Academic Sources

–Caswell, M., Migoni, A. A., Geraci, N., & Cifor, M. (2017). ‘To be able to imagine otherwise’: community archives and the importance of representation. Archives and Records, 38(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/23257962.2016.1260445

This article draws on interviews with seventeen founders, volunteers, and staff members from community archives across Southern California to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the impact of community archives. Community archives are often created to elevate the histories and testimonies of groups who have been misrepresented and marginalized by mainstream institutions. They allow communities to make consensual, autonomous decisions regarding what they believe should be preserved, and how their histories should be presented.

The concept of symbolic annihilation is presented by this article and exemplified in interview excerpts, as participants consistently described feeling alienated from traditional cultural institutions where they rarely saw their histories or identities represented. These reflections reveal the importance of community archives in combatting patterns of omission, marginalization, and gaps of archival silence. Caswell, Migoni, Geraci, and Cifor situate discussion about community archives within broader scholarly conversations about representation and power, emphasizing that archives are not neutral but actively shape how histories are constructed and understood.

Caswell, Migoni, Geraci, and Cifor propose a tripartite framework for evaluating the impacts of community archives, including ontological, epistemological, and social impacts. They suggest that ontologically, community archives affirm individual existence, helping people move from feelings of erasure to recognition and self-worth. Epistemologically, they expand what can be known about marginalized histories. Socially, they foster belonging by connecting individuals to shared histories and to one another, strengthening community identity, cohesion, and feelings of belonging. This article argues that community archives are not only sites of preservation but also tools of empowerment, enabling marginalized groups to imagine and build more equitable futures through autonomous representation.

Considerations regarding community archives and the importance of representation further underscores the significance of discussing the history of slavery in Indiana, as the subject of slavery in Indiana is rife with gaps of archival silence, and is not often represented in mainstream institutions.

-Connolly, B. & Fuentes, M. (2016). Introduction: from archives of slavery to liberated futures? History of the Present, 6(2), 105–116. https://doi.org/10.5406/historypresent.6.2.0105

This article examines the archives of slavery as materials irrevocably shaped by violence and loss, and analyzes how these limitations continue to shape both historical understanding and present conditions. Connolly and Fuentes describe how archival materials regarding slavery are structured by forms of epistemological and material violence that have further contributed to rendering enslaved people invisible or misrepresented. Drawing on the concept of critical fabulation, Connolly and Fuentes explore how historians might engage and fill gaps of archival silence without reproducing previous patterns of erasure and violence.

Connolly and Fuentes highlight alternative methodologies to fill gaps of archival silence that combine archival research with speculation, poetics, and expanded interpretive frameworks. They discuss strategies for interpreting archives associated with enslaved people, such as reading against the grain of archival records to extract stories of enslaved people from archives of their enslavers, and incorporating multilingual and geographically diverse sources to supplement Anglo-Atlantic perspectives on slavery. Connolly and Fuentes position the study of the archives of slavery as inseparable from contemporary political and ethical concerns, emphasizing that finding alternative methods of supplementing existing archives related to slavery can be beneficial in mitigating the ongoing impacts of slavery, including racial violence, inequality, and systemic injustice.

-Finkelman, P. (2015). Almost a free state: the Indiana constitution of 1816 and the problem of slavery. Indiana Magazine of History, 111(1), 64–95. https://doi.org/10.5378/indimagahist.111.1.0064

This article by Paul Finkelman, a legal historian who studies constitutional history and the legal aspects of slavery, offers valuable insights into the legal history of slavery in Indiana. Finkelman illustrates how the institution of slavery in Indiana directly violated both the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the Indiana State Constitution of 1816. This legal conflict profoundly affected marginalized communities in Indiana during its territorial days, and after it achieved statehood. Furthermore, this article explains how legal loopholes were manipulated to sustain slavery in the state, resulting in distorted census counts and contributing to gaps in archival records.

-Robinson-Sweet, A. (2018). Truth and reconciliation: archivists as reparations activists. The American Archivist, 81(1): 23–37. https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081-81.1.23

This article argues that archives are deeply entangled with reparations efforts, and that this relationship places a specific responsibility on archivists to contribute to such efforts, particularly in the context of Black reparations in the United States. Robinson-Sweet both obviates the power held by archival professionals and highlights archives as repositories of essential evidence for proving systemic human rights violations. Because reparations depend on demonstrating historical injustice, archival materials become central to establishing claims, shaping collective memory, and supporting reconciliation processes. The article draws upon works from scholars such as Achille Mbembe, Verne Harris, and Terry Cook to show how archives both sustain state power and hold the potential to challenge it, and highlight the roles of evidence and memory in constructing narratives that can support reparative claims.

Overall, this article calls for archivists to become reparations activists by confronting their profession’s complicity in systemic racism and actively using archival practices to support justice. Robinson-Sweet highlights how past and present archival failures have led to limited accountability for racial violence. Robinson-Sweet proposes interventions to counteract these failures, including rethinking provenance to center marginalized subjects, and prioritizing the collection and accessibility of records documenting injustice. Engagement with community archives and grassroots documentation efforts is also emphasized as a way to move beyond institutional constraints. This article highlights how archives can either perpetuate or disrupt systems of power, arguing that archivists have the ability to help transform archival materials into instruments of reparative justice and contribute to broader efforts toward truth, accountability, and social change.

