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Dissertation Draft Chapter Two

The Pre-Indiana Territory Status

The French Colonial Period

Before the Europeans settled the territory now known as Indiana, the Miami Confederacy of Indians controlled the entire area, including parts of Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio. In 1672 and 1712, French missionaries entered the territory of the Miami Indians to convert them to Christianity; these endeavors were unsuccessful. However, the French were the first Europeans to contact these indigenous people, and Louis XIV’s ambitions to expand his empire required them to keep trying. In 1680, the missionary Hennepin visited the Miami Indians on the Illinois River and stated, “There are many obstacles that hinder the conversion of the savages; But in general, the difficulty proceeds from the indifference they have to everything. When one speaks to them of the creation of the world, and of the mysteries of the Christian religion, they say we have no reason; And they applaud, in general, all that we say on the great affair of our salvation.” The second obstacle that hindered the conversion was indigenous people’s superstitions, as defined by Hennepin. The last obstacle, according to Hennepin, was their migratory patterns.[1]

Despite the failed efforts to convert the Miami Confederacy to Christianity, the relationship between French settlers and Miami Indians continued to improve. By 1679, the French built a small fort near the Saint Joseph River, which became a principal station for mission instruction and trade.[2] Hostilities between the Iroquois Confederacy and the French prevented much progress until a treaty was signed. This constant warfare checked Louis XIV’s desire for a more extensive empire within the Americas. The French escalated their influence, building forts and settlements within the Miami Confederacy’s territory. Indiana and Ohio became refuge areas for most indigenous tribes, which were pushed from the eastern seaboard by British settlements, such as Mahican, Nanticoke, Delawares, Munsee, and Shawnee, along with tribes from the Great Lakes, such as the Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Miami, Piankeshaw, Wea, and Hurons.[3]

After obtaining peace with the tribes, the French started importing black slaves into the area. By 1724, the French empire grew enough to require Louis XV to publish an ordinance to regulate his territorial government and slavery. The preamble stated:

Directors of the Indies company (which was the primary corporation running the French interest), having represented that the province and colony of Louisiana are extensively settled by a great number of our subjects, who employ negro slaves and the cultivation of the soil, we have deemed it consistent with our authority and justice, for the preservation of that colony, to establish there a system of laws, in order to maintain the discipline of the Apostolic Roman Catholic Church and deregulate the estate and condition of slaves in the country. And, desiring to provide therefor, and show our subjects residing there, and those who may settle there in the future, that, although they dwell in regions infinitely remote, we are always present to them by the scent of our sovereignty, and by our earnest study to yield them to aid.[4]

The act created fifty-five articles that regulated slavery in the French colonies in North America.

Article II of the edict stated, “All slaves who may be in our sub province shall be educated in the Apostolic Roman Catholic religion and be baptized. We command those colonists who purchase slaves recently imported, thus, to have them instructed and baptized, within a reasonable time, under pain of an arbitrary fine. We charge the directors-general of such company and all the officers to enforce this strictly.”[5] In vain, Article III prohibited any other religion from being practiced within the realm. Article IV stated no overseer could prevent a “Negro” from professing his Catholic faith. Article VI barred interracial relationships and prevented any priest or missionary from performing a marriage between the races. Article VI stated,

We also prohibit our white subjects, as well as our blacks a franchise, or Born Free, from living in a state of concubinage with the slaves; enacting that those who shall have had one or more children by such cohabitation, shall be severely condemned, as well as the master permitting, to pay a fine of three hundred livres. And, if they are masters of the slave by whom they shall have such children, we decree that, besides the fine, they be deprived both of the slave and children, who shall be adjudged to property of the hospital of the district, without the capacity of subsequent affranchisement [sic].

Article VIII prevented priests from performing marriages between slaves if they did not have the consent of their masters, and it prevented masters from forcing their slaves to marry against their will. Article IX declared, “Children springing from marriages between slaves shall be slaves and shall belong to the masters of the wives, and not to those of the husbands, if different persons own the husbands and wives.” Article X stated that if the husband was a slave and the wife was free, then their children followed the condition of the mother and vice versa; if the mother were a slave, then the children would likewise be slaves.

Article XIII prohibited gathering slaves from different masters for any reason and in any place. The punishment for violation included being whipped and branded. In cases of repeated offenses, a judge could impose a death sentence. Article XV required slaves to have a pass to carry goods to market or sell goods. Article XVII allowed all subjects to seize anything the slave had in his possession if he could not produce a pass, showing he had his master’s authority to be off the property.

Article XIX prohibited masters from allowing slaves to have a day off from labor to earn money for feeding and supporting themselves. Article XX allowed for the prosecution of slaveholders who failed to feed, clothe, and house their slaves. It furthermore allowed for the prosecution of masters for the cruel treatment of slaves. Article XXI addressed slaves who became old or ill. The article required masters to support their slaves, and if they were abandoned or hospitalized, the masters had to pay eight sous, a French unit of currency, per day for the support of each slave.

Article XXV prevented slaves from being parties to a civil case either as a plaintiff or defendant; however, the masters could have sued in their stead. Article XXVI sanctioned the criminal prosecution of slaves without making their masters a party, except in cases of accomplices. Article XXVII permitted the execution of any slave who “struck their master, mistress, the husband of its mistress, or their children, so as to bruise, draw blood or upon the face.” While XXVIII allowed for severe punishment for striking any free person, punishment was to be “rigorous” and, if warranted, included death. Articles XXX and XXXI dealt with slave theft, with penalties ranging from whipping to execution. Masters had to repair any wrongs by their slaves to others.

Article XXXII stated:

That fugitive slaves who shall have run away from the space of one month, counting from the day on which his master shall have reported him to the court, shall have his ears cut off, and be branded with a fleur de lїs upon one shoulder; if he repeat the offense for the space of another month, including in like manner the day of his being informed against, he shall be hamstrung and bread with fleur de lїs upon the other shoulder; And the third offense shall be punished with death.

Article XXXVI provided any slave condemned to death could request two county inhabitants sit as secondary judges to determine whether the execution was appropriate. Article XXXVII prevented officers from being paid to prosecute slaves to avoid extortion. Despite the authorization of death, Article XVIII forbade torture, “putting their slaves, or causing them to be put by their authority, to the torture or rack, under any pretense whatsoever, or from inflicting or causing to be inflicted any mutilation of the limbs, under penalty of forfeiting the slaves and being prosecuted to the last extremity- permitting them only, when they believe their slaves deserve it, to have them tied up and whipped with rods or cords.” Article XXXIX ordered the prosecution of any master or overseer who killed their slaves or mutilated their limbs while under their control and to punish any murderer according to the heinousness of the offense.

Article XLIII ordered that “a husband, his wife, and their children underage, cannot be seized and sold separately, if they are all within the power of one in the same master, declaring void seizures and separate cells which may be made of them.” Article XLIV prohibited slaves from seizure if they were between forty and sixty and worked on land for debts owed by their masters. Masters at least twenty-five years of age could free their slaves under Article L. Furthermore, Article LIV gave any manumitted slave all the rights of a free-born person. These edicts show a Christian European understanding of how to treat slaves.

