Slavery in Illinois before the Civil War

Amy Siebert
Eldorado Middle School, Eldorado

Many factors caused the American Civil War. The debate over slavery was one major cause. Illinois was a northern state, but slavery did exist in Illinois. When they came to Illinois in the seventeenth century, French explorers Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette discovered slavery among the Indians. Indians captured women and children from other tribes to be used as slaves.

The first black slaves of record in Illinois were brought by Philipe Francois Renault in 1719. Some slaves from the West Indies were sent to Saint Phillipe in what is now Monroe County. These slaves grew food for other slaves and for laborers at mines that Renault planned to develop in Missouri and Illinois.

Mining did not prove to be very profitable, and some of the black slaves were sent to Kaskaskia and Cahokia. By the mid-seventeenth century, an estimated three hundred blacks and sixty Indians were slaves in Illinois.

The Mason-Dixon Line defined the boundary between slave and free areas in the United States. In the West, this line followed the Ohio River to the Mississippi River, then up the Mississippi to the northern boundary of Missouri. A portion of the Mason-Dixon Line formed the southern boundary of Illinois on three sides. Although it separated slave from free states, it did not separate those who favored slavery from those who did not.

Illinois had laws concerning slavery. The Ordinance of 1787 had forbidden slavery in the Northwest Territory. Petitions to eliminate this prohibition and to permit slavery in Illinois were sent to Congress in 1796 and again in 1802. The Illinois Constitution of 1818, provided that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall hereafter be introduced into this state." The people who already owned slaves were not affected. Illinois had infamous Black Laws, which stripped blacks—slave, indentured, or free—of their civil rights.

Abolitionists formed groups to end slavery, and in 1840 the Liberty Party was established in Illinois. By 1846 this party had a majority in eighteen northern counties. More and more Illinoisans risked getting caught to help blacks escape to freedom.

The Underground Railroad helped the black slaves find freedom by taking them to Canada from the South. Governor John L. Beveridge pointed out in a speech after the Civil War that the Underground Railroad was "chartered not by law, but moral convictions; engineered not by science, but through charity; constructed not with money, but out of love; freighted not with commerce, but with downtrodden humanity; operated not for the benefit of stockholders, but for the escape of the fugitive fleeing from the hand of his oppressor."

Abolitionists did not always have it easy. Proslavery men plotted to fight abolitionists. The "Lord's Barn," in Quincy, was a church where proslavery men met to arrange some of their schemes.

In 1847 a convention was called to write a new constitution for Illinois. Approved by the people in 1848, this new constitution forbade slavery, but the legislature wrote a new law banning free blacks from entering Illinois. In 1853 this new law laid a heavy fine on anyone bringing a free black into the state. Any blacks caught entering the state were subject to arrest and fine. If they could not pay the fine and the court costs, they could be required to pay with their labor. In many cases, free blacks were kidnapped and taken into other states to be sold as slaves. Slave holders could claim and repossess fugitive slaves simply upon payment of court costs. Despite restrictions and disabilities placed upon them, many free blacks contributed significantly to their communities.

Slavery became the main issue in Illinois' senatorial election of 1858. Stephen A. Douglas was for slavery, but Abraham Lincoln was not. Because the majority of the people favored slavery, Douglas won the election.

Joliet and Marquette had found slavery among the Indian tribes when they explored the Illinois country. Slavery was still an issue that divided the people before the Civil War. In 1861 the people of Illinois fought for the Union and against slavery. It was not until the end of this tragic war, in which father fought against son and brother fought against brother and even the president had been assassinated, that the issue of slavery was finally decided.— [From John W. Allen, It Happened in Southern Illinois; John W. Allen, Legends and Lore of Southern Illinois; Alan Carpenter, Illinois.]

48	ILLINOIS HISTORY / FEBRUARY 1996