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 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 One who writes of the events of only fifty years ago must needs 
 be careful not only to do justice to the dead, but to be considerate 
 of the feelings of the living. What may be read on the following 
 pages has not, I trust, been written prematurely. Most of the names 
 found there are of men who deserve honor. Among these I enroll 
 one who might otherwise seem to be mentioned with somewhat of 
 reproach, John Hawkins Rountree. We can not blame him for being, 
 in his early life, involved to some extent, in the system of slavery, 
 and we rightly give him credit for his later alliance, with the anti- 
 slavery cause which, doubtless, he had been taught to look upon with 
 suspicion and dislike. 
 
 Moreover, we need to remember that as the opinions and practice 
 even of good men have, within a hundred years, undergone a change 
 in regard to lotteries, so, within half that time, there has been wrought 
 a moral revolution on the subject of slavery. The act emancipating 
 slaves in the British colonies bears the signature of the predecessor 
 of Queen Victoria. We notice with shame that the bench of bishops 
 in the House of Lords voted almost to a man against this measure, 
 just as the same ecclesiastical body voted against the Quaker Clark- 
 son's bill to prohibit the African slave-trade. And yet these gen- 
 tlemen held what, in the opinion of sundry people, is so high a pre- 
 rogative that save for the kindly rendered service of those who pos- 
 sess it, the Lord himself would find it impossible, without something 
 in the nature of semi-miraculous intervention, to continue here on 
 earth His true church! And in 1851, Moses Stuart of Andover, who 
 introduced into America the broad-minded methods of German bib- 
 lical scholarship, published an essay that was virtually a defense of 
 Southern slavery. 
 
 As what is now Wisconsin was once a part of the political unit 
 that extended from the Mississippi eastward to Pennsylvania and 
 Virginia — that is, of the Old Northwest Territory — there is abundant 
 reason for the reference to the Ordinance of 1787. Among its prac- 
 tical effects, not commonly noted, was, probably, the exodus of the 
 French slaveholders from Kaskaskia and vicinity to Missouri, — to 
 St. Genevieve, — whence Governor Dodge and General Tones brought 
 slaves to what is now Wisconsin. Good was it for Illinois that she 
 was rid, for the most part, of slaveholding by the French before 
 Reynolds and his ilk began demanding, in the name of the Ameri- 
 
 !' -•« 
 
 ^toii* 
 
r -rK 
 
 Tn F- r— 
 
 W«.H».»- >/ slJ 
 
 2L 1 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 can settlers, the establishment there of the hateful system. It is 
 well, perhaps, for our honor as a nation that the validity of the Great 
 Ordinance was settled in the court of the people, and not tested by 
 the pleas and proceedings of legal formalists. For such trial, had 
 it come at all, must needs have taken place at a time when tin 
 degrading influence of slavery was making itself felt upon the 
 constitutions even of the older states. When there were but sixteen 
 states in the Union, every one of them except South Carolina, ex- 
 tended to negroes, as to whites, under certain conditions, the n I 
 of suffrage. "When, just before the late war began, there were 
 thirty-five states, colored men could vote, on terms of equality with 
 whites, only in Xew England. And even there. Connecticut had 
 followed the bad example of the majority of the states. In New 
 York colored men could vote if possessed of property valued at not 
 less than $250, and in Ohio mulattoes voted under a judicial decision 
 that they were as much white men as they were negroes. 
 
 Notwithstanding the single attempt to tolerate slavery in Ohio, 
 and the desire of Indiana to be clothed upon with shame, the strug- 
 gle to protect and establish slavery in Illinois and what is recorded 
 in this little monograph, yet from the high viewpoint of the supreme 
 law, it remains true as stated so eloquently by Senator Hoar at 
 the Marietta centennial: '"Here was the first human government 
 under which absolute civil and religious liberty has always pre- 
 vailed. Here no witch was ever hanged or burned. When older 
 states or nations, where the chains of human bondage have been 
 broken, shall utter the proud boast, 'With a great price I obtained 
 this freedom,' each sister of this imperial group. Ohio. Indiana. 
 Illinois. Michigan and Wisconsin, may lift up her queenly head 
 with the yet prouder answer, 'But I was free born.' " 
 
 Two Rivers. Wisconsin, 
 1896. May 21. 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 The colonial structure reared by the French in North America 
 may be described, at its greatest, as a vast arch with one abutment 
 resting on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the other on the Gulf of 
 Mexico.. Of this arch, the region between Lake Michigan and the 
 Mississippi formed the keystone. Here the early traders found 
 scarcely a break in that intra-continental water-course whose length 
 equals the distance from Europe to America. Here some one — and 
 I believe it was the Frenchmen who made the "voyage" of 1654-56; 
 men unknown unless we may identify them, as I believe we may 
 safely do, with Radisson and Groseilliers, — discovered the Upper 
 Mississippi. The real discovery, however, was that of Wisconsin. 
 ( )nce on th.it stream, the explorer was really on part of the "every- 
 where river." — for so. I believe, it is safe to render the Indian term 
 that we, with a superfluity of sibilants, write Mississippi, — and there 
 he would need no other guidance than that of its swift current to 
 lead him to the main stream. 
 
 The great river that thus bore Canadian explorers and, centuries 
 later, northern soldiers southward was the principal route by which 
 slavery was distributed throughout its own vast valley. On both 
 sides of almost the entire length of the Mississippi, that is, from 
 tin- Gulf of Mexico nearly to the Falls of St. Anthony, negroes have 
 been held in slavery. 1 Frenchman, Spaniard, Briton and American have 
 all been guilty of this great wrong. Vet there were no negroes in 
 the first settlements made by civilized men beside the great river 
 and its tributaries, for these pioneers came by way of the St. Lawrence 
 and the Lakes. But even before New Orleans was founded, in 1718, 
 
 1. Major [Lawrence] Taliaferro had inherited several slaves, which he used to 
 hire to officers of the garrison. * * * * Iu May [1820], Captain [J.] Plympton, 
 of the Fifth infantry, wished to purchase his negro woman Eliza, but he refused, 
 as it was his intention, ultimately, to free his slaves. Another of his negro girls. 
 Harriet, was married at the. fort [Snelling], the Major performing the ceremony, 
 to the now historic Dred Scott, who was then a slave of Surgeon Emerson. The 
 only person that ever purchased a slave to retain in slavery, was Alexis Bailly 
 [himself partly of Indian blood], who bought a man of Major Garland. The Sioux, 
 at first, had no prejudices against negroes. They called them "Black Frenchmen," 
 and placing their hands on their woolly heads would laugh heartily.— "Explorers 
 and Pioneers of Minnesota," by Edward D. N.eill. 
 
4 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 there had begun in the new French settlements on the Gulf coast,, 
 and so in the great realm to which the Mississippi is the natural 
 entrance and outlet, a sad history whose last pages were to be writ- 
 ten in the blood of the fathers and elder brothers of the men of this 
 generation. D'Iberville, when on his expedition "to plant a colony 
 on the Mississippi,"- made a stop at San Domingo. There he "took 
 on board M. de Grave, a famous bucaneer, who some years before 
 had surprised and pillaged the town of Vera Cruz." San Domingo 
 in later years furnished slaves to the new colony, and I think it 
 more than possible that some were brought on this first voyage of 
 DTberville's. However that may be, there were in the colony, in 
 May, 1713, "four hundred persons, including twenty negroes." 3 
 Then it was that Cadillac, the founder, in July or August, 1701, 
 of Detroit, arrived in the new colony to serve as governor general. 
 The entire province, including all the region "between Carolina on 
 the east and Old and New Mexico on the west," had, by royal 
 decree dated 14th September, 1712, been transferred, as far as com- 
 mercial, mining and certain other privileges were concerned, to Sieur 
 Antoine Crozat. Permission was granted him, "if he find it proper 
 to have blacks in the said country of the Illinois," to "send a ship 
 every year to trade for them directly upon the coast of Guinea, taking 
 permission from the Guinea company to do so." But "before Crozat's 
 plans were fairly organized, the operations of the treaty of Utrecht 
 debarred him from the importation of Africans. Its provisions 
 had, in fact, transferred the control of the slave trade to England. 
 a plan far-reaching enough to make the mother country responsible 
 for the long bondage of the negro in America." 
 
 Nevertheless it must be said that though Crozat's plans in regard 
 to the importation of negroes from Africa were defeated, it must 
 have been for reasons that do not appear in the treaty, for designs 
 of the same sort were successfully carried out by the man} r -named 
 company of which John Law was, at first, the controlling spirit. 
 "On the 6th of June," 1719, two vessels "arrived from the coast of 
 Guinea with five hundred negroes. * * In the beginning of July, 
 1720, "the ship l'Hercule, sixteen guns, arrived at Dauphin [Ship] 
 Island from Guinea, with a cargo of negroes for the colony. * * On 
 the 17th [of March, 1721], the frigate l'Africain arrived with one 
 hundred and eighty negroes, being the remains of two hundred eighty 
 which had embarked on board in Africa. On the 23d, le Due du 
 Maine, thirty-six guns, arrived with three hundred and ninety-four 
 negroes, being the remains of four hundred and fifty-three who had 
 
 2. The colony, however, was not planted on the Mississippi but at Biloxi. 
 
 3. La Harpe's "Establishment of the French in Louisiana," French's "Historical, 
 lions of Louisiana," Part III., p. 39. 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 5 
 
 -sailed from Africa about the same time. On the 4th of April, M. 
 Berranger was sent to Cape Francais to purchase corn for the negroes, 
 who were dying with hunger at Biloxi (Fort Louis). * * On the 
 20th, the frigate la Nereide * * arrived with two hundred and 
 ninety-four negroes, being the remains of three hundred and fifty 
 which had been put on board. 4 He reported that the frigate le Charles. 
 with a cargo of negroes, had been burnt at sea within sixty miles of 
 the coast." We need not continue the dismal story— told by Benard 
 -de La Harpe — any farther to be reminded of the fact that the mon- 
 opoly granted to England by the 12th article of the treaty of Utrecht 
 related to Spanish and not to French America. 
 