Louis X abolished slavery in France in 1315. Historian Christopher Miller discussed the moral and legal complexity of the French slave trade,

But the moral and legal context in France was complicated. Conditions of slavery and servitude were offset. [By] the Freedom Principle. France signifies freedom and that any slave setting foot on what we now call the hexagon should be freed. There was in fact a tradition of freeing slaves, and it remained influential, if often undercut, during the time of the Atlantic slave trade. That principle made France’s negotiation of the slave trade slightly more complicated, posing ethical and legal hurdles along the way.[6]

In essence, France justified slavery as it would enslave the man but free his soul.

The French concentrated their possessions in the Louisiana territory. They maintained two distinct territories: New France, which was started in Quebec and was the Canadian province, and the Louisiana colony, which was a second territory for administrative purposes. The forts within the Indiana territory in the upper Wabash area were under French Canada. In contrast, the lower areas, such as Vincennes, which was the last fort built, were administered from the Louisiana colony.[7] While the French had built a fort on Lake Ontario in 1726, not much else had happened in the Ohio Valley.

However, from the year 1744 to 1754, French interests in the Ohio Valley grew. French policy became more concerned with the fur trade, an economic pillar of New France. The fur trade was centered in Montreal and accounted for two-thirds of all French-Canadian exports during the first half of the 18th century. France built more forts to protect its interest in the Ohio Valley area.[8] In the early 1730s, the French settled in Vincennes on the lower Wabash River, Indiana’s oldest urban settlement. Sieur de Vincennes, who died in 1736 in the Chickasaw wars, settled the village. After the French and Indian War, the Treaty of Paris ended French involvement in North America. On February 10, 1763, the French ceded all possessions and claims to Canada and the territory east of the Mississippi, except for New Orleans, to the British. However, the British did not take over the Fort until May 1764, upon Chief Pontiac’s uprising.[9]

Thus, the French established settlements in the Indiana area, and under the articles issued by King Louis XV, they created a set of laws for the treatment and control of black slaves. These laws, not unlike those passed in the antebellum American South, regulated the interaction of free people and slaves, codifying legal racism in the French colonies in North America. These rules and customs would remain even with British control after the Treaty of Paris.[10]

British Control of the Indiana Territory

After the French and Indian War ended with the surrender of the French in 1760 and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1673, the British took possession of Canada and the territory now known as the old Northwest. While the French had done little to colonize the old Northwest or develop its resources, English settlers long expected moving into the area to take advantage of the vast resources across the Appalachian Mountains. However, indigenous people still inhabited the area. During the French and Indian War, the British government recognized Pennsylvania’s Treaty of Easton in 1758, which stated that white men would not settle the lands west of the mountains. Thus, the Proclamation of 1763 forbade settlement in the area, arguing that the genuine desire was to prevent any competition in the fur trade.[11]

In the proclamation of October 7, 1763, the king of England forbade all his subjects “from making any purchases or settlements whatever, or taking possession of any of the lands, beyond the sources of any other rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the West or northwest” He confined the English settlements in America “to such a distance from the Sea coast, as that those settlements should lie within the reach of the trade and commerce of Great Britain.” [12] Thus, the government rejected any proposition from various individuals who wished to establish English colonies in the West.

However, conflicts with indigenous people marred British control, most notably with the Indian Chief Pontiac, who had been loyal to the French during the Seven Years’ War. Pontiac was a member of the Ottawa nation, which was not a unified entity before Pontiac’s Rebellion of 1763.[13] However, he united the tribal factions with his charismatic and oratory prowess. The Miami and Potawatomi joined Pontiac’s rising against the British. The British considered Pontiac as the greatest threat to their rule. The death of George II delayed the British response to the indigenous people issue until the assent of George III, along with multiple changes in the British government.[14]

Therefore, Great Britain’s policy in the old Northwest did not depart significantly from the French’s. The British maintained the French laws on treating blacks, at least in effect. In 1765, the total number of French settlers within the territory did not exceed six hundred.[15] And since the king forbade the expansion of his subjects into the area, little change happened before the American Revolution. In 1772, General Thomas Gage issued an order to remove colonists from the old Northwest, allowing force to effectuate it. French inhabitants in Vincennes responded to General Gage, informing him of their sacred title and presence in the area for over seventy years and that the lands had been granted to them by the king of France.

General Gage responded by requesting proof as well as all the names of the inhabitants so that he could confer with the king’s government. In June 1774, the British parliament passed an act which extended the boundaries of the province of Quebec to include the territories of the now states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, securing the French inhabitants to their free exercise of religion and the rights to remain in the territories and keep their possessions and slaves.[16]

There is little evidence of how the French in the Indiana Territory conducted themselves during British control, but what is known is that these settlements did not change local customs or laws. Although Indiana historians have not focused on French settlements under British rule, there are journals from British military officers who traveled to the area and encountered them and the indigenous people. Often, these journals spoke of what they saw, experienced, and felt about the indigenous people and the French.[17] The British did not establish colonies or courts of law in the territory. They did not even occupy the former French forts until Pontiac’s uprising. During the American Revolution, the French left the Vincennes settlers to manage their affairs until British Commandant Edward Abbott arrived in 1777.[18]

The British control over the area left the French customs and laws toward enslaved persons in place. There is no evidence the British took any measures to assert control over the process of slavery. Perhaps this occurred because the British who entered the former French territory were from England and not necessarily Tories from the colonies. England had long since removed slavery from its island, as evidenced by William Blackstone and his Commentaries on the Law of England:

I have formally observed that pure and proper slavery does not, nay cannot, subsist in England; Such I mean, whereby an absolute and unlimited power is given to the master over the life and fortune of the slave. And indeed it is repugnant to reason, and the principles of natural law, that such a state should subsist anywhere. The three origins of the right of slavery assigned by Justinian, are all of them built upon false foundations. At first, slavery is held to arise from a state of captivity and war. Secondly, it is said the slavery may begin when one man sells himself to another. Lastly, we are told, that besides these two ways by which slaves or are required, they may also be hereditary: the children of acquired slaves are, by a negative kind of birth or a slave also. But this be built on the two former rights must fall together with them. If neither captivity, nor the sale of oneself, can, by the law of nature and reason, reduce the parent to slavery, much less can it reduce the offspring.”[19]

While the British Empire allowed slavery elsewhere in the empire, it did not allow it inside the motherland; thus, officers from England may not have felt compelled to deal with slavery. In 1672, King Charles II issued the Royal African Charter. An English Jurist, Edward Chamberlayne, argued that “as for slaves … if any come hither from other realms, so soon as they set foot on land, they become free of condition of their masters.” However, Judge Chamberlayne did not cite any legal precedent, and his words went relatively unnoticed until 1772. Judge Chamberlayne’s declaration was consistent with the Magna Carta and Article 39, signed by King John in 1215. Article 39 stated, “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.” Article 39 was changed in the fourteenth century by parliament to apply not only to free men but to any man “of whatever estate or condition he may be,” and later expanded to read, “… for all the king’s subjects.”

