conversations of the great ethical dilemma that would change the course of history; can and should humans own other humans? In 1640, the answer was a resounding yes. For the next 220 years, individual states created fugitive slave laws, repealed them, edited them, enforced them, ignored them, rebelled against them, and finally went to war over them in 1861.

In Indiana

The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.

-Thomas Jefferson

The earliest report of African-Americans living in the Indiana territory came from a 1746 report which declared that 40 White men and five Black slaves lived along the Wabash River. Owners had acquired these slaves (indentured servants) from posts on the lower Mississippi River, from the island of Jamaica, from British merchants, and from trade with the Native Americans. Even after the adoption of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, those living in that area continued to keep slaves. Ironically, some Indiana Native Americans themselves owned slaves because runaway slaves sometimes took refuge with Native American tribes, integrating and intermarrying.

In the mid-1700s, three classifications of Blacks already lived in Indiana; indentured servants, free Blacks (often formerly a runaway), and slaves. Indentured servants, usually young, were brought to the New World by the owner of their contract and were required to labor for a set number of years to pay off the travel costs, room, and board. Servitude contracts lasted from several months to a lifetime. Owners added years onto the contract for illegal actions such as stealing from the kitchen, breaking items, disobeying the contract holder, or charges invented by the owner.

Increasing restrictions on the liberties of free Blacks living in slave states and laws prohibiting recently freed slaves from remaining in slave states provided the motivation for many to make the most dangerous trek south to north. As a result, North Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky provided most of Indiana’s Black settlers.

List of References for Peculiar Institution

How Was Slavery Established in the American Colonies? About.com Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 July 2016.

Northwest Ordinance (1787). Our Documents -. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 July 2016.

Audrey C. Werle Research Notes on Indiana African American History, M 792, William Henry Smith Memorial Library, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, Indiana. By Dona Stokes-Lucas, July 18, 2014

Dinius, Jeanne Reagan. Underground Railroad Presentation for the Putnam County Historical Society. Putnam Historical Society, Greencastle. 9 Apr. 2016. Lecture.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787

What questions are we to grapple with? What unfinished work remains to be done? It seems to me that the work that is unfinished is to make that constitutional grant of citizenship, the franchise to the colored men of the South, a practical and living reality.

-Benjamin Harrison

Indiana entered the slavery conversation with the Treaty of Paris of 1783 when the United States acquired the vast Northwest Territory. From this huge amount of land, Congress carved Indiana and five other states. But the acquisition did not come without disagreements over slavery prompting the Second Continental Congress to adopt the Northwest Ordinance in 1787. This document provided a procedure for becoming a new state, listed a bill of rights guaranteed in the territory, encouraged education, forbade slavery in territories north of the Ohio River and between the Mississippi River and the Appalachians, and protected Native Peoples’ land and property agreeing that it would never be taken from them without their consent.

Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 specifically forbade slavery northwest of the Ohio River. Yet as soon as American settlers migrated to this part of the United States, debate raged over the slavery issue and two distinct groups began to form on opposite sides of the issue. Many early settlers formerly lived in Virginia and Kentucky, both slaveholding states, and for some of them slavery represented the only way of life available to make a profit. These early pioneers defied the federal edict and brought slaves into the Northwest Territory. Other settlers, however, completely disapproved of slavery fearing its future ramifications, and gathered strength to completely remove slavery from the United States.

Politicians repeatedly flaunted the law. Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory in 1788 (and eventually the portion that would become Ohio in 1800), owned and bought slaves while in office. He rationalized his decision by declaring that the ordinance allowed people who owned slaves prior to 1787 to continue to hold them while in the area.

List of References for The Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Congress Enacts the Northwest Ordinance. History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 17 May 2017. <http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-enacts-the-northwest-ordinance>.

Northwest Ordinance (1787). Our Documents - Northwest Ordinance (1787). N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017. <https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=8>.

Primary Documents in American History. Northwest Ordinance: Primary Documents of American History (Virtual Programs & Services, Library of Congress). N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017. <https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/northwest.html>.

Freedom’s Early Ring, Ending Slavery in the Illinois Country, 1787-1818. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2017. <http://www.lib.niu.edu/1998/iht519802.html>.

Abbreviated Timeline of Indiana Slavery

Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to but himself.

-John Locke

Indiana’s tumultuous association with slavery can be traced back to the late seventeenth century through the end of the Civil War. When the Indiana Territory was officially established in 1800, William Henry Harrison, a slaveholder, was appointed territory governor and slavery continued to be tolerated through a series of laws enacted by the appointed legislature. Opposition to slavery began around 1805, and by 1809 anti-slavery forces had taken control of the territorial legislature overturning many of the laws permitting retention of slaves. By the time Indiana gained statehood in 1816, the Abolitionists were in firm control and slavery was banned in the Constitution. In 1820, all remaining slaves were freed. Unfortunately, in 1851, Indiana legislators passed Article 13 removing most rights and restricting Blacks’ and Mulattoes’ movement into and out of the state.

1800

Indiana officially became a territory 4 July 1800. William Henry Harrison and John Badollet quickly drew battle lines regarding the slavery issue. William Henry Harrison, a slaveholder, and Indiana’s first territorial governor, encouraged slavery in Indiana. While Governor, he set out to legalize slavery completely ignoring the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. When his efforts failed, he personally sidestepped the law by buying slaves and holding them outside Indiana or importing them as indentured servants.