 The royal proclamation creating Law's company gravely states 
 that "in the settlement of the lands granted to the said company by 
 these present letters, we have chiefly in view the glory of God, by 
 procuring the salvation of the savage Indian and Negro inhabitants 
 whom we wish to be instructed in the true religion." Perhaps this 
 explains the seeming absurdity of beginning a decree (issued in 1724) 
 regulating slavery with the command: "We enjoin the directors gen- 
 eral of said company, and all our officers, to remove from said country 
 [of Louisiana] all the Jews who may have taken up their abode 
 there — the departure of whom, as declared enemies of the Christian 
 name, we command within three months, including the day when 
 
 ■ presents are published, under pain of forfeiture of their bodies 
 and estates." With the exception of this first article and a part of 
 Article III., 5 the decree is devoted to slavery, and the treatment of 
 es and other negroes. In regard to these matters the decree is 
 quite as humane as we could expect. I fear that later slave codes 
 would suffer in comparison. To be sure, the slave who ran away for 
 the second time might be "hamstrung" and for the third offense 
 of the sort be put to death. "A slave who. having struck his master, 
 his mistress, or the husband of his mistress, or their children, shall 
 
 4. The official estimate [of the population of Louisiana] in 1721. was 5,420, of 
 whom six hundred were negroes. — Winsor, Vol. V., p. 49. 
 
 5. "We prohibit any other religious rites than those of the Apostolic Roman 
 Catholic church; requiring that those who violate this shall he punished as rehels 
 disobedient to our commands." In mournful accord with this is a remark of La 
 Harpe's. He has been speaking of the English ship found by Bienville in the 
 Mississippi, 1699, September 16th. "On board of this vessel," he says, "was M. 
 Secon, a French engineer, who gave secretly to M. Bienville a petition addressed to 
 the king, professing to his majesty that if he would grant religious liberty to 
 the colony, he would settle more than four hundred families on the Mississippi. 
 This petition was forwarded to the minister. M. de Ponchartrain, who replied that 
 the king would not suffer heretics to go from his kingdom for the purpose of forming 
 
 In contrast with this unhappy policy we notice the fact that non- 
 adherents of the church of England have been the very backbone and strength of the 
 Jiritish colonies. 
 
6 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 have produced a bruise, or the shedding of blood in the face, shall 
 suffer capital punishment." But slavery must needs he cruel. '"The 
 power of the master must be absolute to render the submission of 
 
 the slave perfect." 11 
 
 Whatever else, under the decree of 1724, might be done or left 
 undone, we may be sure that slavery would spread as widely as 
 seemed advantageous to the slaveholders. 7 For herein is ihe econom c 
 danger of slavery, as in the making and selling of intoxicants, .that 
 what is most hurtful to the community as a whole is immediately 
 profitable to individuals. Accordingly, we are not surprised to learn 
 that slavery was firmly established, under French authority, in the 
 Illinois country. In 1721, according to Winsor, perhaps, however, in 
 1726, Phillippe Francois Renault brought to Kaskaskia, or at leasl 
 to the region above the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi, 
 "some two hundred miners and live hundred slaves." In 1750 a 
 Jesuit missionary, probably Father Vivier, quoted by Chief Justice 
 Sidney Breese, found eleven hundred whites and three hundred blacks 
 in five Illinois villages. When, in October, 1705, the British, under 
 Thomas Stirling, afterward general and knight, came to the Illinois 
 country to take possession there according to the treaty of Paris, [763, 
 February 10th, the non-Indian population, estimated at five thousand. 
 included, perhaps, five hundred slaves. Whatever the number, it was 
 soon reduced by emigration into the Spanish country across the 
 Mississippi. Thus it was that St. Genevieve. Missouri's oldest town, 
 became a place of relative importance. And it was from St. Genevieve, 
 in later years, that there came part of the blot of slavery as we find 
 it on early pages of Wisconsin's history. 
 
 6. Decision of Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin of North Carolina, as quoted by 
 Mrs. Stowe in "Dred." Tiki well, it would seem, had North Carolina learned the 
 Lesson taught by the slave code of 1741. under which, according to report of cases 
 in a late number of the "Green Bag" two negroes were burned to death lor murder. 
 This shameless code of North Carolina also had its burlesque on religion: "Negro 
 slaves were not allowed to raise horses, cattle or hogs"; ami if any stock of this 
 kind was found in their possession six months after the passage of the act. such 
 animals "were to he seized by the sheriff of the county, and sold by tin- church 
 wardens of the parish. The profits arising from such sales went, one-half to the 
 parish, the other half to the informer." I quote from Williams's "History of the 
 Negro Race in America," Vol. I., page 304. See also appendix. 
 
 7. "By some their employment [that of negro slaves] was viewed with alarm 
 because it was thought the blacks would soon outnumber the whites, and might 
 some day rise and overpower them; hut we find only the feeblest protest entered 
 against the moral wrong of slavery in any record of the time."— 1 "rake's "Making d 
 the Great West." p. 127. 
 
 This statement does apply to the British colonies, at least to those of the 
 North. For at .a very early time the Quakers bore testimony against shivery, and 
 in 1700 the Puritan jurist. Samuel Sewell advocated the rights of negroes in his 
 "Sidling of Joseph," and expressed his opinion 'hat there would "he no progress in 
 gospelling" until slavery was abolished. 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 7 
 
 French emigration from the Illinois country continued until Kas- 
 kaskia, which once contained a population stated vaguely as being 
 two or three thousand, and which had been made in 1721 the seat of 
 a Jesuit college, became reduced to a hamlet of forty-five families. 
 To these trans-Mississippi emigrants it was no doubt a grief and 
 humiliation that their mother country had ceded her possessions on 
 
 vest bank of the great river to Spain. But of the alternatives, 
 they preferred the rule of his Catholic majesty to the sovereignty of 
 
 I Britain. Fortunately for Illinois, unfortunately for Missouri, 
 they took with them their slaves. For this migration, in its later 
 years, the Ordinance of 1787 was, no doubt, partly responsible. But 
 the beginning of it was not due to any interference of the British 
 with the system of negro slavery. Nor did the conquest by George 
 Rogers Clark of this mesopotamia of the Ohio and the Mississippi 
 make, in this respect, any difference. Indeed, there is no worse record 
 in American history than one that slavery then made not only pos- 
 sible but actual, and the man from whose note-book we have the 
 story is no other than the grandun< ary Todd 8 , the \ 1 
 
 who became the wife of Abraham Lincoln. By appointment (dated 
 at Williamsburg, 1778, December 12th) of Governor Patrick Henry 
 of Virginia, John : 
 Illinois." In his note-book is to be found the subjoined order: 
 
 "Illinois, to-wit: To Richard Win-ion, Esq., Sheriff in chief of 
 the District of Kaskaskia: 
 
 "Negro Manuel, a Slave in your custody, is condemned by the 
 Court of Kaskaskia, after having made honorable Fine at the Door 
 oi the Church to be chained to a post at the Water Side and there 
 to be burnt alive and his ashes scattered, as appears to me by the 
 Record. This sentence you are hereby required to put into execution 
 on tuesday next at 9 o'clock in the morning, and this shall be your 
 warrant. Given under my hand and seal at Kaskaskia, the 13th day 
 of June, in the third year of the commonwealth." 
 
 An unknown pen has drawn black lines in Colonel Todd's note- 
 book across the record as found above. From this circumstance 
 some have been inclined to believe, perhaps because they wished to 
 believe, that the sentence was never actually carried out. But in the 
 opinion of Edward G. Mason, Esq., of Chicago, who has carefully 
 studied this subject, "it is probable that the sentence was actually 
 executed." 
 
 "To make honorable Fine at the Door of the Church" is a 
 puzzling expression to most of us. Under date of 1894, February 12th, 
 Bishop S. J. Messmer, of Green Bay, wrote me: "I have asked 
 
 S. Child of Robert S., he of Levi, In-other of John. 
 
8 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 different gentlemen about it. They all agree that it is only a bad 
 literal translation of the French 'faire une amende honorable,' which 
 means to make proper amends for an injustice or wrong. As to the 
 custom mentioned in your reference, you will get an idea of it by 
 referring to Webster's Dictionary under the word amende." From 
 a quotation in the Century Dictionary we learn that it was "a most 
 ignominious punishment inflicted upon an extrcam offender, who 
 must go through the streets barefoot and bareheaded (with a burning 
 link in his hand) unto the seat of justice, or some such public place, 
 and there confess his offence, and ask forgiveness of the party he 
 hath wronged." 
 
 Bishop Messmer adds: "Why Webster should call it an 'in- 
 famous' punishment, I can not understand, except it be in the same 
 sense as the legal phrase poena infamis, a punishment for a crime 
 which renders the culprit legally infamous, i. e., deprives him of his 
 civil rights." 
 
 However, the punishment, as described above and by Webster, 
 would seem to be infamous enough. And thus, very possibly, it 
 was that the poor victim at Kaskaskia paid part of the penalty 
 of his imaginary offense little more than a hundred years ago. 
 
