Madison County, Illinois - Chapter 26: Slavery and Slave Holders, 1912

Reference has been made heretofore to the existence of a form of slavery in Illinois, sur¬ viving from the year 1717, when the Sieur Renault brought 500 slaves from San Do¬ mingo to the Illinois and Louisiana country to work the mines of precious metals sup¬ posed to exist but which, in reality, consisted only of the lead mines in Missouri. When he left the country, in disgust, several years later, he sold his slaves to the French resi¬ dents of Cahokia and Kaskaskia. When the country east of the Mississippi was ceded to England in 1763, the right to hold slaves was conceded by the English to the inhabitants under the interpretation that slaves were prop¬ erty, or, at least, the treaty was so interpreted by the slave holders, and thus slavery was perpetuated in the territory.

When the Northwest territory was ceded by Virginia to the national government it was provided by Congress, in the ordinance of 1787, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude "shall exist in said territory except in punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." But again this provision was nullified as to slaves already in bondage by a ruling of the courts that it (the ordinance) was prospective and not retro¬ active.

which effected a modified form of slavery. It provided that negroes could be introduced into the territory and held as "indentured slaves." On the separation of Illinois from Indiana, in 1809, the Indiana code was adopted for the new territory, and thus southerners moving into Illinois were still enabled to hold the slaves they brought with them by having them indentured for a term of years by agree¬ ment with such slaves. Of such agreements the following from the Record of Indentures of Madison county is a sample :

Be it remembered that this day, to-wit the 15th of March in the year of our Lord 1815, personally ap¬ peared before me, Josias Randle, Clerk of the County Court of Madison county in the Territory of Illinois, Jack Bonaparte, a man of color, and Joshua Vaughn, both of the county of Mad¬ ison, and the said Jack now being the property of said Joshua, and for other considerations, doth hereby agree and freely oblige himself to serve the said Joshua Vaughn, his heirs and assigns, ninety years, as a good and faithful servant, and the said Joshua Vaughn obliges himself, as long as said Jack con¬ tinues with him, to furnish the said Jack with good and wholesome food, necessary clothing and all other necessaries suitable for a servant. In testimony thereof both parties have hereby agreed to the fore¬ going bargain in my office the day and year afore¬ said.

It is probable that as the territory compris¬ ing this county was not settled by Americans until 1802, there were never many of the old, so-called, "French slaves" in the county. The slaves were mainly of the indentured class, brought into the county by emigrants from the south and subsequently indentured. But that they were classed as property and as¬ sessed as such is shown by the following rec¬ ord from the assessor's books of 1814: Ann Bradshaw, 2; Thomas Good, 1; John Jarvis, 1 ; Thomas Kirkpatrick, 1 ; Robert Renolds, 1 ; lohn Robertson, 2; William Rabb, 2; Jesse Stanker, 2; James Shelton, 1; Joseway Vaughn, 1 ; Joel Whiteside, 1 ; William Whiteside, 2. In 1814 the tax on bond serv¬ ants or slaves was one dollar per head. The tax on horses was fifty cents per head. The

In 1820 the tax rate on personal property was five mills on the dollar ; negroes and horses were taxed according to value and not per head, as in 1814. The number of tax pay¬ ers in 1820 was about 1,200. (The foregoing data were taken from the tax list of Madison county, in the county clerk's office, for the years 1814 and 1820.)

This condition of servitude of both inden¬ tured servants and the descendants of "French slaves" continued until 1845 when the supreme court of the state declared them free. It was against these and other barbarous black laws that Governor Coles fulminated in his first message to the legislature in 1822 which pre¬ cipitated the great anti-slavery struggle of 1824, when the attempt was made to fasten slavery upon the state in the same form as it existed in the south. In that famous cam¬ paign, as stated in a previous chapter, Madi¬ son county cast 563 votes for freedom and 351 for the proposed slave amendment to the con¬ stitution thus repudiating the institution.