-Schwartz, J.M., Cook, T. (2002). Archives, records, and power: the making of modern memory. Archival Science, 2, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02435628

This article challenges the concept of archival neutrality. Traditionally, both historians and archivists have treated archives as objective repositories, reinforcing a long-standing professional myth of archival neutrality. However, Schwartz and Cook contend that archives are created and maintained by those in positions of authority, meaning they inherently privilege certain narratives while marginalizing others. Through processes such as appraisal, selection, description, and preservation, archivists actively shape what is remembered and what is forgotten. Therefore, archives and archival materials are not neutral, and represent where social power is negotiated and exercised, thus influencing collective memory, identity, and historical understanding.

Building on this rejection of archival neutrality, the article frames archives as social constructs that reflect the values, priorities, and structures of the societies that produce them. Schwartz and Cook argue that denying the power held by archival professionals is both misleading and harmful, as it obscures the ways in which archival practices determine what counts as historical evidence and whose stories are preserved.

With regard to the history of slavery in Indiana, it is important to recognize the systems of power that have influenced archives relating to slavery in Indiana. Because archives are shaped by those in power, the historical record concerning slavery in Indiana largely reflects the voices of territorial officials, lawmakers, and enslavers rather than the lived experiences of enslaved or indentured Black people.

-Rhoades, D. (2005). There were no innocents: slavery in the old northwest. [Master’s thesis, Eastern Michigan University]. Honors College at DigitalCommons@EMU. https://commons.emich.edu/honors/95

This thesis provides critical insights that are directly applicable to the study of slavery in Indiana, particularly in understanding the legal, social, and economic dynamics that shaped the institution of slavery in the Northwest Territory. By examining how slavery was established and normalized in the Northwest Territory, this thesis offers a foundational context for analyzing how the existence of slavery in the Northwest Territory led to the proliferation of slavery in the Indiana Territory, and eventually the state of Indiana, despite laws that were later put into place.

-Weight, D. (2010). Begging for an irremediable evil: slavery, petitioning, and territorial advancement in the Indiana Territory, 1787-1807. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 103(3/4), 316–342. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41201287

This article examines the persistence of slavery in the Indiana Territory despite its formal prohibition under the Northwest Ordinance. Weight explains how territorial leaders, particularly William Henry Harrison, actively sought to maintain slavery in the Indiana Territory through legal and political means, including making petitions to Congress and manipulating territorial governance structures. Furthermore, Weight highlights how proslavery advocates framed their arguments around economic growth, population expansion, and political representation, claiming that the ban on slavery hindered migration and development in the Indiana Territory. Throughout the article, Weight obviates how the weak enforcement of antislavery laws and local support for slavery enabled settlers to construct legal frameworks that maintained unfree labor in practice, even if not explicitly in name.

-Northcutt, J. (2017). Tippecanoe and slavery too: Jonathan Jennings, William Henry Harrison, and the battle for free labor in Indiana. (Publication No. 28769295). [Master’s thesis, Southern New Hampshire University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

In this thesis, Northcutt explores the political struggle regarding slavery in the early development of the Indiana Territory, framing it as a conflict shaped largely by William Henry Harrison and Jonathan Jennings. Northcutt describes how Harrison, the governor of the Indiana Territory, viewed slavery as a means to accelerate settlement and economic growth, advocating for policies that would attract enslavers from the South. In contrast, Jennings, who would later become the first governor of Indiana after achieving statehood, opposed slavery and the concentration of political power in the territorial government.

Focusing on this political contest, Northcutt argues that Jennings played a central and often underrecognized role in advocating against slavery in Indiana. Through sustained opposition to Harrison’s policies and influence, Jennings helped mobilize support for a state constitution that reiterated the antislavery provisions in the Northwest Ordinance. Simultaneously, Northcutt highlights how historical memory has favored Harrison, who remains widely celebrated, while Jennings’ contributions have been comparatively overlooked. By revisiting this narrative, Northcutt not only reconstructs the struggle over slavery in Indiana’s founding, but also calls attention to how certain figures and stories are remembered or marginalized in the state’s history.

-Guilbault, A. (2021). Creating a common culture of slavery: Native, Black, and white unfreedom in the Ohio River Valley, 1700-1865. (Publication No. 28769295). [Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

This dissertation examines the complex and intertwined systems of Indigenous and Atlantic slavery in the Ohio River Valley, challenging traditional narratives that minimize the history of slavery in the Ohio River Valley region. Guilbault details how long before and alongside European colonization, Indigenous groups practiced forms of captivity and bondage that served various social, economic, and political functions. With the arrival of European powers, these systems evolved and intersected with racialized forms of slavery.

By tracing the history of slavery in the Ohio River Valley from pre-contact through the Civil War, Guilbault demonstrates that the commonly accepted image of the Ohio River as a rigid dividing line between slavery and freedom obscures a far more interconnected reality, and that understanding slavery in the Ohio River Valley region requires recognizing it as a cross-cultural system