 "The third year of the commonwealth' - was. of course, the one 
 ending July 4th, 1779. On June 15th of that year another order was 
 given by Todd in regard to the execution of a sentence of death for 
 alleged witchcraft, this time in the case of "Moreau, a slave condemned 
 to execution," doubtless for the same offense: voudooism, or witch- 
 craft. To this unhappy victim was given the more merciful death of 
 hanging. Is he not the last, in any Christian nation of the world, 
 legally to suffer death for his imagined offense? 
 
 What makes this matter of special interest to us who dwell in 
 Wisconsin is the fact that what was then law in the Illinois country 
 was law here also. For all the region that subsequently became the 
 old Northwest Territory was annexed, 1774, by "14 Geo. III., cap 
 83" to the province of Quebec. By this enactment there was stifled 
 the feeling, if such existed, that might have led Canada to join the 
 colonies then about to revolt. For it restored to the clergy of the 
 dominant church "the Dues and Rights," as related to members of 
 their own communion, that they enjoyed when under the sovereignty 
 of the Bourbons. "Out of the rest of said accustomed Dues and 
 Rights" provision might be made for the "Encouragement of the 
 Protestant Religion, and for the .Maintenance and Support of a Prot- 
 estant Clergy," that is, of course, the church of England and clergy 
 belonging to it, with possibly a bone or two thrown, if expedient, 
 to trans-Atlantic ministers of the church of Scotland. 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 9 
 
 The clergy of at least two influential sects being thus appeased, 
 claimants of land under French grants, and of seigneurial (and per- 
 haps other) titles and privileges must also be placated. For among 
 them, as well as among the clergy, there had been uneasiness ever 
 since their country had passed under British sovereignty. The king's 
 proclamation, issued in the time of victory, and bearing date of 1763, 
 October 7th, made no special provision for them any more than for 
 the clergy. Now it was enacted "that all his Majesty's Canadian 
 Subjects within the Province of Quebec, the religious Orders and 
 Communities only excepted, may also hold and enjoy their Property 
 and Possessions, together with all Customs and Usages relative there- 
 to, and all other their Civil Rights, in as large, ample, and beneficial 
 Manner, as if the said Proclamation * had not been made, and 
 
 as may consist with their Allegiance to his Majesty, and subjection 
 to the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain; and that in all Matters 
 of Controversy, relative to Property and Civil Rights, Resort shall 
 be had to the Laws of Canada, as the Rule for the Decision of the 
 same." 
 
 Among these "possessions" were, as we have seen, negro slaves. 
 We find evidence that there had been one of these at Green Bay years 
 before this country had ceased to be part of New France. Whenever 
 it was that De Veile [Neyon De Villiers?], the French commandant 
 at La Baye, murdered in his drunkenness and rage three Sauk chiefs.' 
 he had with him a negro servant, presumably a slave. This must 
 have been before 1746. Upon the surrender of Canada to the British, 
 Marquis de Vaudreuil, the French governor, wrote to Charles de 
 Langlade, of La Baye, 1760, September 9th, that by the articles of 
 capitulation the people of the Northwestern settlements "may keep 
 their negro and Pawnee slaves," except, adds Dr. Draper, from whom 
 I copy this note, "such slaves as they may have captured from the 
 British." It does not need this last reference to remind us that negro 
 slavery was tolerated and encouraged in the colonies of Britain as well 
 as in those of France. 
 
 We are now prepared to continue our study of the legal and so- 
 cial condition of this Ohio-Mississippi-and-Great-Lake region after 
 its conquest by George Rogers Clark. As to population, it was In- 
 dian, half-breed, French and negro. It was a conquered portion of 
 
 9. "The Western Indians were slaveholders. They followed the ancient and hon- 
 orable custom of selling captives taken in war into slavery, often as the alter- 
 native of putting them to death; and among their best customers, from the early 
 days of French colonization, were the white men, who often bought, it must be 
 added, as acts of humanity. So many of these red slaves belonged to a single tribe 
 that Pawnee, or "Pani" as the French wrote it, came to be the common word for 
 slave irrespective of race, thus repeating the history of the word "Slav" itself." — 
 Hinsdale's "The Old Northwest," p. 34s. 
 
10 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 the province of Quebec. The conquest had been made by soldiers, 
 and under the authority, of Virginia. The Revolutionary war was not 
 at an end. Prudence demanded of the conquerors that they make 
 as few changes as possible. They had reason, moreover, to be grate- 
 ful, for, in some cases, they found a people ready for voluntary transfer 
 of allegiance from his Britannic majesty to the nascent republic of the 
 United States. "The Kaskaskians," says Moses M. Strong, "assisted 
 in securing the submission of their neighbors at Kahokia." M. 
 Gibault, priest at Kaskaskia, voluntarily undertook the task of per- 
 suading the inhabitants of Vincennes to take the oath of allegiance 
 to Virginia. In this he was successful. To permit to such a people 
 as large a measure as possible of local self-government was certainly 
 policy. 
 
 But now the question arises. Under what authority did the Kas- 
 kaskia court suppose itself to be acting when it sentenced the "Xegro 
 Manuel" to be burned to death? Whatever we may think of the 
 Quebec act, — from which I have quoted by its number and by the 
 year of the reign in which it was passed; an act which our Revolu- 
 tionary forefathers disliked so much that it is specifically referred to 
 in the Declaration of Independence as one of the causes justifying 
 separation from the mother country. — whatever, I say, we may think 
 of said act, it did not revive or restore French criminal law. On the 
 contrary, it expressly provided that "the Criminal Law of England * 
 * * shall continue to be administered and to be observed as Law 
 in the Province of Quebec * * to the Exclusion of every other 
 Rule of Criminal Law." And though statutes against witchcraft as 
 such, and not as a mere means of fraud or of imposition upon the 
 ignorant, continued in force in Ireland until 1821. yet the last of such 
 laws had been repealed in England in 1736. Moreover, the law in 
 France against witchcraft, though it kept its place in legal works 
 until the middle of the eighteenth century, must, by that time, or 
 before it, have been practically annulled; that is. before the enforced 
 separation of Louisiana and Canada from the mother country. Yet 
 it is probable that under the old law against sorcery, then inoperative 
 in France itself, there was had the legal conviction of the slaves 
 Manuel and Moreau. Otherwise the law must have been purely local; 
 one framed, perhaps, for the occasion. Then the question arises, 
 What legislative body was there competent to make such an enact- 
 ment? But, to an alarmed community, fear sometimes takes the place 
 of law. Yet if this was madness there was method in it. 
 
 Whatever we may think of Todd's responsibility in connection 
 with this matter, it would be unjust to him not to remember that lie 
 was an emancipationist, as is shown by a bill that he introduced into 
 the \ irginia legislature. This native of Pennsylvania allied himself, 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 11 
 
 it would seem, in his adopted state, not with that class of men who 
 would have thought it no particular concern of theirs if Frenchmen 
 of Kaskaskia wanted to burn or hang a few of their niggers, but 
 with the opponents of slavery; men like Washington, George Mason 
 and Edward Coles. This last is a name to which, in connection with 
 our subject, we should give especial honor. For he it was who, 
 having made Illinois his home, led to victory the men who preserved 
 and made effective there the prohibition of slavery instituted by the 
 great Ordinance of 1787. With sorrow and shame, in these better 
 days, we learn that Governor Coles, for this great good he wrought 
 for Illinois, was fairly driven from the state. Two Virginias there 
 were in I 3, each of which had, in this vast interior, a potent 
 
 influence. One we honor as the mother "of Presidents, the other 
 was willing to become, and did become, the mother of slaves. 
 
 While this Wisconsin region was in that chaotic state when by 
 treaty it was in possession of the Americans, by trade in that of the 
 British, and by actual occupancy in that of French Canadians and 
 Indians, there was at least one case of negro slavery at Green Bay. 
 Augustus Grignon thus tells the story: 
 
 "It has already been related that Captain De Veile, who was 
 early killed by the Sauks at Green Bay. had a negro servant who, 
 I presume, was a slave. I know of but one other African slave at 
 Green Bay. and lie was a mere lad, not over half a dozen years of age, 
 when purchased by Baptiste Brunet of one Masshasho, a St. Louis 
 Indian trader, giving one hundred dollars for him. The boy was 
 probably at times very provoking, but Mr. Brunet was inexcusably 
 severe in punishing him; he had a staple overhead in his house, to 
 which he would tie the boy's hands and then whip him without mercy. 
 Thus things went on for about eight years, till about 1807, when Mr. 
 Campbell. 1 " who had been a trader among the Sioux, was appointed 
 the first American Indian agent at Prairie du Chien, and who in some 
 way heard of Brunet's cruelty, came and took the negro away. What 
 was further done with him I do not know." 
 
 But far more important, even to our narrative anent Wisconsin, 
 "than the holding, during this period, of a single slave at Green Bay, 
 was the passage of the famous Ordinance of 1787. Back of this 
 great measure was a great movement and a great man. The move- 
 ment was the transplanting of a part of Massachusetts — for it is men 
 that constitute a state — to what was soon to be Ohio. The man was 
 Manasseh Cutler, nomen venerabile et clarum. Few names in history 
 are as great as this, and none more spotless. It is the mark of a 
 
 10. Probably tbis was Colin Campbell who did service as interpreter, in 1820, 
 tor Agent Taliaferro at Fort Snelling. See "Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota." 
 