On June 22, 1772, Chief Justice Lord Mansfield issued a legal opinion in favor of an African slave, James Somerset, who was brought to England by his master and filed a writ of habeas corpus petition for freedom. Lord Mansfield’s ruling stated,

The only question before us is whether the cause on the return is sufficient? If it is, the negro must be discharged. Accordingly, the return states that the slave departed and refused to serve; whereupon he was kept, to be sold abroad. So high an act of dominion must be recognized by the law of the country where it is used. The power of a master over his slave has been extremely different, in different countries. The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore, the black must be discharged.[20]

The colonists did not receive this ruling well, but it upheld the long tradition of no slavery in England.

The American Revolution and the Northwest Territory

On May 26, 1777, the British-appointed Lieutenant Governor Edward Abbott wrote to Sir Guy Carleton regarding the condition of the Vincennes territory. In the letter, he said, “Since the conquest of Canada, no person bearing his majesty’s Commission has been to take possession; From this your excellence may easily imagine what anarchy reigns. I must do the inhabitants justice for the respectful reception I met with and for the readiness to obeying the orders I thought necessarily issue.” He described the Wabash as perhaps one of the finest rivers in the world, and on its banks were multiple Indian towns; the most notable was the Ouija, which he thought could easily raise an army of a thousand men for a cost. He noted that the indigenous people required an “exorbitant number of demands,” which he consented to since he neither had enough troops nor would the French inhabitants assist him because the French “never spoke to them without a barn full of goods.”[21]

Abbott would leave Vincennes and resign as Lieutenant Governor because of a conflict with the territorial governor, Guy Carlton; who felt Abbott was spending too much money dealing with the indigenous people. After instructing the commandant of the local militias to take charge of the affairs, Abbott departed Vincennes on February 3, 1778, traveling to Fort Detroit, where he resigned. In his letter of resignation, he criticized the British government’s policy of employing indigenous people to attack the frontier settlements.[22]

During the American Revolution, the British employed indigenous people to incite violence against the colonists. It was George Rogers Clark, a Virginian who had helped organize Kentucky as a county of Virginia, who figured out the British intent and motives. Clark understood the value of the Northwest Territory to the new United States and traveled to Virginia to meet with its governor, Patrick Henry, and devise a plan. Virginia asserted a claim to the old Northwest Territory based on the royal charter granted to the Virginia Company.[23]

American independence was secured by a peace treaty with Great Britain on November 30, 1782, approximately a year after the surrender of General Charles Cornwallis to General George Washington at Yorktown. The final treaty was signed between Great Britain and the United States at Paris on September 3, 1783, and ratified by the Congress of the Confederation on January 14, 1784.[24]

After independence, the state of Virginia claimed most of the territory lying Northwest of the River Ohio and west of the State of Pennsylvania, extending northwardly to the northern boundary of the United States as defined by the Treaty of 1783 and finally westerly to the Mississippi River. However, Virginia was not the only state to claim the new territory based on royal charters. New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut also claimed large territories lying north of the River Ohio and west and northwest of the western boundaries of Pennsylvania.[25] The Continental Congress recommended these states surrender the territories to the United States on September 6, 1780.[26] New York ceded its claims to the United States by a Deed of Cession, executed in Congress on March 1, 1781.[27] Virginia ceded its portion to the national government on March 1, 1784.[28] Similarly, Massachusetts assigned its claims on April 19, 1785, and on September 18, 1786, Connecticut assigned its claims to the United States.[29]

Once the land was in the legal possession of the United States, it became incumbent upon Congress to organize territorial governments. On March 1, 1784, the day Virginia ceded its portion to Congress, a committee comprised Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Jeremiah T. Chase of Maryland, and David Howell of Rhode Island submitted a plan for a temporary government for the western territory.[30] Congress amended the plan several times, but it would remain in effect until the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787.

The March 1, 1784, proposed ordinance contained a clause prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude after 1800. However, before Congress could accept this clause, it was referred to a committee for reconsideration. It was re-submitted to Congress on March 22, 1784, with few changes but still retaining the anti-slavery clause. The clause failed on April 19, 1784, on a motion by the North Carolina delegate Richard Dobbs Spaight, and the institution of slavery was thus recognized explicitly by the measure adopted. Nonetheless, this provision was a source of profound regret to Jefferson, who said he attempted to prevent further extension of the “abominable crime.”[31]

However, the North Carolina attempt to allow slavery into the new Northwest Territory was not to be the final position of Congress. On March 8, 1785, Timothy Pickering wrote to Rufus King regarding the omission of the anti-slavery clause and pleaded that slavery not be extended into the new territory. In response, on March 16, 1785, King introduced a motion prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, which William Ellery of Rhode Island seconded. A vote of eight to three passed the motion, then tabled it until 1787, when the new ordinance passed. However, there was no proposed clause to allow for reclaiming fugitives inside the Northwest Territory.[32]

The 1787 Northwest Ordinance

An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the River Ohio (Ordinance of 1787) passed by Congress on July 13, 1787, by unanimous vote of the eight states whose delegates were present. Congress amended the ordinance multiple times with its introduction on April 26, 1787; the final version prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude.[33] “Article VI: There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: provided, always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or services lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.” [34] With the enactment of Article VI, slavery and involuntary servitude within the new territory were prohibited, except as a punishment for a crime. Congress inserted a provision for capturing fugitive slaves within the newly formed territory.[35]

The significance of this ordinance is its design as a road map to expand a nation. It embodied “a vision of a more harmonious, powerful, prosperous, and expanding union.”[36] This vision included the idea that an orderly westward expansion allowed for a nation’s growth and reduced hostilities with indigenous people. However, “spectators, squatters, and other adventurers infested the new settlements, promoting their private interest, defying state and national authority, and entertaining overtures from foreign powers; North of the Ohio, hostile Indians remained a formal presence.”[37] The new residents of the territories, especially in Indiana, would defy the national government on Article XI.