John Badollet, a Swiss immigrant and register of public lands in Vincennes, abhorred slavery and those who supported it. John and his supporters quickly became disillusioned with the immorality of Americans, particularly politicians. He vehemently criticized the politically and financially devious methods of his fellow legislators. He chose to speak out against the attempts of the slavery party to revoke the provision of the 1787 Ordinance that clearly forbade slavery.

1802

In 1802, Governor Harrison, along with Indiana political and business leaders, attempted to repeal Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance for ten years replacing it with language stating that any slave brought into the Territory during these ten years became a slave for life. Also, they sought to include a clause that all children of these slaves were to remain slaves. Congress failed to pass the repeal.

1803

Undeterred, in 1803, Governor Harrison and judges of the Indiana Territory adopted a law directly from a Virginia code which forced Blacks and Mulattoes brought into the territory under contract to serve elsewhere as their masters demanded. This law gave permission to owners of lazy or disorderly servants to punish them using whippings and/or fines. The law prohibited Blacks, Mulattoes, and Indians from giving evidence in any case except indictments against Blacks, Mulattoes, or Indians or in lawsuits in which members of these races alone were involved. The law then defined a Mulatto as any person having one fourth or more Black blood.

Those opposed to slavery in the territory argued that this law was abusive, unconstitutional, and kept Blacks in slavery. Eventually Blacks either agreed to serve and sign the indenture, or be removed from the territory and sold as slaves.

This law was repealed in 1810.

1807

Governor Harrison, recognizing repeal of Article 6 was within his reach, sent yet another legislative resolution to Congress asking for the removal of this article and asking that slavery be permitted in the territory. His reasoning included the following;

the number of slaves in the United States would not increase but just be distributed over a wider area.

slavery existed before the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

his idea would benefit the citizens in states overburdened with Blacks.

Blacks also would benefit because they would be sent to a place with lower populations, have a better diet, and possess more of the necessities of life.

guaranteed that the Black population would never surpass the White population reducing the risk of uprisings.

Not only did Congress soundly defeat Governor Harrison’s resolution, but members revised the laws to give more power to those considered to be indentured or slaves.

The revised laws of 1807 required masters to supply wholesome, sufficient food, clothing, and lodging to their servants and permitted the servants to retain any property or money which they might lawfully obtain. Servants could appeal to the courts against their masters in case of undeserved or cruel punishment, insufficient amounts of food, improper prosecution, or inadequate lodging.

1810

Between 1809 and 1810, Governor Harrison’s power began to wane as Indiana chose to move toward statehood. To make the statehood process flow smoother, laws were passed to reduce the amount of Blacks being kidnapped from Indiana. Any person who attempted to remove a Black or Mulatto person from the territory without proper proof could be fined $1000. New regulations permitted Blacks to sue for damages.

1813

In late 1812, Governor Harrison resigned his position as territorial governor to continue his military career during the War of 1812. In 1813, President James Madison appointed Thomas Posey as Indiana’s second territorial governor even though Thomas was in frail health and hailed from Virginia, a slave state.

Indiana legislators had not wasted time between Governor Harrison’s departure and Thomas Posey’s appointment reversing many of Governor Harrison’s controversial decrees thereby moving the territory toward an anti-slavery position. Thomas Posey did little more than watch the proceedings from his chosen home in Jeffersonville, more than 30 miles away from the capital of Corydon.

At the time of Thomas’s governorship, many Whites condemned the migration of free Blacks into the territory, expressing simultaneously anti-slavery views and anti-Black sentiments. A petition sent by concerned citizens to Congress in 1813 declared that Whites opposed the introduction of slaves and free Blacks to the Indiana Territory fearing that their corn houses, kitchens, smoke houses, may no doubt be robbed, and their wives, children and daughters may no doubt be insulted and abused by these Africans, and that Indiana Whites did not wish to be burdened with Blacks in any way.

1816

Indiana became a state in 1816. The first adopted Indiana Constitution included a statement banning slavery that was similar to Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

Blacks and Mulattoes, born free or emancipated in other states or territories, continued to migrate to Indiana. In some instances, masters from slave states brought groups of slaves into Indiana to free them. In slave states, laws required that a master who emancipated his slaves post bond assuring these Blacks would not become public charges. This frequently forced emancipated slaves to leave that slave state because their masters could not afford the bond.

By this time, many Free Blacks had developed settlements in the Indiana. Between 1820 and 1850, Blacks had established at least 30 communities within Indiana borders, mostly in central and southern Indiana. The 1850 census listed their occupations as farming, farm labor, barber, blacksmith, carpenter, plasterer, brick mason, hauler, janitor, bartending, gardening, child care, white washer, shoemaker, cooper, teamster, cook, steward, waiter, domestic servant and riverboat worker.

1820

In 1820, a State Supreme Court ordered all slaves, except those held before the 1787 Northwest Territory Ordinance, to be freed.

1821

In 1821, Indiana instituted an act stating that anyone found guilty of detaining goods or chattels could be sued for double the amount of the property. An attempt to mirror the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law, the provisions demanded all runaways be returned to their rightful owner or face a fine.

1824

In 1824, Indiana passed its own version of the Fugitive Slave Law. The decree clearly outlined the procedure slaveholders and Indiana law officials must follow in claiming property when a dispute arose over ownership. The main goal of the law was to warn Abolitionists and those active with the Underground Railroad that their activities were now clearly illegal.

1825

Changes continued in 1825, when James Brown Ray, fourth Governor of Indiana, expressed his official position about Black immigration to the state. Summarized, his address to the General Assembly stated the following:

He blamed the Blacks for the injustices done to them.

Blacks were a non-productive population.

The increasing Black population