FootNote
The new kid on the block, FootNote is known for digitizing historical
documents... many of which are genealogical gems. With naturalizations,
city directories, war records, newspapers, town records, etc... this new
kid is quickly being recognized as an alternative to Ancestry.
While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
1: Locke, Anti-Slavery, pp.
19, 20, 23; Works of John
Woolman, pp. 58, 73; and Moore, Notes on Slavery in
Massachusetts,
p. 71. 2: Bassett, Federalist System, chap. xii.
Hart,
Slavery and Abolition, pp. 153, 154. 3: Turner, The Rise of the New West, pp.
45, 46, 47, 48,
49; Hammond, Cotton Industry, chaps. i and ii; Scherer,
Cotton
as a World Power, pp. 168, 175. 4: Locke, Anti-Slavery, chaps. i and ii. 5: Jay, An Inquiry, p. 30. 6: Ford edition, Jefferson's Writings, III,
p. 432.
7: For the passage of this ordinance three
reasons have been given: Slavery then prior to the invention
of the cotton gin was considered a necessary evil in the
South. The expected monopoly of the tobacco and indigo
cultivation in the South would be promoted by excluding
Negroes from the Northwest Territory and thus preventing its
cultivation there. Dr. Cutler's influence aided by Mr.
Grayson of Virginia was of much assistance. The
philanthropic idea was not so prominent as men have thought.
Dunn, Indiana, p. 212. 8: Ibid., p. 254. 9: Code Noir. 10: Speaking of these settlements in 1750,
M. Viner, a Jesuit Missionary to the Indians, said: "We have
here Whites, Negroes, and Indians, to say nothing of cross
breeds. There are five French villages and three villages of
the natives within a space of twenty-one leagues. In the
five French villages there are perhaps eleven hundred
whites, three hundred blacks, and some sixty red slaves or
savages. Unlike the condition of the slaves in Lower
Louisiana where the rigid enforcement of the Slave Code made
their lives almost intolerable, the slaves of the Northwest
Territory were for many reasons much more fortunate. In the
first place, subject to the control of a mayor commandant
appointed by the Governor of New Orleans, the early dwellers
in this territory managed their plantations about as they
pleased. Moreover, as there were few planters who owned as
many as three or four Negroes, slavery in the Northwest
Territory did not get far beyond the patriarchal stage.
Slaves were usually well fed. The relations between master
and slave were friendly. The bondsmen were allowed special
privileges on Sundays and holidays and their children were
taught the catechism according to the ordinance of Louis XIV
in 1724, which provided that all masters should educate
their slaves in the Apostolic Catholic religion and have
them baptized. Male slaves were worked side by side in the
fields with their masters and the female slaves in neat
attire went with their mistresses to matins and vespers.
Slaves freely mingled in practically all festive enjoyments.
See Jesuit Relations, LXIX, p. 144; Hutchins, An Historical
Narrative, 1784; and Code Noir. 11: Mention was thereafter made of slaves
as in the case of Captain Philip Pittman who in 1770 wrote
of one Mr. Beauvais, "who owned 240 orpens of cultivated
land and eighty slaves; and such a case as that of a Captain
of a militia at St. Philips, possessing twenty blacks; and
the case of Mr. Bales, a very rich man of St. Genevieve,
Illinois, owning a hundred Negroes, beside having white
people constantly employed." See Captain Pittman's The
Present State of the European Settlements in the
Mississippi, 1770. 12: Dunn, Indiana, chap. vi. 13: Hinsdale, Old Northwest, p. 350. 14: Tyrannical Libertymen, pp. 10, 11;
Locke, Anti-Slavery, pp. 31, 32; Brannagan, Serious
Remonstrance, p. 18. 15: Washington edition of Jefferson's
Writings, chap. vi, p. 456, and chap. viii, p. 380. 16: Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings,
III, p. 244; IX, p. 303; X, pp. 76, 290. 17: Brannagan, Serious Remonstrances, p.
18. 18: Library edition of Jefferson's
Writings, X, pp. 295, 296. 19: Adams, Neglected Period of
Anti-Slavery, pp. 129, 130. 20: The Pennsylvania Gazette, July 31,
1746. 21: The Maryland Gazette, March 20, 1755. 22: Washington's Writings, II, p. 134. 23: Brissot de Warville, New Travels, II,
pp. 33-34. 24: Harris, Slavery in Illinois, chaps.
iii, iv, and v; Dunn, Indiana, pp. 218-260; Hinsdale, Old
Northwest, pp. 351-358. 25: This code provided that all male
Negroes under fifteen, years of age either owned or acquired
must remain in servitude until they reached the age of
thirty-five and female slaves until thirty-two. The male
children of such persons held to service could be bound out
for thirty years and the female children for twenty-eight.
Slaves brought into the territory had to comply with
contracts for terms of service when their master registered
them within thirty days from the time he brought them into
the territory. Indentured black servants were not exactly
sold, but the law permitted the transfer from one owner to
another when the slave acquiesced in the transfer before a
notary, but it was often done without regard to the slave.
They were even bequeathed and sold as personal property at
auction. Notices for sale were frequent. There were rewards
for runaway slaves. Negroes whose terms had almost expired
were kidnapped and sold to New Orleans. The legislature
imposed a penalty for such, but it was not generally
enforced. They were taxable property valued according to the
length of service. Negroes served as laborers on farms,
house servants, and in salt mines, the latter being an
excuse for holding them as slaves. Persons of color could
purchase servants of their own race. The law provided that
the Justice of the County could on complaint from the master
order that a lazy servant be whipped. In this frontier
section, therefore, where men often took the law in their
own hands, slaves were often punished and abused just as
they were in the Southern States. The law dealing with
fugitives was somewhat harsh. When apprehended, fugitives
had to serve two days extra for each day they lost from
their master's service. The harboring of a runaway slave was
punishable by a fine of one day for each the slave might be
concealed. Consistently too with the provision of the laws
in most slave States, slaves could retain all goods or money
lawfully acquired during their servitude provided their
master gave his consent. Upon the demonstration of proof to
the county court that they had served their term they could
obtain from that tribunal certificates of freedom. See The
Laws of Indiana. 26: Masters had to provide adequate food,
and clothing and good lodging for the slave, but the penalty
for failing to comply with this law was not clear and even
if so, it happened that many masters never observed it.
There was also an effort to prevent cruelty to slaves, but
it was difficult to establish the guilt of masters when the
slave could not bear witness against his owner and it was
not likely that the neighbor equally guilty or indifferent
to the complaints of the blacks would take their petitions
to court.
Under this system a large number of slaves were brought into
the Territory especially after 1807. There were 135 in 1800.
This increase came from Kentucky and Tennessee. As those
brought were largely boys and girls with a long period of
service, this form of slavery was assured for some years.
The children of these blacks were often registered for
thirty-five instead of thirty years of service on the ground
that they were not born in Illinois. No one thought of
persecuting a master for holding servants unlawfully and
Negroes themselves could be easily deceived. Very few
settlers brought their slaves there to free them. There were
only 749 in 1820. If one considers the proportion of this to
the number brought there for manumission this seems hardly
true. It is better to say that during these first two
decades of the nineteenth century some settlers came for
both purposes, some to hold slaves, some, as Edward Coles,
to free them. It was not only practiced in the southern part
along the Mississippi and Ohio but as far north in Illinois
as Sangamon County, were found servants known as "yellow
boys" and "colored girls." See the Laws of Illinois.