12 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 comprehensive mind to possess varied abilities; Manasseh Cutler was 
 man of business, lawyer, clergyman and physician. In this last capac- 
 ity and as chaplain he served in the Revolutionary army. Akin 10 
 the spirit that made him a soldier was the impulse that sent him. 
 in 1784, to the White mountains where, as one of the first party oi 
 non-Indian explorers, he ascended Mount Washington. He was 
 mathematician enough to make astronomical calculations that, at the 
 time they were made, had not been surpassed in America. In botany, 
 he was the second writer that this country produced, and the G 
 to attempt a scientific description of the plants of New England. 
 He was the author of "Meteorological Observations, 1781, '82, '83." 
 In reasonable probability he was one of the first to appreciate the 
 possibilities of the steamboat, even in its crude form as invented 
 by John Fitch twenty-one years before Fulton's Clermont made her 
 famous first trip up the Hudson. McMaster tells of Dr. Cutler's part 
 in the making of a true screw-propeller. That was at Marietta, the 
 Plymouth of this newer New England that is the Old Northwest. 
 
 This is the region whose adherence to the East and North made 
 impossible the fulfilment of the plan so often suggested before 1861 of 
 a Southern and Western confederacy. The affiliation of this section 
 with the North was because both were anti-slavery, and this, in great 
 part, was brought about by the Ordinance of 1787. With this pro- 
 posed measure the last Congress of the Confederation — a different in- 
 stitution from the Continental Congress — had been wrestling; and the 
 proposal to forbid slavery — brought forward by Nathan Dane at the 
 second reading of the Ordinance — seemed doomed to defeat. Then 
 it was that Manasseh Cutler did a service that entitles him to rank 
 with the greatest of statemen. As agent of the Ohio company and so 
 a possible purchaser of land that Congress desired to sell, and as 
 one of the founders of a proposed settlement that the whole country 
 needed for its enlargement, unity- and defense, he was in a position to 
 insist, and did insist, on the proposed amendment. Doubtless the 
 whole Ordinance passed under his attentive eyes, and almost cer- 
 tainly received from his pen changes that contributed to the 
 high rank it has taken among the state papers of the world. His, 
 probably, is the noble declaration: "Religion, morality and knowl- 
 edge being necessary to the good government and happiness of man- 
 kind, schools and the means of education shall forever be en- 
 couraged." Without a gift of land for the support of a university in 
 Ohio he would not buy land there for the colony that he and his 
 associates proposed to found. He drew up a plan for the establish- 
 ment and government of such a university, and thus became the father 
 of an important part of the educational system of these northern 
 states of the Interior. 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 13 
 
 "Copied in succeeding acts for the organization of Territories," 
 says Alexander Johnson, "and still controlling the spirit of such acts, 
 the Ordinance of 1787 is the foundation of almost everything which 
 makes the American system peculiar." This Ordinance abolished 
 primogeniture and entail. It secured equal rights of inheritance. It 
 made possible the Emancipation Proclamation and, in 1865, what is 
 substantially its sixth article appears as the thirteenth amendment to 
 the constitution of the United States. In it was in embryo the con- 
 stitution of Wisconsin, and the anti-slavery clause thereof is a trans- 
 cript of that found in the ordinance. Thus it is that Manasseh Cutler 
 stands eminently and honorably related to the history of Wisconsin, 
 and especially to the subject of this narrative. 
 
 We must not make the mistake of thinking that the choice of 
 position for this New England and anti-slavery colony was a matter 
 of small importance. It was not on Lake Erie, but on the Ohio, 
 where it confronted slave soil and made it certain that one of the 
 banks of the "beautiful river" should be free. I do not know that 
 Dr. Cutler had anything to do with the choice of position, though it 
 is probable that he had. He must have known of the danger, then felt 
 by Washington and others to be real and great, that the existing 
 trans-Alleghany settlements might attempt to found a republic of their 
 own. There were existent the conditions that, at a later time, made 
 Burr's movement so dangerous. 11 Marietta became a strong link in 
 the chain that bound the new states of the Interior to those of the 
 Atlantic Coast. It may be that this region of the Ohio and the Great 
 Lakes has been twice saved to our national Union, and it has cer- 
 tainly helped to make that Union worth saving. 
 
 So great was Dr. Cutler's part in founding the new commonwealth 
 of Ohio that "The Nation" has said: "Manasseh Cutler is entitled to 
 rank with Bradford, Winthrop, Penn, Calvert and Oglethorpe as the 
 founder of a state." 12 
 
 And yet this Calvinistic clergyman of the eighteenth century was 
 free from the common clerical fault of trying to extend special privi- 
 leges to churches of his own communion. Coming from a state 
 where Congregationalism was the "standing order," that is. a quasi 
 establishment, he preached in the new colony in favor of the separa- 
 tion of church and state. He recognized frankly the defects as well 
 
 11. It brings this movement of Burr's somewhat closet to the thought of dwell- 
 ers in Wisconsin to know that, for being suspected of complicity in it, Henry Dodge, 
 our first Territorial governor, was indicted for treason. Of this offense he was 
 innocent. But he would probably have been perfectly willing to acknowledge, out 
 of court, a readiness to join a filibustering party against the Spaniards who then 
 ruled Mexico. 
 
 12. Yet it is noteworthy that, as member of the House of Representatives, he 
 voted against the admission of the state that he helped to found. 
 
14 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 as the excellencies of the older Puritanism. And there are those 
 will think it not the least of his claims to honorable remembrance 
 that though he served in the Massachusetts legislature, was twici 
 elected to Congress, and was offered a judge's commission by Wash- 
 ington, yet he continued faithful to the duty of Christian bishop, 
 serving in that capacity, for fifty-two years, the humble parish which 
 first called him to that high office. 
 
 To preserve intact the work of Manasseh Cutler, as wrought into 
 the great Ordinance, there was here in Wisconsin no struggle, as in 
 Ohio. Indiana and Illinois. And yet the element that strove there 
 for the legal right to bring upon those great states the shame and 
 hurt of negro slavery was represented here also. It can not be made 
 too clear that Wisconsin was settled by two currents of emigration, 
 different in origin, in route hither and in place of settlement. The 
 later, and, ultimately, the larger of the two has small but most honor- 
 able place in our narrative. 13 It came from New England, New York 
 and northern Ohio, and, so far as I know, brought with it not one 
 slave. Thus were formed the early American settlements in eastern 
 Wisconsin, or, as it was at first, Michigan-west-of-the-lake. 
 
 In the southwestern part of what has become Wisconsin, matters 
 were different. Here is our part of the lead region, united by the 
 Mississippi to Missouri and the South. From these sources, and by 
 this route, came the first of the two great currents of Wisconsin-ward 
 migration. With it were brought some slaves. There are those who 
 will remember that, at an early day, perhaps 1822, James Johnson 
 brought to the lead region from Kentucky a number of negro slaves. 
 We do not know that any of these ever set foot upon any part of 
 what is now Wisconsin, though the places where they worked are 
 almost on our southern boundary line. We may here allude to the 
 statement of Governor John Reynolds — in partial accord with one on 
 the same subject already quoted from Winsor — that "the first im- 
 portation of slaves was one of five hundred made from San Domingo 
 in 1726, by Philip Renault to work the mines." If those of the 
 "Mine river" 14 were in Renault's plan, I know of not the least 
 
 IS. The writer ventures to put here the hist paragraph of his first paper <m 
 the subject of this monograph (Proceedings of the Wisconsin State Historical 
 Society, 1892): 
 
 "The second of the two great streams of immigration hither came by way of the 
 two Great Lakes, and for the most part from New England and New York. It was 
 distinctly anti-slavery in sentiment. Among the men who formed part of tins move- 
 ment were many who in later years resisted manfully the abominable fugitive slave 
 law. But against human slavery itself, and its more immediate effects, the aboli- 
 tionists who came hither from the South, made, here and elsewhere, an earlier 
 tight, and against greater odds won victory." 
 
 14. The name given by Le Sueur to what we call the Fevre or Galena river. 
 To this stream he came, apparently on the 25th of August, 1700. According to 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 15 
 
 evidence that any of the five hundred negroes were ever brought 
 thither. And certainly, as we have already learned, this importation 
 of slaves was not the first unless Reynolds has reference merely to 
 the Illinois country. So we dismiss this matter, close the page of a 
 hundred and seventy years gone by, and seek information from those 
 whom the lathers of Wisconsin knew as contemporaries. Some of 
 them yet abide with us. 
 
 Few in number and venerable in years are the men whose living 
 lips can tell from personal knowledge any part of the story of negro 
 slavery in Wisconsin. How many there are I do not know; with 
 three I have conversed on this subject: John Meyers, of Platteville; 
 ex-Judge Joseph Trotter Mills, for many years a resident of Lan- 
 caster, now ol Manitowoc; and George Wallace Jones, of Dubuque. 
 Iowa. With two others now numbered with the dead I have had 
 personal communication: with Jeremiah Porter, D. D., of Beloit, by 
 word of mouth; and by correspondence with Rev. Isaac Erving 
 Heaton, whose firsl Western home was at (old) Belmont, in the Ter- 
 ritory of Wisconsin. It was Mr. Heaton, if I remember rightly, 
 whose statements led me to make investigation until I found that 
 slaves had been held within sight of the little red farm-house that 
 was my boyhood home. He who once owned them I have already 
 named: George Wallace Jones. The place where they were held 
 was Sinsinawa Mound, whose crest of Niagara limestone, like the 
 summits of the 1 Matte .Mounds and the Blue, testify to the unmeasured 
 age of "this old, old land that men call new," and tell on pages of 
 rock the story of the denudation of the region around them. 
 
