Slavery in Indiana occurred between the time of French rule during the late seventeenth century and 1826, with a few traces of slavery afterward.
Opposition to slavery began to organize in Indiana around 1805, and in 1809 abolitionists took control of the territorial legislature and overturned many of the laws permitting retaining of slaves. By the time Indiana was granted statehood in 1816, the abolitionists were in firm control and slavery was banned in the constitution. In 1820, an Indiana Supreme Court ruling in Polly v. Lasselle freed Polly Strong and provided a precedent for other enslaved people. An additional Supreme Court ruling in 1821 freed indentured servant Mary Bateman Clark, helping to bring an end to indentured servitude.
With the end of slavery in the state, Indiana became a border state with the southern slave states. Hoosiers like Levi Coffin came to play an important role in the Underground Railroad that helped many slaves escape from the South. Indiana remained anti-slavery and in the American Civil War remained with the Union and contributed men to the war.
Early existence
In 1783, at the end of the American Revolution, the territory that would become Indiana was annexed to the United States. Slavery was already a present institution: The French who had controlled the area only 20 years earlier, and their allies among the Native American population, had been practicing slavery in the region for at least one hundred and fifty years before the Americans took control. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, first began explorations in Indiana in the late 1660s. He was accompanied by a Shawnee slave on several of his expeditions.Dunn (1892), p. 8 In 1787, Congress organized the territory under the Northwest Ordinance, which prohibited slavery by stating "that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory". It was later decided that anyone who purchased a slave outside of the territory could enter and reside there with their slaves. The Ordinance also allowed for preexisting French–Indian slave arrangements.Dunn (1892) pp. 220, 224, 226.
Many Virginian natives living in the territory interpreted the Ordinance as allowing them to have slaves. The Ordinance stated that the Virginians "shall have their possessions and titles confirmed to them, and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties." Many decided to keep slaves. Fear of French rebellion kept the courts from acting against slavery, as did the violent actions of those who would kidnap escaped slaves. A court ruling in the Michigan Territory in 1807 stated that preexisting slavery could still exist under the Northwest Ordinance, validating Hoosier slaveholding in the opinions of the slaveholders.
Southern influence 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.Davis, 204. 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.Rosenberg pp. 1, 2. 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."McCord p. 63.
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.
Treatment of slaves
The first recorded slaves in Indiana were owned by the French traders who entered the region and introduced the practice to the native tribes. Jesuit priests encouraged the tribes they lived among to adopt slavery as an alternative to executing their prisoners in war.Dunn (1892), p. 25. According to some classical historians, the decline of cannibalism among the tribes was a direct result of the rise of slavery.Dunn (1892), p. 26 Early slaves were often Native Americans who were sold to pay debts. The early slaves typically performed manual labor, helping the traders transport their goods and to build forts and trading posts.Dunn (1919) pp.190, 231 While part of new France, laws were enacted to give slaves some protection from their masters. Torture and mutilation of slaves was forbidden, and families were prevented from being forcibly broken up. Other laws allowed slaves to be seized by creditors as payment.Dunn (1892), p. 127 Other laws required that if a master had children by a slave, the slave and her children were then to be freed. Their status under the French laws was similar to that of minors.Dunn (1892), p. 128
As the territory developed, their tasks changed; slaves also served as household servants and farm workers, as in the case of William Henry Harrison's slaves.Madison George Rogers Clark's two slaves assisted him in running a gristmill in Clarksville.English p.886 While the pro-slavery faction was in power, laws were passed permitting anyone to seize and return slaves who were more than ten miles from their home, and a one hundred dollar fine was placed on anyone who helped a slave escape.Dunn (1892), p. 349 Some slaves, like "Aunt Fannie", who belonged to Dennis Pennington, refused to be set free. Pennington had freed all his slaves when he left Virginia, but Fannie did not want to be left behind and continued on as a free household servant for the rest of her life. She was buried in the Pennington family cemetery in Corydon, Indiana.Gresham p.23 Others were not so fortunate as in the case of another black woman who also lived in Corydon. When she tried to escape from her masters she was run down in the street, beaten, and carried back home. The men threatened death to anyone in the town, which was strongly anti-slavery, who interfered.Dunn (1919) p.343
The slaves did not have a large impact on Indiana's economy as they never became a large percentage of the population and large scale plantation style farms, that were common in the southern states, never developed in Indiana. In 1820, the year all the state's slaves were freed, the census only counted 192 out of a population over 65,000. Many slaves had already been freed by that time and there over 1200 free blacks in the state during the same census.
