Modern Articles
-Bongiovanni, D. Treasured archives: A new $102 million home will elevate Indiana’s historical records. Indianapolis Star, A6.
Excerpts from Article:
“In 1814 a slaveowner bought teenager Mary Bateman Clark in Kentucky, brought her to Vincennes and indentured her as his servant before selling her indenture to his uncle, General Washington Johnston. Seven years later, Clark challenged Johnston’s right to keep her in servitude. She lost that Knox County Court case and then won her appeal in the Indiana Supreme Court, which ruled that her service was involuntary.”
“In the early 2000s, Clark’s great-great-great granddaughter Eunice Trotter worked with state archivists to find those court documents, unearthing the facts behind the story that had been passed down as family lore. Trotter wrote a book about Clark’s case, which proved to be a landmark in the fight against the subterfuge of slavery in Indiana. A historic marker dedicated to Clark now stands outside the Knox County Courthouse.”
-Glass, J. (2011, July 2). As a free state, Indiana still was home to slaves. Indianapolis Star, A13.
Excerpts from Article:
“The first African-American residents of what is now Indiana were probably Alexandre and Dorothee, two slaves held by the Jesuit priests of Vincennes when the Wabash River Valley was part of France’s colonial empire.”
“After the Indiana Territory was created in 1800, new Gov. William Henry Harrison tried vigorously to persuade Congress to repeal the prohibition against slavery or provide for its suspension…The territorial legislature even authorized indentured servitude. This allowed slave owners to bring slaves to the territory and bind them and their children to long-term contracts. Some even sold their African-American servants as if they were indeed slaves.”
20th Century Articles
-Musty record book reveals slavery in Indiana Territory: Old negro register of 1805 found in county clerk’s office, Jeffersonville, settles mooted question of pre-state days. (1921, July 25). Courier-Journal, 12.
Excerpts from Article:
“Doubt that slavery existed in Indiana when it was a territory has been dissipated by the discovery of an old record book in the vaults of the Circuit Clerk’s office at Jeffersonville, by Charles K. Zollman, Circuit Clerk. The book bears the title, written in old-fashioned script on its cover, ‘Negro Register, 1805 to 1816.’ It contains a number of entries showing agreements between masters and slaves brought into the territory from Kentucky.”
19th Century Newspaper Articles
-Slavery in Indiana: Legal document shows it formerly existed in a supposedly free state. (1909, August 30). The Washington Post, 6.
Excerpts from Article:
“A single line in an abstract of the title of the property known as the Buschmann block has attracted much curious attention from all who have seen it. This line would seem to indicate that at one time, and as late as 1841, there could be property in Indiana in slaves.”
““The Buschmann real estate was once owned by John G. Shaw, who signed himself as of Marion county, Indiana, in a will bequeathing this property and his personal estate. The will is dated July 28, 1841, and contains this paragraph: ‘I do hereby bequeath to my wife my negro slave, Charles Cook.’ The will is attested by Austin W. Marris and John S. Bobbs, both among the best known of the earlier citizens of Indianapolis, the latter being famous as a surgeon even in that day.”
-Slavery in Indiana and the Ordinance of ‘87. (1869, March 4). The Independent, 2.
Excerpts from Article:
“It is a fact not generally known that in the vicinity of Vincennes, Indiana, when the great ‘Ordinance of 1787’ went into operation, there were several hundred slaves held by French settlers…In a country quite new and also remorse from the oldest settlements, evasions of such a law would be easy, especially when, both among themselves and also the older communities, the state of public opinion was not very sensitive or hostile to any infringement on the rights of colored people.”
“…the territorial legislature of Indiana sought to aid in the breaking of the practical force of the anti-slavery ordinance by a law which allowed the indenturing of slaves for a period of years, which period was in some cases extended to ninety-nine years, or a term supposed to be long enough to include the slave’s natural life-time! The plan was for the master first to make the slave nominally free, and then have the slave thus manumitted execute to his old master the new and stronger indenture. If per-adventure the manumitted slave refused to sign the indenture which reconsigned him to bondage, he was at once sent by force to Kentucky, and sold for the benefit of his master.”
Note: This article also includes three stories regarding specific individuals who were enslaved in Indiana.
-Selections: Slavery in Indiana. (1854, December 15). Liberator, 1.
Excerpts from Article:
“..the Clark Co. Circuit Court has decided that the notorious by-law of the Jefferson Railroad Co. was justifiable. It required that all colored persons who travel on the road shall furnish evidence of their freedom by a certificate to that effect from some known citizen of Jeffersonville. Thus raising the unjust and illegal presumption that any colored person who proposes to travel on their road is a slave.”
“So far as the influence of the Judge and the court can go, it is a judicial recognition of the existence and legality of slavery in Indiana.”
“Kentuckians are the principal stockholders in the Jeffersonville road, and its management is in Louisville. This is an effort of theirs to introduce Kentucky police law, and customs concerning slaves, into Indiana. And in this villany they have found a willing accomplice in Judge Bicknell. Indiana has a need of a vigorous effort to emancipate her own citizens from slavery.”
Slavery in Indiana 