 These "mounds" — for one who was brought up in sight of them 
 can not be expected to violate fixed local usage out of deference to 
 the Century dictionary or Webster's International — naturally attracted 
 the attention of the first settlers, as they had that of the explorers 
 of this region. Sinsinawa Mound is part of the preemption claim 
 that was the first to be proved in the .Mineral Point land-office when 
 it was opened, 1836, August 1st. If it be asked, How could this entry 
 of ore-bearing land have been made at that time? there are three 
 possible answers. General Jones thinks that the act reserving such 
 lands had not been passed when he made his claim. Or the land may 
 have been regarded as agricultural, not ore-bearing. The third pos- 
 sibility is that the registrar of the land-office may have been quite 
 willing to make friends of the settlers by neglecting to make proper 
 inquiries in the interest of the government. 
 
 Benard de La Harpe (French's Historical Collections of Louisiana, part III., p. 23) 
 he reported that on the right of this stream, "seven leagues inland, is a lead 
 mine." That distance would have brought him into Wisconsin. But probably the 
 mine that he heard of was nearer the Mississippi. "On the 1st of September, he 
 passed the Onisconsin river, which is about half a league wide at its mouth.'' 
 
16 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 A severe illness in the spring of 1827 brought General 1 
 under advice of Doctor, afterwards United States Senator. Lewis 
 Fields Linn from St. Genevieve, Missouri, to what is now Wisconsin. 
 Here from 1828 until 1844 he made his legal residence at Sinsinawa 
 Movnd. Thither it was, as I have said, that he brought slaves, "a 
 dozen or fifteen," according to his own recollection. Ten is the 
 number of his "family" as reported in the Territorial census of i8j6. 
 Others reported slaves that year; he did not. Yet some of the ten, 
 it is almost certain, were negroes who had not then asserted their 
 legal right to freedom. This was done by one of Jones's quasi slaves 
 in 1838. Some account of the case I have had from the old gen- 
 tleman himself, Judge Mills remembers it and. in the "History of 
 Grant County," the story is told by Free Williams. 1 -" foreman of the 
 jury, who was unfortunate enough to find himself compelled to serve 
 with eleven ignorant and obstinate associates. General Jones gave 
 me the names of the attorneys: Thomas P. Burnett and James Wilson 
 for the negro; Frank Dunn and Charles Hempstead for himself. My 
 notes, imperfectly made, lead me to think that with Dunn and 
 Hempstead — the latter of Galena — was associated a third lawyer, W. 
 H. Banks of Mineral Point. According to General Jones's recollec- 
 tion, the judge charged the jury that the negro's legal status was 
 determined by the statute of the state whence he had been brought, 
 and that, consequently, he could not be party to a suit. But such a 
 ruling does not seem to be consistent with the fact that the case 
 was given to a jury. Whatever the charge the foreman says nothing 
 about it. I transcribe part of his narrative: 
 
 "Harvey Pepper was sheriff; Judge Dunn was on the bench; 
 I was foreman of the jury; old yellow-black Paul was plaintiff; and 
 Colonel Jones, who went to Congress and perched himself on top of 
 Sinsinawa Mound — he was the defendant. Jones owned Paul down 
 in Kentucky [Missouri], and when Paul got on the M01 
 reled with his master and became obstreperous, and Jones drove him 
 off. He then went through the country fiddling at what they called 
 'stag dances.' Females then were very scarce * * * so the boys 
 would dance alone on the sod floor, and Paul would fiddle for his 
 whisky, and when he ran too far out of knees and elbows he would 
 go back to Jones and saw wood, and Jones would supply him with 
 old clothes. After some years Paul concluded, as courts and lawyers 
 
 15. "Who does not know Free?" asks J. W Seaton in bis story of "M. de 
 Tantabaratz and the Deserted Village" (History of Grant County). Mr. 
 writing in or about 1880, calls Williams "a living archaeological monument of the 
 mines standing in Ellenboro." Said "monument" needs no other, and probably de- 
 serves no better, inscription than one that could be easily composed out of his own 
 narrative, as given above. 
 
NEGRO SLA 1 'E R Y IN WISCONSIN. 1 7 
 
 had made their appearance, he would sue his old master for wages, 
 and have a final settlement in this free country. We heard the evi- 
 dence. The yellow darkey hadn't a bit of proof in support of his 
 claim, but eleven of the jurors went in steep for the plaintiff, con- 
 tending if Paul recovered wages it would make him a free man. I 
 asserted that he was free any way, wages or no wages ; that we were 
 bound to go according to law. 
 
 "We should have hung there until this time, probably, but for a 
 couple of huge, gray, timber wolves, that old 'Wolf-catcher Graham' 
 had brought into the town plat, securely caged in his wagon. Every- 
 body then attended court, and everybody brought his dogs. The old 
 wolf-catcher set up a loud cry, saying he would let out a wolf against 
 all the dogs in creation, if the people who desired the sport woul 
 him $20 each for his wolves, and allow him the scalps. The money 
 was raised quicker than you could count it. We would have almost 
 paid the national debt to see a wolf-fight. The first wolf — and he was 
 an old settler I tell you — was let loose in the yard, right under our 
 window. We ran to it and climbed on each others' shoulders. Such 
 snapping, barking, growling and bristling you never heard or saw. 
 * * * The revolving mass turned round the corner where we 
 couldn't see them, and then my eleven associates cried: 'For heaven's 
 sake, Free, do agree, so we can get out of this cursed hole and see 
 the fun.' 'Boys,' said I, T have been raised with wolves. I won't 
 budge an inch for any arguments that dogs and wolves can furnish.' 
 'Well, Free, just say that Jones shall pay a dollar, and we will come 
 down to that.' 'Never a cent.' We heard the uproarious laughter and 
 shouts of the outside world. It was too much for the boys. The 
 friends of poor yellow Paul yielded, and cried out 'We agree; write 
 out the verdict, Free.' 'I wrote out the verdict for the defendant; but 
 lo! we were in a worse condition than ever. The judge, sheriff and 
 all hands had gone to the entertainment. No time was to be lost. 
 A chair was picked up, a window smashed, and as Judge Dunn heard 
 the glass come jingling to the ground he screamed: "Pepper! Pepper! 
 let those men out; they will tear down the court house!' These words 
 sounded like the trump of jubilee. We handed our verdict to the 
 sheriff, and rushed down stairs like a flock of frightened sheep when 
 the dogs are after them." 
 
 Somewhat more, probably, than a mere question of wages under- 
 lay this case. It was very likely a movement on some one's nart to 
 secure practical recognition of the legal fact that in Wisconsin there 
 was no such relation as that of master and slave. The status as free- 
 men of his former slaves was fully recognized by General Jones about 
 1842, according to his own recollection. What practically took place 
 then was very likely but the breaking-up of an establishment that, 
 
18 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 for the most part, had been held together by the bonds of kindliness 
 and mutual good will. 
 
 From Sinsinawa mound, which is only a mile from Illinois and 
 on the dividing line between the towns of Hazel Green and James 
 town, we go northward to Platteville and vicinity. And now we will 
 let Father Heaton tell his story: 1 " 
 
 "My birth was in Franklin, Massachusetts, October 6, 1808. The 
 Rev Dr. Emmons was my early pastor. We came to Wisconsin in 
 May, 1837. Rev. Mr. Kent at Galena advised me to engage partly in 
 teaching as that would be appreciated. 
 
 "We spent the first summer at Elk Grove, six miles south from 
 (old) Belmont. Two ladies, residing three or four miles distant, in 
 nearly opposite directions, were members of the Methodist church 
 in Platteville. A Mr. Mitchell from Virginia was their minis'.er. He 
 was a man of popular address, but he brought two slave girls with 
 him, and kept them some years, in defiance of the law. When this 
 appeared unsafe, he sent them back to slavery." 
 
 Mr- Heaton has here made a slight mistake. James Mitch 11, 
 who brought the slaves, did not come to Wisconsin until 184.2. Nine 
 years before, his brother John T. had been appointed by the Rock 
 river conference of the Methodist Episcopal church to service at 
 Galena and vicinity. While thus engaged he organized the Methodist 
 church of Platteville. To this place came in [836 his father, Rev. 
 Samuel Mitchell, a local preacher. He was the Mitchell, almost cer- 
 tainly, who was preaching at Platteville in 1837— though probably 
 merely as helper to the '•circuit rider," Rev. John Crummer, then sta- 
 tioned there. Samuel Mitchell has, in connection with, slavery, as in 
 other matters, a most honorable history, which came to me as nar- 
 rated by himself to the late Rev. Philo Sage Bennett of Appleton: 
 
 He was sitting one day under a tree, watching his negroes at 
 work, when he happened to think of the Golden Rule. It did not 
 need any difficult reasoning to reach the conclusion that he would not 
 like to be working without wages for a man who himself was doing 
 nothing. Then followed the question, put to himself: But why be so 
 particular about one part of the law of God without obeying in all 
 things? Thus he became, in the evangelical sense of the term, a 
 Christian. "He then emancipated his slaves, and after a while moved 
 to Southern Illinois, taking with him those who were disposed to go. 
 and provided for them homes as far as he could. Thus he showed 
 the thoroughness of his conversion." 17 
 
 In a second letter 1 s Father Heaton thus continued his narrative: 
 
 10. In .-i letter dated a1 Fremont, Nebraska, 1890, March 5th. 
 IT. Bennett's "History of Methodism in Wisconsin," page •"-. 
 18. Dated 1890, March 20th. 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN 1VISC0XSIW 19 
 
 "The report of slaves held in Wisconsin is sorrowfully more ex- 
 tensive. I would almost say 'Tell it not in Gath.' As nearly fifty 
 years have passed since I left the Lead Mining Region, I can trust 
 only to memory. More than twenty years ago, while we were ab- 
 sent from home, our house was burned, with all my books and papers. 
 
