A Century of Negro Migration | Page 6

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.]
[Footnote 12: Dunn, _Indiana_, chap. vi.]
[Footnote 13: Hinsdale, _Old Northwest_, p. 350.]

[Footnote 14: _Tyrannical Libertymen_, pp. 10, 11; Locke,
_Anti-Slavery_, pp. 31, 32; Brannagan, _Serious Remonstrance_, p.
18.]
[Footnote 15: Washington edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, chap. vi, p.
456, and chap. viii, p. 380.]
[Footnote 16: Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 244; IX, p.
303; X, pp. 76, 290.]
[Footnote 17: Brannagan, _Serious Remonstrances_, p. 18.]
[Footnote 18: Library edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, X, pp. 295,
296.]
[Footnote 19: Adams, _Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery_, pp. 129,
130.]
[Footnote 20: _The Pennsylvania Gazette_, July 31, 1746.]
[Footnote 21: _The Maryland Gazette_, March 20, 1755.]
[Footnote 22: _Washington's Writings_, II, p. 134.]
[Footnote 23: Brissot de Warville, _New Travels_, II, pp. 33-34.]
[Footnote 24: Harris, _Slavery in Illinois_, chaps. iii, iv, and v; Dunn,
_Indiana_, pp. 218-260; Hinsdale, _Old Northwest_, pp. 351-358.]
[Footnote 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.]
[Footnote 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