The Ordinance of 1787 created one vast territory that was “subject, however, to be divided into two districts, as future circumstances may, in the opinion of Congress, make it expedient.”[38] Thus, on July 4, 1800 an act was passed subdividing the territory into two districts. The dividing line started from the Ohio River opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River to Fort Recovery and then north to its intersection with the boundary line between the United States and Canada.[39] The Eastern District is now the state of Ohio, known as the Territory Northwest of the Ohio River, and the Western District became the Indiana Territory.[40]

President John Adams appointed William Henry Harrison to be the first governor of the Indiana territory on May 13, 1800, on the next to the last day of the session of Congress in which Harrison was serving as a delegate from the Northwest Territory. Harrison was a native of Virginia and was initially reluctant to take the position. However, with some persuasion, he eventually took on the challenge of being the governor of the new Indiana Territory.[41]

On June 30, 1805, by an Act of January 11, 1805, the Indiana Territory was subdivided by a line drawn east from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to its intersection with Lake Erie. The Northern District thus created the Michigan Territory.[42] The desire to create the Michigan Territory started with the petition of James May and others of the Michigan Territory by presentation to the Senate, which requested division from the Indiana Territory. On December 6, a similar petition by the Democratic-Republicans of Wayne County, signed by their chairman, was presented to the Senate, dividing the Indiana Territory.[43]

On March 1, 1809, an Act approved February 3, 1809, subdivided the Indiana Territory, and a line drawn from Post Vincennes due north to the territory line between the United States and Canada, the western district became the Illinois Territory and the rest Indiana. [44] The act established a territorial government and statehood process when the population reached 60,000.[45] Under the Ordinance Act, Congress allowed organizing local governments in counties with at least five thousand free male residents.

However, this explicit instruction on obtaining statehood became marred with political controversies between Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans. This issue would first come about when Ohio attempted to acquire statehood. As the Federalists lost power in Congress, Ohio Republicans tried to push statehood and remove the Federalist Governor Arthur St. Clair. Governor St. Clair was the first governor of the entire Northwest Territory and remained the territorial governor of the Ohio Territory after the Indiana Territory was partitioned off.

Ohio Republicans considered St. Clair an obstacle, and his term of office was unpopular. The statehood proponents pushed the Jeffersonian Republican Congress to pass an enabling act to allow Ohio to form a state government. The Enabling Act of 1802, signed by President Thomas Jefferson, called for a state convention and prescribed the new state’s admission terms. However, a provision for selling federal lands and prohibiting taxing that land for five years was controversial. Federalists argued that an unequal condition would harm the new state. However, their argument failed, and in 1803, Ohio achieved statehood. However, like Indiana, Ohio would enact a second constitution in 1851.[46]

As a result of the controversy surrounding the 1802 Act, Indiana statehood was more straightforward. Indiana and Illinois moved more rapidly towards statehood by the “democratization of territorial governments” after Saint Clair’s removal. Republicans inserted a new successor who could better handle political issues.[47] This rapid change to statehood would affect slavery since there was no consensus on the topic nor any constitutional guidance from the U. S. Supreme Court. White supremacists, both pro- and anti-slavery, would vie for control of the new territory.

[1] John B. Brown, A History of Indiana, From Its Earliest Exploration by Europeans to the Close of the Territorial Government, in 1816 (Indianapolis: Bingham & Doughty, 1859), 7-8.

[2] Ibid., 11.

[3] See John D. Barnhart, and Dorothy L. Riker, Indiana to 1816: The Colonial Period (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1994), 65.

[4] Dillon, A History of Indiana, 31.

[5] Ibid., 32. The text of the French edict included in this work.

[6] Christopher L. Miller, The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), 20.

[7]James H. Madison, The Indiana Way: A State History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 13.

[8] George Rawlyk, “The Failure of French Policy,” in Indiana History: A Book of Readings, ed. Ralph D. Gray (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 23-25.

[9] August Derleth, “The French Fort at Vincennes,” in Indiana History: A Book of Readings ed.Ralph D. Gray (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 29-35.

[10] The Treaty of Paris, 1793, ended the French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War) between Great Britain and France and their respective allies. In the treaty’s terms, France gave up all its territories in mainland North America, effectively ending any foreign military threat to the British colonies. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/treaty-of-paris

[11] John D. Barnhart and Dorothy L. Riker, Indiana to 1816: The Colonial Period (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1994), 131-133.

[12] King George III, Proclamation of 1763. https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/proc63.html.

[13] Joseph D. Gasparro, “The Desired Effect: Pontiac’s Rebellion and the Native American Struggle to Survive in Britain’s North American Conquest,” The Gettysburg Historical Journal 6 (2007): i. In 1763, the Native Americans led an insurgence, commonly called Pontiac’s Rebellion, because of Pontiac, the Ottawa leader. This insurgence would culminate in the first extensive multi-tribal resistance to European colonization in America. In response to Britain’s new policies, the Native Americans took ten forts, leading to excess conflict and the British exposing smallpox blankets to the Native Americans.

[14] Barnhart, Indiana to 1816, 141-147.

[15] Dillion, A History of Indiana, 84.

[16] Ibid., 86-89.

[17]See Early Western Travels (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1905), in multiple volumes.

[18] Gayle Thornbrough, and Dorothy Riker, eds., Readings in Indiana History (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1956), 30.

[19] William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Birmingham: The Legal Classics Library, 1983), 411.

[20] Somerset against Stewart, Easter Term, 12 GEO. 3, 1772, K.B. (May 14, 1772).

[21] Thornbrough, Readings in Indiana History, 30-31.

[22] Ibid.,189.

[23] Ibid.,32.

[24] William M. Malloy, ed., Treaties, conventions, International Acts, Protocols, and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776-1909, Vol. 1 (Washington, D. C.: United States Government Press, 1910), 580-583.

[25] Peter S. Onuf, Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 21.

[26] Charles Kettleborough, Constitution Making in Indiana Vol. I, 1780-1850 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1971), 3. This work is a collection of primary source documents reproduced for researchers.

[27] Deed of Cession is used to give up property rights to a governmental authority.

[28] Onuf, Statehood and Union, 99.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Kettleborough, Constitution Making, 15.

[31] Ibid., 21.

[32] Ibid., 21-22.

[33] Ibid., 25.

[34] “Northwest Ordinance of 1787,” 1 U.S.C. at LVII-LIX (2012).

[35] See Illustration One for a Map of the Northwest Territory and state territorial claims.

[36] Onuf, Statehood and Union, xiii.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Kettleborough, Constitution Making, 39.

[39] Ibid., 26. Fort Recovery was a U.S. Army Fort built by General Anthony Wayne from 1791 to 1794.

[40] See Illustration Two for Indiana Territory Map.

[41] Barnhart and Riker, Indiana to 1816, 314-316.

[42] Kettleborough, Constitution Making, 39.

[43] Ibid., 47.

[44] Ibid., 26. See Illustration Three for Map of State of Indiana circa 1816. For the full text of the ordinance see Appendix A.

[45] “Northwest Ordinance; July 13, 1787,” Avalon Project (Yale Law School). https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/nworder.asp.

[46] Onuf, Statehood and Union, 67-69.

[47] Ibid., 86.

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Constitutional and Legal Racism in Indiana: 1787 – 1870

The State of Indiana was created in 1816 and was carved out of the Northwest Territory as established in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation. Indiana would become one of six states, along with Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. Part of the 1787 act created An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio (Ordinance of 1787),[1] establishing territorial governments and the process for statehood. Statehood could be achieved when the territorial population reached 60,000, but elected forms of government could be achieved after five thousand free male inhabitants resided there.