 "I think Mr. Mitchell's first name was James. His sister was the 
 wife of Mr. Rountree in Platteville. Each of these men brought two 
 slaves with him. I have seen them all. In June, 1838. a census wa- 
 taken preliminary to the separation of Wisconsin and Iowa. One of 
 these men, I think Mr. Rountree, reported his slaves as slaves. I 
 recollect seeing the returns of the census as so printed. As no law 
 authorized holding slaves in Wisconsin, it is possible that no such 
 official record can now be found. The essential facts which I men- 
 tion may doubtless be verified by inquiries at Platteville and vicinity. 
 
 "1 have these evidences that Mr. Mitchell sent his s'aves back: 
 
 "First. This was confidently reported. But I think it occurred 
 after I left that region, probably about 1842. 
 
 "Second. I presume it was never disputed. Certainly I never 
 heard of any such pretense. 
 
 "Third. The slave dealer to whom Mitchell consigned these 
 slave girls at Si. Louis did not forward them to their destination. 
 An anti-slavery paper was published I think at Prairieville (Wauke- 
 sha). Wisconsin. I can not now recall the name of either the paper or 
 the editor. You can ascertain these. The legal owner of these slaves 
 (I think in Virginia) inserted in a paper (printed I think at St. Louis) 
 an article at some length, explaining the case, and complaining of 
 the fraud. The editor of this anti-slavery paper found this article 
 among his exchanges, and inserted it in his own paper. I read it 
 there. Trusting to memory it included all the essential facts of the 
 
 "Two other men near Elk Grove kept slaves. One kept a man 
 and woman, I think also he kept a third, but my recollection of lite 
 third is indistinct. The other man kept one slave girl. Soon after 
 I left that region it was reported, and I doubt not correctly, that about 
 1842 they made a visit to Missouri, taking this slave girl with them. 
 They sold her there. 
 
 "Still another man residing some twelve miles westerly, or north- 
 westerly from Belmont kept two or three slaves. I have seen them 
 all: nine, or ten, or perhaps eleven in number. Both these men at 
 Elk Grove sent their children to my school. - ' 
 
 There can be no doubt whatever as to the sending back of the 
 Mitchell slave girls into legal bondage. In regard to the other case 
 of like sort mentioned by Father Heaton we are not likely to know 
 anything more than the statement he has given us. Judging from all 
 
20 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 that I have heard of his character, we could scarcely find a more con- 
 scientious and careful witness. Moreover, I found that Mr. John 
 Meyers of Platteville had, when I saw him, vivid remembrano oi 
 some of the same facts. He remembered the slave woman — Aunt 
 Rachel he called her — at Major Rountree's. His father, while visiting 
 or calling at Mitchell's saw one of the slave girls there. Mr. Meyers 
 spoke of the storm of indignation roused by Mitchell's act. and of 
 efforts to recover the girls and bring them again to free soil. ITe 
 mentioned Robert Chapman as especially active in putting forth effort 
 to get the girls back. Certain matters I would mention doubtfully 
 owing to imperfection in my notes. These concern what seems to be 
 a case of kidnapping. James Moore was sent in pursuit of the girls. 
 He was accompanied, apparently, by a negro blacksmith named Buck- 
 ner. Once on slave soil. Moore took advantage of his opportunity 
 and sold his colored but free companion. These statements I put 
 forth not as affirmations. But I believe Meyers to be a truthful and 
 competent witness. Blind but not gloomy, a member for more than 
 fifty years of the Congregational church of Platteville :med, 
 
 when I saw him, to be but patiently waiting the great change that is 
 appointed unto all. He had the contract, so he told me, for putting 
 up the original academy building at Platteville, a structure i sed atsa 
 as a house of worship by the church of which he was a member. 
 
 Y\ lien Mr. Mitchell's offense was committed he was 
 ber of the Rock River conference of his branch, or order, of the 
 Christian church. As is well known, there was sharp contention for 
 many years in the Methodist Episcopal church on questions that g>-e\v 
 out of slavery. Many a Paul withstood to the face an erring Peter, 
 "because he was to be blamed." And the great moral victory won 
 by anti-slavery men within the ecclesiastical domain of Methodism 
 preceded the triumph for which our Union soldiers fought on fields 
 of battle. By whose accusation Mr. Mitchell was brought to trial, I 
 do not know. Moreover, "the testimony in the case does not appear 
 in the record," writes Rev. J. W. Richards, of De Kalb, Illinois, 
 the present secretary of Rock River conference. 19 By his favor, and 
 the kindness of Rev. T. W. North of Menasha, I am able to present 
 the subjoined transcript of the outline of the trial and the findings of 
 the conference: 
 
 "Charges preferred against Rev. James Mitchell, a member of 
 Rock River Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 at the session held at Canton, Illinois, August 2— n, 1848. 
 
 "CHARGE: — Unchristian, Immoral, and Inhuman Conduct. 
 
 "First Specification: — In bringing two colored girls from a slave 
 
 19. Under date of 1S06, April 25th. 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 21 
 
 state into tree territory in the character of slaves, and retaining them 
 as such while in such free territory. 
 
 "Second Specification: — In sending two colored girls, who were 
 free, from free territory back into a slave state, and receiving and 
 using the fruits of their labor. 
 
 •"Third Specification: — In sending from free territory two colored 
 girls who were free into a slave state as slaves, and leaving them there 
 to be treated as such. 
 
 "Fourth Specification: — In sending from free territory two col- 
 ored girls into a slave state and leaving them there to be treated as 
 slaves, and neglecting to care for them, and permitting them to be 
 reduced again to slavery, or treated as slaves. 
 
 "Fifth Specification: — In causing two colored girls to be re- 
 duced to a state of involuntary servitude. 
 
 "Sixth Specification:— In causing two colored girls to be sent 
 from where they were free into a state of involuntary servitude, and 
 receiving the fruits of their labor, and in declaring, in the spring of 
 1846, that he would do the same thing under the same circumstances 
 again." 
 
 "The record then goes on to say that testimony taken before a 
 committee was read, and papers, marked G, H, K, L. M, N No. 1, 
 N Xo. 2. B, C, &c. &c, showing quite voluminous testimony, but 
 none of it given, were presented. 
 
 "The reading of this testimony and the settling of law questions 
 seem to have occupied the time of the Conference for about four 
 days. 
 
 "The record proceeds as follows: The pleadings were closed and, 
 on motion, the Conference resolved to sit with closed doors while 
 making up the decision. Resolved, That probationers be allowed to 
 remain in the house. A motion to take the votes by yeas and nays 
 was lost. 
 
 "The first specification was read. Resolved, That the first speci- 
 fication be divided, stopping with the first branch at the word slaves. 
 First branch of the first specification sustained. Second branch, not 
 sustained. 
 
 "Second specification read. Resolved to divide the second speci- 
 fication, the first branch stopping at the word states. The following 
 was adopted: Resolved, That the first branch of the second specifi- 
 cation is sustained so far as it applies to one of the girls. Vote, 
 thirty-one to twenty-five. 
 
 "Second branch of the second specification, not sustained. 
 
 "Third specification. Resolved, That the third specification is 
 sustained so far as it applies to one of the girls. On counting, the 
 vote stood twenty-seven to twenty-five. 
 
22 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 "Fourth specification. The same resolution was offered and lost 
 by s vote of twenty-six to twenty-eight. Specification not sustained 
 
 "Fifth specification. Same resolution lost. Not su t; 
 
 "Sixth specification was divided into three branches none of 
 which were sustained. Therefore the sixth specification is nol 
 tained. 
 
 "The following- question was then put to the chaii : When a mem- 
 ber of Conference is charged with a crime and the specifications sus- 
 tained under that charge do not sustain the charge, may the Confer- 
 ence find the accused guilty of such other and less moral obliquity 
 as may he proven by the specifications thus sustained? Answer in 
 the affirmath e. 
 
 On motion, the main charge, which i- lows, was divided. 
 
 "CHARGE: Unchristian, immoral and inhuman conduct. 
 
 "First branch. Unchristian conduct, was sustained. 
 
 "Second branch, Immoral conduct, not sustained. 
 
 "Third branch, Inhuman conduct, not sustained. 
 
 "A motion to suspend James Mitchell for one year was offered 
 ami h >st. 
 
 "On motion, the vote by which James Mitchell was found guilty 
 of unchristian conduct was reconsidered. The vote on the charge of 
 unchristian conduct was then taken and the charge sustained, twenty- 
 eight voting in the affirmative and twenty-four in the negative. Con- 
 ference then resolved that Bro. Mitchell lie left without an 
 ment for one year. Bro. Mitchell notified the Conference that ai a 
 proper time he would communicate his wishes in the case, and that he 
 intended taking an appeal to the General Conference. 
 
 "Later on in the journal this entry appears: 
 
 "Bro. .Mitchell made a statement in relation to his case, and the 
 Conference reconsidered the resolution by which the penalty was fixed 
 in his case. The original motion to leave without an appointment 
 was withdrawn and, on motion, the character of Bro. Mitchell pa 
 
 "Bro. Mitchell notified the Conference that for the present he 
 would withdraw his notice of an intention to appeal." 
 
