1 Charles Kettleborough, Constitution Making, in Indiana (3 vols., Indianapolis, 1916, 1930), 1:33. Compare Eugene H. Berwanger, The Frontier Against Slavery: Western Anti-Negro Prejudice and the Slavery Extension Controversy (Urbana, Ill., 1967), 7, who argues that the Northwest Ordinance did not abolish slavery, but forbade its further introduction into the Northwest Territory. This interpretation, he contends, was generally accepted by the French inhabitants who held slaves under Virginia laws.
2 Badollet to Albert Gallatin, January 1, 1806, in Gayle Thornbrough, ed., The Correspondence of John Badollet and Albert Gallatin, 1804-1836 (Indianapolis, 1963), 64. John Rice Jones, Francis Vigo, Luke Decker, Benjamin Parke, and William Henry Harrison were some of the more prominent pro slavery leaders in Indiana. See also two articles by John D. Barnhart: "Sources of Southern Migration into the Old Northwest," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 22 (June, 1935), 49-62; and "The Southern Influence in the Formation of Indiana," Indiana Magazine of History, 33 (September, 1937), 261-76.
3 Badollet to Gallatin, January 1, 1806, in Thornbrough, Correspondence of Badollet, 64.
4 "Petition of the Vincennes Convention" in Jacob Piatt Dunn, Slavery Petitions and Papers (Indiana Historical Society Publications, Vol. II, No. 12; Indianapolis, 1894), 461.
5 Ibid., 462, 462-63, 462.
6 Badollet to Gallatin, August 31, 1805, January 1, 1806, in Thornbrough, Correspondence of Badollet, 49, 65.
7 Francis S. Philbrick, ed., The Laws of Indiana Territory, 1801-1809 (reprint, Indianapolis, 1931), 136-39.
8 Badollet to Gallatin, January 23, 1808, in Thornbrough, Correspondence of Badollet, 97.
9 "The Report of General W. Johnston" in Dunn, Slavery Petitions and Papers, 523.
10 Badollet to Gallatin, January 23, 1808, in Thornbrough, Correspondence of Badollet, 97.
11 Philbrick, Laws of Indiana Territory, 523-26. Several years earlier, in a letter to Thomas Worthington in Ohio, Harrison had expressed his views on slavery in Indiana Territory. Harrison to Worthington, October 26, 1803, Indiana Historical Society Library, Indianapolis.
12 Badollet to Gallatin, January 23, 1808, in Thornbrough, Correspondence of Badollet, 97.
13 Dunn, Slavery Petitions and Papers, 507-9. It is interesting to note that it is one year before the cession of the slave trade scheduled by the United States Constitution.
14 Ibid. Dunn includes, pages 509-10, a United States House of Representatives committee report that recommends approval of the petition. Apparently the matter went no further. A second petition was passed by the Indiana Territory legislative body in September and forwarded to Congress; it reiterated the same points. Ibid., 515-17.
15 "Counter Petition of Clark County" in Dunn, Slavery Petitions and Papers, 518-19, 520.
16 "The Report of General W. Johnston," ibid., 525- 26.
17 Ibid., 525.
18 Badollet to Gallatin, March 7, 1809, in Thornbrough, Correspondence of Badollet, 104; "Enclosures in Badollet's Letter of November 13, 1809," ibid., 333-35.
19 Thomas Posey to General John Gibson, March 13, 1813, William H. English Collection, Indiana Historical Society Library. Apparently the question as to Posey's position on the slavery issue arose because Posey had previously signed a petition which proposed that Virginia Revolutionary War veterans be allowed to bring their slaves into the Northwest Territory.
20 Ibid.
21 Peter Jones to Elihu Stout, December 21, 1812, Henry Sullivan Cauthorn-Elibu Stout Collection, Indiana Historical Society Library.
22 Article VIII, Constitution of 1816, in Kettleborough, Constitution Making in Indiana, 1:112.
23 Article XI, section 7, Constitution of 1816, ibid., 1:117.
24 Will of John Johnson, July 10, 1817, English Collection, Indiana Historical Society Library. "Opinion of John Johnson, in Polly's Case" in Dunn, Slavery Petitions and Papers, 528-29, gives his position on the law.
25 Writ of habeas corpus dated January 27, 1820, in case file for Polly, a Woman of Colour v. Hyacinthe Lasselle, Archives Division, Indiana Archives and Records Administration, Indianapolis.
26 State v. Lasselle, 1 Blackford (Ind.) 60 (1820). Among the grounds for the Circuit Court's decision was the argument that the Ordinance of 1787 could not affect rights which existed before its passage. Emma Lou Thornbrough, The Negro in Indiana: A Study of a Minority (Indianapolis, 1957), 26.
27 State v. Lasselle.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 In re Mary Clark, 1 Blackford (Ind.) 122 (1821); Thornbrough, The Negro in Indiana, 28-29.
31 Nellie Armstrong Robertson and Dorothy Riker, eds., The John Tipton Papers (3 vols., Indianapolis, 1942), 1:266. lsaac Dunn's 1836 bill of sale for purchase of Molly in Kentucky is in the Indiana Historical Society Library.
32 Daniel Brown to John Tipton, June 27, 1832, in Robertson and Riker, Tipton Papers, 2:640-41.
33 "Memorial of Sundry Citizens of Harrison County Relative to negroes brought in by Win. Vincent and Emancipa[ted]," 1814, English Collection, Indiana Historical Society Library.
34 Ibid.
35 Emma Lou Thornbrough, Indiana in the Civil War Era, 1850-1880 (Indianapolis, 1965), 13.
36 H. Scribner to the [Floyd County] Overseers of the Poor, December 25, 1827, John K. Graham Papers, Indiana Historical Society Library.
37 The Non-Slaveholder (4 mo, 1848), vol. 3, p. 88, Indiana Historical Society Library.
38 Scribner to Overseers of the Poor, December 25, 1827, Graham Papers, Indiana Historical Society Library.
39 Dorothy Riker and Gayle Thornbrough, eds., Messages and Papers relating to the Administration of James Brown Ray, Governor of Indiana, 1825-1831 (Indianapolis, 1954), 470-71.
40 Ibid., 108-10; U. S. Census (1830).
41 Revised Laws of Indiana, 1831, pp. 375-76; Thornbrough, The Negro in Indiana, 58.
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