isa-normaladvance-1913-00059

Description:	THE NORMAL ADVANCE59the introduction of slaves. It was novel, andso unpopular with the minority that it elicitedthe following remark from a traveler whovisited the West in 1806: The legislature ofthat territory (Indiana) during the last summer passed a law permitting a partial introduction of slavery, much to the dissatisfactionof the minority. This circumstance will checkthe emigration of farmers who do their ownlabor, while the slave owners of the southernstates and Kentucky will be encouraged tomove thither.8Nor wras this observer mistaken, for thenumber of slaves in Indiana increased from28 in 1800 to 237 in 1810, when the act wasrepealed.10What was this illegal and pernicious law?It was An act concerning the introduction ofnegroes and mulattoes into this territory.1By this act a slave owner could free hisslaves, then make contracts with his negroes,just as an indenture is made, and then holdhis apprentices in the territory.The owner of a negro over fifteen years ofage could move into the territory, and, withinthirty days after such removal, go with thesame before the clerk of the court of commonpleas of the proper county and * * determine and agree to and with his or her negro or mulatto upon the terms of years whichthe said negro or mulatto will and shall servehis or her said owner or possessor.12 In caseno agreement should be reached within sixtydays after moving into the territory, the ownercould take his negro and go to some statewhere the right to hold slaves was not questioned. If the slave were less than fifteenyears of age, the owner could simply enter thenegros name on the records of the court ofcommon pleas, and hold him or her as an indentured servant, till thirty-five, if a boy, andthirty-two, if a girl. This law, as amended in1806, remained in force till 1810, when thelegislature repealed it.Great changes had taken place in the northwest during the five years, 1805-1810, and withthese changes there were various forces whichmade the repeal of the negro law a necessity.In the legislature which passed the act, threeof the seven representatives, and two of thefive councillors were from the proslavery counties on the Mississippi, St. Clair and Randolph. Four years later, in 1809, Illinois wasseparated from Indiana, so that the proslaveryelement of the Mississippi region no longerhad a voice in the legislature at Vincennes.The next year, 1810, only two of the nine representatives, and two of the five councillorswere proslavery, and these were from the pro-slavery Knox county, which at that time comprised the entire western half of the settledportion of the state. Proslavery Illinois hadbeen separated from Indiana. Dearborn county had grown so rapidly in the five years thatit had three antislavery representatives instead of the one it had in 1805. A new county,Harrison, had been formed, sending an anti-slavery representative and an antislaverycouncillor to the legislature in 1810. Clarkcounty, although it had had part of its territory taken for the erection of Harrison countyin 1808, was able to send two antislavery representatives instead of one, a Virginian, whowas probably proslavery in 1805. Besides,Clark countv had sent James Beggs to thecouncil in 1810, instead of the slave-holdingpresident of the legislative council in 1810,when the council was deadlocked over the repeal of the slavery law, cast the deciding votewhich repealed that infamous slave law. Evenone of the three representatives from Knoxcounty was antislavery. In short, the southeastern part of the state was filling up so rapidly with anti-slavery men that the proslaveryelement in the Wabash and White river basins were being checked in their plans to impose the system upon the territory.However, the story of slavery in Indianawas not by any means ended with the repealof the slavery law in 1810. The questionOhio Valley Historical Series of 1871, No. 1, p. 23.Dunn, J. P., Indiana, p. 406.Laws of Indiana Territory, 1805.Dunn, J. P., Indiana, p. 404.
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/34504
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

Further information on this record can be found at its source.