 No doubt the victory of the anti-slavery men was more decided 
 than would appear from the record. Brother Mitchell's usefulness in 
 \\ Isconsin was at an end. Indeed he seems to have been transferred 
 from the Territory in 1844, and never again did he have here a pas- 
 toral appointment. Mr. Bennett's History takes final leave of him 
 with the following comment: He "occupied a conspicuous position, 
 and was evidently a man of much ability; but he was quite as distin- 
 guished for promoting party strife as for his usefulness." 
 
 The old Arab chiel who always asked when a case was brought 
 before him. "Where is the woman?" would have been gratified at the 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 23 
 
 answer in this instance. For. if Mr. Bennett was rightly informed, 
 the slave girls were the property of Mrs. Mitchell and not of her 
 husband. 
 
 Xext in order, in our narrative, conies Mineral Point. To Flor- 
 ence Elizabeth Baker, of the Historical Library, Madison, we owe 
 the following narrative: 
 
 Colonel (?) McKim 20 brought with him from Baltimore. Mary- 
 land, two bouse servants, slaves, known as 'Aunt Dinah' and 'George 
 
 ECim. They were on a farm south of Mineral Point, Wisconsin, in 
 and had been there for two years before that, perhaps. Neither 
 my father nor uncle can say that they were ever formally emancipated. 
 They never heard of it if such is the case, but when Colonel McKim 
 went to New York state to engage in business, a few years later, he 
 left them both. Aunt Dinah went to live with Mrs. Phil Thomas, nee 
 Fanny Brewer, a Southern girl, and stayed there for some time. Mrs. 
 Thomas died about two years after her marriage, and her husband a 
 few years later. Just when Aunt Dinah returned to the "McKim 
 farm" no one here knows, hut the last trace of her seems to end at 
 that time. Her son died not many years ago. somewhere near Mineral 
 Point. He used to be fiddler for the dancing parties between 1848 
 and 1855, and was. at various periods during those years, cook at the 
 Franklin House. In .March. 1855, my lather came to .Madison, and 
 two months later my uncle followed, so that it is a long t ; me since 
 these farts have been either thought of or discussed. I might add 
 that Colonel McKim was a bachelor, and that his farm wis sold to 
 Mr. Ansley when he left. I think the title was the usual Southern 
 'ci ilonel.' 
 
 "1 have obtained the above facts from my father, J. H. D. Bal-er. 
 his sister, Elizabeth Maker Fox, and her husband, C. J. Fox. all of 
 whom live in Madison now [1893. July 26th]." 
 
 Miss Baker adds: "1 might say that it is only by common report 
 that these people were slaves, but the very fact that they were brought 
 here at that early date seems to point in that direction. All three 
 of m\ informants are sure that, for a time at least, these negroes were 
 actually held as slaves." 
 
 In regard to Dodgeville we have a story of emancipation rather 
 than of slavery. It is thus told by Mrs. Sally Hopkins Maddin, widow 
 of Henry Dodge Maddin, grandson of Governor Dodge: 
 
 "Governor Henry Dodge came to this Territory in 1827 and 
 brought a number of slaves with him. On reaching this state he in- 
 formed them of their freedom, but they still remained with him and 
 worked for him. He built cabins for them on his farm known as 
 
 2n. In the first volume of "Wisconsin Reports" we find the name >>t" Richard Mo- 
 Kim of Iowa county. Probably he is the ••Colonel" McKim of Mis- Baker's narrative. 
 
24 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 the 'Governor's Grove,' between Mineral Point and Dodgeville, and 
 provided for them while he lived; and they, many of them, were buried 
 on the farm. 
 
 "During the time he was United States senator he retained his 
 residence on his farm, where his wife remained. During later life, his 
 winters were spent with his son, Augustus Dodge of Burlington, 
 Iowa, and his summers in Mineral Point', where he received weekly 
 visits from his former slaves, and supplied their needs with money 
 and provisions. Their descendants are widely scattered, some few in 
 Mineral Point, but the majority in Illinois. He always paid his col- 
 ored people's taxes, and, in short, exercised over them, during his 
 entire life, the same care a good guardian gives his ward." 
 
 Supplementary to the narrative is an extract- 1 from a letter by 
 the late Morgan Lewis Martin to Augustus Caesar Dodge, [883, May 
 25th. He has been writing of other members of the household, and 
 adds: 
 
 "Nor can I forget the appearance of the negro slaves, who clung 
 to your father's family even after they were given freedom, as dutiful 
 children dependent for protection and daily wants upon a parent.'' 
 
 According to General Jones, a native, like Dodge, of Vine 
 Indiana, and for many years his acquaintance and friend. Dodge, be- 
 fore leaving Missouri, called together his negroes and promised free- 
 dom after five years' service to such of them as would go with him 
 to his proposed new home. It is worthy of honorable mention here 
 that Henry Dodge, when in the United States senate, voted in favor 
 of the Wilmot Proviso, while his son, a member from Iowa, of the 
 same body, voted against it. 
 
 We now come to the place where, doubtless, there were more in- 
 stances of the holding of negroes in slavery than any where else in 
 Wisconsin. This, however, is due to the fact that some of the army 
 officers at Fort Crawford brought slaves thither and kept them there. 
 By the census of 1836, there was reported one negro male slave in 
 the family of Thomas Street, and one female in that of T. (J.?) U. 
 Lockwood. Seventeen slaves are reported as being held in the fort. 
 
 To a great extent, no doubt, the fort was in practice, both at this 
 time and later, a law unto itself. The most tragic story, in connection 
 with our subject, is one told 22 by John H. Fonda. "At a general elec- 
 tion," he says, "held on the 22nd day of September, 1845 I was elected 
 to the office of coroner and constable for Crawford county. In the 
 first office the duties that devolved on me were neither few nor pleas- 
 
 21. I make my transcript from the "Iowa Historical Record," October, 1889, v./]. 
 V.. p. 3oC. Article: "Henry Dodge." by Rev, William Salter, pastor for fifty years 
 and more of the Congregational church, Burlington, Iowa, 
 
 22. Wisconsin Historical Collections, volume V.. page 277. 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 25 
 
 ant. The country being thinly settled, detection was easily avoided, and 
 the penalties of the law hard to enforce; so evil-disposed persons, not 
 having the fear of certain punishment before them, perpetrated deeds 
 of violence with perfect impunity. I was once notified that a dead 
 body was lying in the water, opposite Pig's Eye slough, and immed- 
 iately proceeded to the spot, and, on taking it out, I recognized it as 
 the body of a negro woman belonging to a certain Captain then in 
 Fort Crawford. The body was cruelly cut and bruised; but THE per- 
 son not appearing to recognize it a verdict of 'Found Dead,' was ren- 
 dered, and I had the corpse buried. Soon after it came to light that 
 the woman was whipped to death, and thrown into the river during 
 the night; but no investigation was made, and the affair blew over." 
 Surely on this occasion, Mr. Fonda magnified neither his office nor its 
 duties. 
 
 Here we may call to our aid the reminiscences of ex-Judge Mills. 
 This native of Bourbon count}', Kentucky, became an abolitionist be- 
 fore he left his native state. There he was teacher in a Sunday school. 
 Whatever may be said either in support or disparagement of the idea 
 that the dogmatic basis of Christianity is to be found in a book rather 
 than in an institution, it is certain that such a belief is likely to lead 
 to attentive study of the book. Those who hold to such a c r eed will 
 affirm, if consistent, that a book which contains a revelation from God 
 should certainly be read by everybody, and everybody who can learn 
 should be taught to read it. No exception can reasonably be made 
 in the case of negroes, or even of slaves. To teach colored people, 
 even though bondmen, to read the Bible was, therefore, one of the 
 objects of said Sunday school. Naturally enough, this proceeding at- 
 tracted the attention of slaveholders of the vicinity, and our poor little 
 Sunday school was soon suppressed. Drawn by the name of Edward 
 Beecher, young Mills came to Jacksonville, Illinois, to enter Illinois 
 college. Therein, as a student, was Joseph, son of General J. M. 
 Street, so often heard of in our early Wisconsin history, and thither 
 the father — probably it was he— sent for some one who would come to 
 Prairie du Chien as teacher. Mills responded to the call, and came 
 thither about the middle of September, according to his recollection, 
 1834. He came on the steamboat Warrior, which had been so effect- 
 ively employed two years before in the disgraceful battle of the Bad 
 Axe. A fellow passenger, taken on board somewhere above Quincy, 
 Illinois, was the wronged chief Black Hawk. He had been brought 
 back from his enforced tour in the East, and was starting on 
 his annual hunt. "But the world as he knew it in his youth had 
 vanished forever, and oh how sad and dejected was that face on^e 
 aht with the eye of an eagle. 
 
 "I was but a timid student," continues Judge Mills, "cast sudden- 
 
26 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 ly among men who wore epaulettes upon their shoulders and silken 
 sashes and sword belts around their waists. Here I found representa- 
 tives of all nationalities herding together, savage and civilized; and a 
 motley population, ring-streaked, speckled and spotted. \o hotels 
 then. There was but one large house to go to, one erected by the 
 government, which had several rooms in it. some of which were oc- 
 cupied by the Indian agents and General Street and his family. The 
 floors and passages [floors of the passages?] were occupied and cov- 
 ered by natives, large and small, dogs and children. It was growing 
 dark, and never had I overlooked such a scene before. By the p 
 light of a lard-oil lamp I could discover full-blood and half-blood In- 
 dian faces, tangled and platted hair, black as a raven's wing, all 
 stretched upon the floors, and the mosquitoes, fleas and bedbugs in 
 thousands would satisfy any census bureau; and these connoisseurs of 
 human blood were enjoying a barbecue. As I watched, my whole 
 being, flesh and blood was curdled into one mass of disgust and 
 shame when I saw a shriveled faced dame catch one of these blood 
 swilled vampires and thrust it into her nursling's mouth. 
 