Congress, ever mindful of the issues of slavery, created Article 6 of the Ordinance Act, which states, “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.”[2] The article meant that slavery would not be expanded into these northern sections. But what did that mean for African Americans in these areas? Would they be free and equal?

This dissertation will examine constitutional and legal racism in Indiana and the territory before statehood. While Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, were ‘free’ states, they were not necessarily open states to African Americans. States such as Illinois and Indiana included in their state constitutions laws prohibiting African Americans from settling in their states. Often the states enforced the Fugitive Slave Act, helping the South continue its enslavement of African Americans. Yet, at other times, the states showed independence and applied progressive interpretations of state constitutions to deny slave owners of their ‘property.’ Even after the Civil War, midwestern states gave a mixed message on treating African Americans, often treating them as second-class citizens until the Civil Rights Act Era, if not today.

The dissertation will examine Indiana’s constitutions (1816 and 1851) and laws on race to determine the state’s significance in the historiography of slavery and racism in the United States. Legal historians[3] are in the best position to interpret constitutional and legal rulings of the Indiana State Supreme Court and the acts of the state legislature. As race issues continue to plague the nation, it is essential to understand how the problem began and what is needed to overcome falsehoods and stereotypes. While there are a significant number of works on the formation of Indiana and racism in the United States, the subject of racism in Indiana’s formative years has not been sufficient, and even fewer studies from a legal and constitutional perspective.

The dissertation will map out the arguments and acts of the state’s founders and determine how racial attitudes and laws progressed. It is crucial to find out why the State of Indiana, which fought on behalf of the North in the Civil War, placed in its state constitution of 1851 a prohibition for African Americans to live there.

The dissertation will look at the following periods in Indiana’s history: First, settlement during 1787 until the state constitutional convention in 1815, including the enforcement of the Federal Fugitive Slave Act, which was held constitutional by the United States Supreme Court Dred Scott v. Sandford.[4] Second, the laws and constitution from 1816 until 1851, when a new constitution was enacted. The final will study the state constitution of 1851 until the passing of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the universal suffrage of African American males in Indiana in 1870.

The dissertation will use traditional historical research and look at Indiana historical depositories such as the Indiana State Archives and Indiana Historical Society Collections. While the primary focus is on the legal treatment of African Americans, the dissertation will look at newspapers, legislative notes, speeches, and legal opinions. Only by a variety of primary sources can the dissertation questions be explored. Those questions, preliminarily, are: What were the political and social issues surrounding the various stages of racism in Indiana? How did the Indiana county and Supreme Court rulings compare to similar judgments of the United States Supreme Court? Did the state courts provide more protection? Is there a discernable pattern? Did the state supreme court rulings cause Indiana state legislatures to modify the law or state constitutions? If so, did it attempt to correct the racial issue or look for other ways to maintain the status quo? How does Indiana fit into the historiography of racism in the United States? Finally, what questions still need to be explored by other historians? Since this is an empirical search, the author has no preconceived notions of the answers to these questions. Traditional history shows African Americans were mistreated in Indiana, and the causes must be studied.

[1] “Northwest Ordinance; July 13, 1787”. Avalon Project. Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/nworder.asp.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Mark A. King achieved his Juris Doctorate from Indiana University School of Law in 1998 and is a doctoral candidate in history at Liberty University.

[4] Dred Scott v. Sandford. 60 U.S. 393 (United States Supreme Court, 1856).

My Dissertation Journey #2

I have submitted my first draft of chapter one. With references it is at thirty-two pages. It will change significantly in my final submission. The first chapter is really my introduction and my historiography section. As I find more resources the historiography section will grow and I will be able to create other sections – abstract, thesis statement, and chapter overviews.

I can honestly say, that this first chapter was extremely tasking. I wasn’t sure what to expect and became a bit disheartened at first. But happily, Dr. Roberts was able to get me on track and give me the support I needed to regroup.

There will be no rest for the wicked – my next course starts on Monday and will last fifteen weeks. It is my understanding that I will spend most of the summer researching. I may even take a trip to Washington D.C. to the national archives and Library of Congress. It would be exciting to do research in these great institutions. Hard to believe I am a professional historian who goes to the capital to discover new things.

I have been emailing with my dissertation director, Dr. Upchurch, and I have complete confidence in his ability to get me through the process. He has already been providing much needed guidance. And I think we have really gotten to know each other.

To Carlos’s dismay, my personal library has grown substantially and more books are on their way. eBay, Thrift Books, and Amazon have been helping me find most of my needs. I love local bookstores but I have not had the time to go to any but I plan to soon.

My Dissertation Journey #1

As some of you know, I am writing my dissertation for my Ph.D. in History at Liberty University. The starting of the dissertation has been a rough process, and I am in week 5, and my first draft of chapter one is being submitted today. These first several weeks have been about narrowing my topic down, and I have expanded and narrowed it down at least four times. The working title is Constitutional and Legal Racism in Indiana: 1787-1870.

This week I defined racism for this paper. I searched the internet and found one I liked from the Australian Human Rights Commission. I chose this one because it encapsulates the idea perfectly. I modified the language to suit my academic needs and thoughts.

My dissertation will define legal racism as the systemic and institutional inequity that creates unequal opportunities and outcomes for people based on their racial or ethnic backgrounds.[1] The power to discriminate, oppress, or limit others’ rights constitutes legal racism, andI think this will help me focus my work.

I have my dissertation chair, Dr. Thomas Adams Upchurch. I am very honored that he will be guiding my work. Dr. Upchurch focuses on African American history (slavery, the abolitionist movement, and Jim Crow/Civil Rights) and religious history. He is the author of Abolition Movement,[2]among others. I am incredibly lucky to have him on this project.

I will update my blog from time to time to keep everyone up to date on my progress. Some posts will be drafts, and some will be my thoughts on the process.

[1] “What is Racism?” Australian Human Rights Commission. https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/race-discrimination/what-racism.

[2] Thomas Adams Upchurch, Abolition Movement (Oxford, UK: Greenwood, 2011).

Economic Theory of the Great Depression: Goverment Failure?

America in the 1920’s was very prosperous and full of optimism. The decade is known as the “Roaring Twenties” and despite nuisances, such as prohibition, the decade is often depicted as one long party. And why not? The Great War had ended; The 19^th Amendment was passed, giving women the right to vote; and economic prosperity. All of this came to an abrupt halt in 1929.

What seemed like overnight, America and the world was thrown into chaos as the Great Depression enveloped around them. What caused the world to enter the Great Depression is a complicated economic and political question. There perhaps is no one reason that historians or economist can agree upon. Historians looking at the Great Depression have focused their attention on several reason. One reason is the Stock Market Crash in October of 1929. This can be summed up by, Michael Bernstein in his work “The Great Depression as Historical Problem” when he wrote, “… that the resulting devaluation of wealth and disruption of the banking system explained the intensity of the crisis. The “business confidence” thesis was perhaps the best example of this school of thought. It held that regardless of the mechanisms that caused the collapse, the dramatic slide of the stock market created intensely pessimistic expectations in the business community. The shock to confidence was so severe and unexpected that a dramatic panic took hold, stifling investment and thereby a full recovery.”[1]

A second reason for the Great Depression is the Economic policies, or lack thereof, during the stock market crash. According to Bernstein, “… the slump was the result of systematic policy errors. According to this school of thought, inadequate theory, misleading information, and political pressures distorted the policy-making process.”[2] There is no doubt that once the stock market crashed, President Herbert Hoover was unable to instill confidence in the economic system.