Indiana Territory
Slavery in the Indiana Territory was supported by Governors William Henry Harrison and his successor Thomas Posey, who both sought to legalize it in the territory. Both men were appointed by the President of the United States while the office was held by southern slaveholders. Although slavery was not legal under Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance, Harrison recognized the existing customs of slavery and indenture in the territory, Both men's slavery positions were resisted by the territory's population. In a gesture to the residents who lived in the territory before the Northwest Ordinance, Harrison organized a public meeting in 1802 which called for a 10-year moratorium on the slavery ban.Bigham, 106. "Jefferson, Harrison, and the West: An Essay on Territorial Slavery" by George W. Geib Harrison and Posey were strongly opposed by Jonathan Jennings, Dennis Pennington, and other prominent men who would eventually take over the territorial legislature.
Indiana courts never ruled on the Ordinance/slavery issue during the territorial period. When the issue of slavery was in the courts, it "was always treated as an existing institution and its legality went unchallenged."Dean, 237Dunn (1892), 241–242 Early Hoosiers, including William Henry Harrison, wanted to have slavery legalized in the new territory. Harrison may have been motivated by the need to appease existing slaveowners, the need for labor in a developing territory, or the desire to attract immigrants from southern colonies. They sought passage of a new law to override the Northwest Ordinance's ban on slavery. Harrison succeeded in getting permission from Congress for the territory to decide for itself whether slavery should be legalized. Harrison and his party sought to gradually legalize slavery three times (1803, 1807, and 1809) but all three efforts ultimately failed.LaFollette p.350Dunn (1892) p.244, 246 Harrison succeeded, however, in passing laws that established forms of indentured servitude.Bigham p.106
Harrison was particularly interested in having slavery legalized. He maintained a plantation style home in Vincennes called Grouseland. Harrison was also in the process of constructing another plantation style farm called Harrison Valley near Corydon in 1807, the same year he was pushing for slavery to be legalized.Dunn (1892) p.243
In 1803 Harrison asked Congress to suspend the anti-slavery clause of the Northwest Ordinance for ten years. Harrison claimed it was necessary to increase the territory's population more quickly and attract new settlers. Congress wanted the territory to become economically viable so that the federal government would no longer have to financially support it. In 1803 the entire territory's population numbered less than 5,000. That year the legislature—which was appointed by Harrison—passed legislation reintroducing indentured servitude.Gresham p.21
In 1805 the Territory was granted representation in Congress. Pro-slavery Benjamin Parke was elected and supported Harrison's request to have Congress suspend the ban on slavery in the territory. Parke submitted legislation to outright legalize slavery, but no action was taken on it. The same year, Congress suspended Article Six of the Northwest Ordinance for ten years, and granted the territories covered by it the right to choose for themselves to legalize slavery.Dunn (1892) p.185 By the same act, Congress removed the legislative power from the General Court of the territory and created a Legislative Council that would was to be popularly elected. When the election was complete Davis Floyd was the only anti-slavery member elected; slavery had not yet become a major issue in the state.Dunn (1892) pp.304, 245 That year Harrison persuaded the legislature to begin the debate to legalize slavery. The bill was narrowly defeated because many of the slaveholders in the council wanted a concession from Harrison, namely to recommend creating the Illinois Territory, a concession which he refused to make.
Fight to end slavery