 "I remember the day and evening was unusually warm for the 
 season of the year. The air, or what occupied its space, was close and 
 stifling. In feeling my way along a labyrinth of passages, I suddenly 
 opened a narrow door." Entering it, Air. Mills found a "friend of 
 his youth, from the same famous old town, Paris. Kentucky." This 
 was Thomas Pendleton Burnett, whose name we have already heard 
 in the report of the case of John Paul Jones against his former mas- 
 ter. Mr. Burnett gave his friend "an introduction to General Street 
 and his family. We spent a day or two in examining the ruins of 
 the old fort and the stockade. * * * The old town across the 
 slough had no modern buildings in it except the trading emporium of 
 Messrs, Roulette & Dousman. Wigwams, sheds and log huts were 
 numerous, and occupied by the merriest people that ever danced to 
 the extemporized fiddle made of cornsticks, or turned a hoe-cake on a 
 long-handled gridiron; whose life overflowed with glee, fun and frolic, 
 and French vivacity. Such were the primitive inhabitants of Prairie 
 du Chien. 
 
 "I think it was Mr. Burnett who introduced me to Colonel Taylor 
 and his wife. The family occupied a neat and comfortable frame build- 
 ing outside of the limits of the fort. But what a contrast was there 
 between that family and every other home I had visited in the city! 
 .Mrs. Taylor was advanced in years. She did her own work. I could 
 see her eyes were not a stranger to tears. She understood I had come 
 to teach her children, little Dick and Bess. They were jovial as 
 crickets, and they laughed and talked with me incessantly, but the 
 father and mother were reticent and lonely as if oppressed by a deep 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 27 
 
 family affliction, not to be disclosed to a stranger." This state of feel- 
 ing Mr. Mills has no doubt, was caused by the marriage of their 
 daughter to Jefferson Davis. 
 
 One case of slaveholding at the fort Air. Mills distinctly rcmem- 
 bers. It was by a Lieutenant Harris, an intemperate man who was 
 afterward cashiered. When he left Prairie du Chien he took his negro 
 with him. The slave, Judge Mills thinks, was as glad to go as was 
 Ins master. Apparently not long afterward, but whether or not on 
 the journey from Prairie du Chien I do not know, Harris was 
 drowned in Rock river, probably within the bounds of Illinois. 
 
 Very soon the question of slavery was presented to Mr. Mills in 
 a peculiar form. To serve a superintendent of an Indian school near 
 Prairie du Chien there came thither in 1833 (September 7th) Rev. 
 David Lowrey. He came from Nashville. Tennessee. This movement 
 he calls "leaving his native land." Writing to "The Revivalist" of 
 Nashville, he seems to have been glad to say: "This is a free land. No 
 slavery can be admitted here." But when he set about organizing a 
 church, as he soon did, he found that questions involving slavery were 
 by no means confined to the South. One of those who proposed en- 
 tering into the new church was Andrew Cochrane. He had come 
 From Missouri to superintend the erection of the new fort or, at 
 least, the putting up of the stone work thereof. He held slaves in 
 Missouri. Young Mills, also a prospective member of the proposed 
 organization, was so decided an abolitionist that he was reluctant to 
 ■ iiicr into covenant with a church that was to have a slaveholder m 
 its fellowship. However, his objections were finally overcome, prob- 
 ably because Cochrane was to return soon to Missouri. 
 
 Another circumstance concerning slavery at Prairie du Chien 
 Judge Mills remembers well. Moreover, it is mentioned by Rev. Al- 
 lied Brunson in his autobiography. To him it was, no doubt, a mat- 
 i 1 of intense mortification, as it seems to have been one of keen de- 
 light to his enemies. There was in the fort a slave who was known 
 by the name of his master, a Captain Day. This negro hid been 
 among the Ojibways and had learned their language. Mr. Brunson 
 was interested in mission work among these Indians, and thought that 
 Day would prove to be an efficient helper in that service. Acco ; "d ; ng- 
 ly he raised $1,200, Judge Mills says, and bought the proposed mis- 
 sionary. But Day proved to be different from what Air. Brunson 
 had supposed that he was or he underwent, for the worse, a change 
 in character. So, from the missionary point of view, the investment 
 proved to be total loss. 23 . 
 
 23. Sunn years afterward, when Judge Mills was on a journey from Fort 
 Snelling or thereabout to the head of Lake Superior, he saw this colored man Day 
 
28 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 
 
 After his removal to Grant county, which was in 1843, Judge Mills 
 was actively instrumental in legally terminating one instance of the 
 relation of master and slave. There was a man named Graves who 
 lived at or near Hurricane Grove, a hamlet in the town of Lancaster. 
 Graves, who was a Christian man, desired not only that his slave 
 be free but that he have legal evidence that such was the fact. Ac- 
 cordingly a friendly suit was brought in order that the validity of the 
 manumission papers might be without possibility of doubt. These 
 papers were for the protection of the negro in case of his proposed 
 return to Missouri. 
 
 Another case of negro slavery at Green Bay remains to be men- 
 tioned. This was of a girl named Maria, a full-blooded negro, who 
 was brought from Washington, D. C, by Governor John S. Horner. 
 He is remembered in our Wisconsin history as the man who attempt- 
 ed to continue here the legal existence of the Territory of Michigan 
 after the state of Michigan had been admitted to the Union. He and 
 his wife were from Virginia. About 1837 or 1838. so Dr. Porter, my 
 informant, thought 24 they brought the slave girl with them to Gi 
 Bay. Rev. Stephen Peet, then of Green Bay, later of the First Pres- 
 byterian church, Milwaukee, told Maria that she was free. Thereupon 
 she left her former master and mistress, who were thereby made so 
 angry that they ceased to attend the church of which Mr. Peet was 
 pastor. Maria afterward served in the family of my informant, who 
 was Mr. Peet's successor at Green Bay. Maria was married in 1845. 
 Years afterward, when she had become a widow, she again met Mr. 
 and Mrs. Porter, and announced to them her great sorrow in the 
 plaintive wail of the Bethlehem widow of three thousand years ago, 
 "Call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me." 
 Once more she served in the family of Dr. Porter, when he was army 
 chaplain at Fort D. A. Russell, Wyoming. This Maria Grant died in 
 1892, perhaps the last of the sixty or more who have been held as 
 slaves here in Wisconsin. 
 
 In Beetown and about six miles west of Lancaster is a place 
 to which has been given, in late years, the name Flora Fountain. But 
 its popular designation was, and perhaps is, Slabtown. At its be- 
 ginning the settlement was composed in large proportion of colored 
 people. Among these were Isaac and Charles Shepherd, of whom it 
 
 who had taken to himself an Indian wife and. from a business point of view, was 
 making good use of his freedom. 
 
 24. "Early in April, 1836, Acting Governor Horner had moved to Wisconsin, ex- 
 pecting to hold the same relation to Wisconsin that he had held to Michigan,"— 
 Alfred Branson, D. D., -'Wisconsin Historical Collections," Vol. II., p. 306. 
 
 I dare not say that .Maria was brought at the time mentioned by Dr. Bran- 
 son. When Mr. and Mrs. Horner brought the slave girl, they came, Dr. Porter told 
 Hi'', 63 way of St. Louis. 
 
NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 29 
 
 was currently reported that they were brought from Virginia as slaves 
 by William Horner, and that they refused to return. Different from 
 this, however, are the impressions of Rev. Samuel Eaton who, 
 for forty years and more, was virtually bishop of Lancaster. 25 He 
 thinks that these negroes had been free in Virginia before they were 
 brought to Wisconsin. So that, according to this understanding, we 
 have here no story of either slavery or emancipation. 
 
 Very manifest has been made to me in the preparation of this 
 narrative the influence of anti-slavery men from the South, especially 
 from that part of it that was once the slaveholding portion of the 
 West. Into this Southern or South-and- Western abolitionism, we 
 do not need to take a very deep look to find therein the kind of man- 
 hood produced in our middle Atlantic states, and farther west, out of 
 Scotch-Irish and kindred blood. Hearty, hospitable, faithful m friend- 
 ship, determined, and sometimes vengeful, in enmity, reverent toward 
 God but inclined to hold themselves on equality with all who are less 
 than He; commonly orthodox if anything — and usually they are some- 
 thing — in religion, often narrow-minded and almost always prejudiced 
 against something or somebody are (or were) these people. And per- 
 haps we may say about the same things of many of their descendants. 
 Terrible fighters were the pioneers if this stock, altogether too ready 
 with guns and fists. Allied in some respects to the Puritans, they are 
 not to l>c confounded with them, and it is not fair to credit the sons 
 and the influence of New England with what these men have done. As 
 Woodrow Wilson has pointed out, there went into the making of this 
 nation somewhat that came to it by way neither of Massachusetts bay 
 nor of Janus river. Upon men of this class fell the duty, for the most 
 part, of contending, face to face, with whatever there was here of ac- 
 tual slavery. These in Wisconsin and elsewhere were as ready as 
 any for the great conflict of 1861-1865, and none fought more sturdily 
 and successfully. If, to our shame and sorrow, slave blood nas been 
 drawn by the lash upon Wisconsin soil, and has fallen thereon even 
 in murder, we remember with solemn pride and increasing honor that 
 the blood of our men, of all races, fell upon slave soil and helped to 
 make it free, as we believe, forever. 
 
 JOHN NELSON DAVIDSON. 
 
 25. One of his suns, Edward Dwigbt Eaton, is president of Beloit College. 
 
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