President Hoover took office on March 4, 1929, the stock market was at unprecedented high. Investors where trading stock on credit, due to extremely low interest rates and no government oversight. However, on Monday, October 28, 1929, the market crashed. “The epic boom ended in a cataclysmic bust. On Black Monday, October 28, 1929, the Dow declined nearly 13 percent. On the following day, Black Tuesday, the market dropped nearly 12 percent. By mid-November, the Dow had lost almost half of its value. The slide continued through the summer of 1932, when the Dow closed at 41.22, its lowest value of the twentieth century, 89 percent below its peak. The Dow did not return to its pre-crash heights until November 1954.”[3]

Clarence Barber wrote on the origins of the Great Depression. In his work he quotes, J.R. Hicks, “The first thing to be said about (the Great Depression) is that it was a double slump. It began with the Wall Street crash in 1929, a repetition, at least at first sight, of that of 1907, leading to a depression just as that had done. But the recovery from the depression, which on previous experience might have been expected to follow within a year or two, did not take place. Instead here was a double slump, superimposed upon the first. Now there is no doubt at all that this second slump was monetary in character; it is to be explained by the fragility of the international monetary system, reconstructed no more than imperfectly after the first World War. First of all came the European monetary collapse, beginning with the Kreditanstalt crash in July 1931; there followed, as a consequence of that, the 1933 crisis in America.”[4]

Eleanore Douglas describes how President Hoover and his economic philosophy failed to stop the Great Depression. “Hoover and his political philosophy in many ways exemplified the best aspects of the Republican retrenchment strategy of the 1920s. His approach seemed successful during an extended period of American economic growth and relative international quiescence. Unlike more traditional proponents of laissez-faire government, Hoover adopted a strategy of retrenchment explicitly offered a positive vision for action in response to modern problems and even crises. Hoover faithfully adhered to his approach as the austerity crisis of the Great Depression unfolded. In response to the failure of retrenchment policies either to prevent or to mitigate the conditions of the Depression crisis…”[5] Douglas further argues that his response “to scale back U.S. security commitments in the face of events to focus on the economic crises at home and abroad, despite evidence of dramatic changes to key elements of the post-war international security architecture. In so doing, some have argued that Hoover signaled too strongly America’s lack of interest in maintaining the stability of the international system and opened the door to the rise of new threats from Japan and Germany.”[6]

Ultimately, the Great Depression would end, but how is still controversial. One theory is that recovery occurred because of self-corrective measures. However, this is disputed by Christiana Romer in her work on the Great Depression, Romer states, “my findings appear to dispute studies that suggest that the recovery from the Great Depression was due to the self- corrective powers of the U.S. economy in the 1930s. I find that aggregate-demand stimulus was the main source of the recovery from the Great Depression. Thus, the Great Depression does not provide evidence that large shocks are rapidly undone by the forces of mean reversion. Rather, it suggests that large falls in aggregate demand are sometimes followed by large rises, the combination of which leaves the economy back on trend.”[7]

However, others credit it to the New Deal created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, “New Deal labor and industrial policies did not lift the economy out of the Depression as President Roosevelt had hoped. Instead, the joint policies of increasing labor’s bargaining power and linking collusion with paying high wages prevented a normal recovery by creating rents and an inefficient insider-outsider friction that raised wages significantly and restricted employment. Not only did the adoption of these industrial and trade policies coincide with the persistence of depression through the late 1930s, but the subsequent abandonment of these policies coincided with the strong economic recovery of the 1940s.”[8] While still others claim it was the economic needs and boom of World War II.

[1] Michael A. Bernstein, “The Great Depression as Historical Problem.” OAH Magazine of History 16, no. 1 (2001): 4. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/stable/25163480

[2] Ibid, 5.

[3] Gary Richardson, Alejandro Komai, Michael Gou and Daniel Park, “Stock Market Crash of 1929,” Federal Reserve History (November 22, 2013). Stock Market Crash of 1929 | Federal Reserve History.

[4] Clarence L. Barber, “On the Origins of the Great Depression,” Southern Economic Journal 44, no. 3 (1978): 434.

[5] Eleanore Douglas, STRATEGIC RETRENCHMENT AND RENEWAL IN THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Report. Edited by Peter Feaver, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2014: 71.

[6] Ibid, 72.

[7] Christina D. Romer, “What Ended the Great Depression?” The Journal of Economic History 52, no. 4 (1992): 783.

[8] Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian, “New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis,” Journal of Political Economy 112, no. 4 (2004): 813.

MADAM C. J. WALKER

From Slave to First Female Millionaire

There are very few rags to riches stories, such as that of Madden C. J. Walker[1], who was born to former slaves on December 23, 1867. Born Sarah Breedlove, she was just one of six children born in Delta, Louisiana to Owen and Minerva Anderson Breedlove. Sarah what is the fifth child of Owen and Sarah and the first to be born free.[2]

Sarah, like most young black children, in the Deep South, had very little formal education. In fact, the Louisiana state legislators refused to fund education for black children. She attended a small church presided over by Reverend Curtis Pollard, a black minister who was a state senator during reconstruction. Sarah’s parents both died when she was seven years old, and she had to go to work to help support her family.[3]

At the age of 10 Sarah moved to Vicksburg Mississippi and by 14 she was married had one child, a daughter, however she was a widow by the age of 20 and living in St. Louis, Missouri. By 1900 she had discovered a treatment for African American hair and in July of 1905 she moved to Denver Colorado to start a business. While not easy, she was able to create successful business and traveled over around the country to introduce her product, which was delivered by mail-order.[4]

In February of 1910 she traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana and was decided to make it her home. In Indianapolis, she built a factory, laboratory, and a home all next to each other. The cost of the factory was approximately one million dollars, in 1910 or $28.6 million today and was a state-of-the-art facility.[5] By 1912, the company had 1,600 black employees selling her products on commission, some of whom earned around $1,000 per week (the equivalent purchasing power of $28,000 today).

“Though she began by offering her formula door to door, Walker understood that that was not the way fortunes were made. She established a chain of beauty parlors throughout the country, the Caribbean, and South America. She had her own factories and laboratories, said to be the most advanced of their kind. Walker set up training schools in hair culture, and employed black women agents to sell the products—including hair growers, salves for psoriasis, and oils—on a commission basis.”[6]

In the company yearbook in 1938, it describes the company as, “The Madam C. J. Walker manufacturing company has gone on growing from year to year until now it is the world’s largest manufacturing enterprise, the racist outstanding industrial success because it was founded on, and continues to be operated on, the principles of unselfish service to all humanity and a full measure of quality and quantity to its every customer.” This comment about unselfishness describes Madam Walker’s personally philosophy.[7]

Madam Walker died on May 25, 1919, at the age of 51 from Kidney failure and had previously moved to New York, New York. After her death and the death of her daughter, who took over the company, W.E.B. Du Bois, criticized the company and made some false and harmful claims. “On December 18, 1937, Du Bois used his column in the Pittsburgh Courier to criticize the Indianapolis-based Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company… The attack was part of Du Bois’s long-running critique of what he perceived as the failure of black businesses to address the basic needs of black Americans. Although Du Bois praised the accomplishments of the late “Ma dame Walker and her hair culture business” as “epoch-making,” he attacked the firm: “Since Madame Walker’s death the business has fallen, I have been told, mainly into the hands of white capitalists.” Further, the company had based itself “on the usual exploitation of labor.”[8]

Freeman B. Ransom, the company manager and attorney responded to these allegations. “In an open letter to Du Bois published in the Pittsburgh Courier, he angrily protested the attack. “There is not now, or has there ever been,” Ransom insisted, “one share of stock of the Mme. C.J. Walker Mfg. Company owned by any white man” or ” ‘by white capitalists.’ ” Only “members of the Walker family” had ever held shares in the firm.”[9]

“Du Bois replied privately to Ransom on December 22, 1937: I am sorry that my reference to your company in the ‘Pittsburgh Courier’ did not altogether please you. You will remember that I did not say that the business had fallen into the hands of white capitalists. I said that I had been told it had. Nor was there anything in my statement or intention to decry or injure your business in any way. Most of us are engaged in work which is directed wholly or in part by white capital. That fact in itself is not at all derogatory. I merely mentioned the rumor in this case because the matter was of importance in the possible development of cooperative business among us.”[10]

Madam C. J. Walker was an amazing woman who personifies the American entrepreneurial spirit. She was born to former slaves, married at 14 and a widow at 20, yet became the first female millionaire (according to Guinness World Records[11]. She advanced the cause of equality for African Americans and helped many of them make it to the middle class.

[1] Sarah changed her name to Madam C. J. Walker in memory of her husband Charles Joseph Walker when she started to promote her business.

[2] Rita G. Koman and TwHP Staff, “Two American Entrepreneurs: Madam C. J. Walker and J. C. Penney,” OAH Magazine of History 20, no. 1 (2006): 29.

[3] Ibid.

[4]A’Lelia. Bundles, “The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker,” History News 58, no. 1 (2003): 6-9. Ms. Bundles is the great-great granddaughter of Madam Walker.

[5] “Madam C. J. Walker year book, 1938,” Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company, (1938).

[6] Darlene Clark Hine, “African American Women and Their Communities in the Twentieth Century: The Foundation and Future of Black Women’s Studies,” Black Women, Gender Families 1, no. 1 (2007): 8.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Mark David Higbee, “W. E. B. Du Bois, F. B. Ransom, the Madam Walker Company, and Black Business Leadership in the 1930s,” Indiana Magazine of History 89, no. 2 (1993): 102.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid, 104.

[11] https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/search?term=first%20self%20made%20female%20millionare&page=1&type=all&max=20&partial=_Results&.

Growth in the Postbellum Economy: North and South Carolina Economic Recovery.

After the Civil War the United States entered in to a period of reconstruction. The war destroyed many of the plantations in the south, which provided for the economic need. This discussion will look at how tobacco and cotton faired in the south during reconstruction. It will analyze two different articles. The first article looked at towns in North Carolina and the second discussed South Carolina.

Because the south was decimated after the civil war and it’s economy changed, the south entered a phase of economic rebirth. The south was at a disadvantage since the north had major urban industries and the south was more agrarian. Roger Biles, in his article, looked at different areas of North Carolinas. The article, “Tobacco Towns: Urban Growth and Economic Development in Eastern North Carolina.”[1] looked at two towns Winston and Durham to illustrate growth. For instance Winston’s population grew for 443 to 10,008 residents in a 10 year period demonstrating a recovery from 1890-1900.[2]

In all, Biles study he considered “the four communities that grew and prospered most because of the tobacco boom—Wilson, Kinston, Greenville, and Rocky Mount.”[3] Prior to the mid-1800s there was not wide spread planting of tobacco in North Carolina. However innovation in how to produce the tobacco and the desire grew rapidly. “When domestic manufacturers began using the yellow leaves as wrappers for twists of plug tobacco, market prices for the new product shot even higher. ‘Many persons have taken to growing tobacco within the last year or two who probably never raised a plant before,’ commented the editor of the North Carolina Planter in 1858. By 1860, bowing to the requests of their readership, both the North Carolina Planter and the Southern Planter published instructions for the cultivation and curing of bright leaf tobacco.”[4] Just prior to the war land in North Carolina began selling 20-30 times higher.[5]

The importance of tobacco to the North Carolina recovery after the war was even more evident when the price of cotton dripped. By 1894 cotton was only worth about 4.59 cents per pound from 25 cents per pound in 1868.[6] This caused more farms to switch to tobacco. In 1894, “ officials of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad launched a campaign urging farmers to plant more tobacco. The railroad’s managers published supportive editorials in the Southern Tobacco Journal and distributed twenty thousand copies of a pamphlet titled, The Tobacco Planter’s Guide for novice growers of the crop. Soon residents of eastern North Carolina towns joined in the tobacco boom by raising the crop on small plots just beyond the municipal limits.”[7]

This shift even occurred in areas and communities that were “historically and inextricably tied to the Cotton Kingdom” such as the Rocky Mount area, which had the second oldest cotton mill in the state but turned to tobacco.[8] In all, Biles shows that North Carolina adopted tobacco as an economic response to the falling prices of cotton and the need to rebuild an economy.

In a second article by David Latzko on the South Carolina’s economy as well.[9] Latzo, in his article, really delved in to the pre and post war economy. Latzko states, “the Civil War and emancipation affected agriculture and manufacturing everywhere in South Carolina, but the effects were not evenly distributed. The war and its immediate aftermath resulted in a large shift in the geographic distribution of economic activity.”[10] He showed that Farm output in South Carolina in 1860 was about $32,005,366 by 1870 is fell by 52% to $15, 345,679[11], which shows the devastation. Most interesting about this article is that author breaks down the economic impacts of each county and the major industries.

Like the Biles article, Latzko discussed how cotton prices fell in South Carolina, along with other key factors. “Cotton production, which accounted for half of all farm output in the state in I860, fell from 353,412 bales in 1860 to 224,500 bales in 1870, dropping in dollar value by 37 percent. The quantity of rice produced declined 73 percent, from 119,100,528 pounds to 32,304,825 pounds, between 1860 and 1870. Rice production decreased 82 percent in value. Between 1860 and 1870, sweet potato production decreased 67 percent, the quantity of wheat produced fell 39 percent, corn production fell 49 percent, and the value of animals slaughtered dropped 74 per.”[12]

Finally, Latzko discusses emancipation and how that impacted the economy of South Carolina. “The newly freed slaves, owning little non-movable property, had less reason than whites to remain where economic prospects were meager and greater incentive to move where such opportunity.”[13] This impacted the ability to get cheap labor since whites demanded more money for the same work.

It is clear that reconstruction really devasted the economy of both North Carolina and South Carolina. North Carolina was able to recover better because it quickly shifted from cotton to tobacco. South’s Carolina’s greater reliance on slave labor caused their recovery to go slower.

[1] Biles, Roger. “Tobacco Towns: Urban Growth and Economic Development in Eastern North Carolina.” The North Carolina Historical Review 84, no. 2 (2007): 156-90. Accessed July 8, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23522906

[2] Ibid, 157.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, 158.

[5] Ibid, 159.

[6] Ibid, 162.

[7] Ibid, 163-4.

[8] Ibid, 164.

[9] Latzko, David A. “MAPPING THE SHORT-RUN IMPACT OF THE CIVIL WAR AND EMANCIPATION ON THE SOUTH CAROLINA ECONOMY.” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 116, no. 4 (2015): 258-79. Accessed July 8, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44289835.

[10] Ibid, 263.

[11] Ibid, 264.

[12] Ibid, 267.

[13] Ibid, 276.

USS Indianapolis – Video

For my current History class I had to create a documentary. The assignment required it be of local interest. Since I live in Indianapolis and I loved the USS Indianapolis memorial I decided to do my documentary on the city and its connection to this famous ship. Follow my link to see my movie on YouTube. https://youtu.be/72nx-HErmOY

My Maternal Grandmother

As most of you know, I have been working on my PhD in history and this week we were tasked with writing a blog on Applied History. One of the options that we were given for this blog was Genealogical History (our own family history). This happens to be an interesting and exciting topic for me as I recently joined ancestry.com. Working with my mother, we have been tracing our family lineage back several hundred years. This assignment gives me an opportunity to create an outlet for what I have found, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

First, I want to discuss the process really quick on genealogy. I remember working in the library when I was in undergrad and people came to work on genealogy. I worked for the Allen County Public Library and they have one of the country’s largest deposit of genealogical research (https://acpl-cms.wise.oclc.org/genealogy). I would watch day in and day out, as people would spend hours and hours combing through books and newspapers. Today we have programs such as ancestry.com which makes the work a lot easier, but still very time consuming. However, these type of programs are only a tool that must be used in conjunction with some sort of knowledge of your family to start with.

To begin my research on my family genealogy I started with a piece of paper, some notes really, I took many years ago with my grandmother. We were sitting at my sisters dining room table, when I asked her to tell me about our family. It should be noted that talking to my grandmother was never the easiest task for me, she often thought I was just “messing” with her when I would ask her questions, but this time she opened up and told me about her mother, her grandmother and so forth. I took the information grandmother gave me and I’ve kept it for over twenty years.

Starting with this piece of paper, I inputted what little information I had into ancestry.com and began to work. Next, I contacted my mother and told her what I was doing and had discovered so far, and I asked her questions to verify what I found and expanded my research. Now I don’t have a traditional two parent household and some of the questions I asked probably is not something my Christian mother would like me sharing, but let’s just say there was a few branches that I had to work on.

Grandpa Marsee Draft Card World War II Era

It would be impossible to share everything I’ve learned thus far about my family in such a short blog. However, I want to discuss the branch of my tree and the lady who started it all – my maternal grandmother Lillie Juanita Green. My grandmother was born September 5, 1922 in Middleburg, Kentucky, to John Green and Teeney Mary Green.

My grandmother may have had several other siblings, but I only knew of one sibling; a brother named Esco Charlie Green. I vaguely remember meeting him once as a child and knowing there was something about his relationship with my grandfather that was upsetting to my grandmother. Years later I would learn that Uncle Esco was a homosexual, and my grandfather was unaccepting of him being near us. No one ever really spoke of Uncle Esco and I learned that he died on January 5, 1981 in Dade County Florida. I know this was a sore spot for my grandmother and I remember her in tears when she learned of his death and recall her saying he was buried in a pauper’s grave.

My maternal great-grandmother, Mary Green, as she preferred to be called, was born August 3, 1891 to Baxter and Esther Poore. I was able to find several records on her, including her social security number. I was able to locate census records for 1930 and 1940, which is why I think my grandmother may have had other siblings. There seems to be a disconnect of some kind here.

My mother cannot verify this information, but all the research does support it. I am not surprised that this information is not known to my mother however, my grandfather had several sisters in the Fort Wayne, IN area (where we lived) and he never saw them, and I never met them. Our family seems to have a poor sibling dynamic. I see it happening even with my brother, sister and me.

So far, I have traced my maternal grandmother’s family back to Jesse Poore, who was a private in the Confederate Army for the 16^th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry and his father, Jesse Poor (Poore)-there are spelling changes, which I credit to bad penmanship in translating documents-who was born in 1770, North Carolina and died in 1858, Tazwell, TN. I am hoping to go back further to see how all the branches of the family came to the Americas.

Boston Tea Party Part One

This is part one of my History H701 post on The Boston Tea Party.

Using Jstor I researched the Boston Tea Party which took place on December 16, 1773. On that night, approximately 50 members of the Sons of Liberty organized in part by Samuel Adams disguised themselves as Indians and bordered three British ships and threw its cargo of imported tea overboard. The “official” purpose of this action was to protest the British Tea Act of 1773.

The first scholarly work I found was actually a chapter in a book Called the Defiance of the Patriots by Benjamin Carp Yale University press. 2010. I then went to another database and was able to locate the book in electronic format. The book is a detailed account of the revolutionary war using a significant number of primary sources. This is a general work on the entire period.

I did find a second article on Jstor from the same writer. In a 2012 article Carp wrote “Did Dutch Smuggler’s Provoke the Boston Tea Party, written in the Early American Studies Journal. This work was intriguing because the author advanced the notion that smugglers were actually behind the demonstration in order to protect their lucrative tea trade. This work cited a series of works by authors on the war. It further used primary sources such as letters from Generals, British Lords and writings of John Adams. His conclusion appears to be that while the Dutch may have tried to start the demonstration it certainly didn’t know it would lead to war.

The third article is not new at all, as it was written in Jan of 1898 in The American Historical Review by Max Farrand. The article titled “The Taxation of Tea, 1767-1773” is what I considered to be a unique take on the question. The was written from a historical economic viewpoint on what the purpose of the taxation was and why it was so confusing to everyone. The author concluded that the tea could have been sold for a profit without the tax which was meant to make the tea from the East India Company profitable. The author used historical writings and calculations to make this interesting argument.

Overall, the writing on the Boston Tea Party is not as prevalent as I thought it would. While lots of writings include it to some extent, it is not a topic that is written on exclusively as much.