What Can Territorial-Era Lawsuits Tell Us about the Rise and Fall of Proslavery Politics in the Old Northwest?

This study utilizes microhistorical practices to investigate how slavery created and
exacerbated divisions within settler politics in Indiana Territory between 1800 to 1816. While
existing histories of settler politics in the Old Northwest rely primarily on legislative records,
petitions, and official correspondence, this study analyzes lawsuits concerning slavery from
territorial circuit courts and county courts in hopes of highlighting the contribution that enslaved people made to the political struggle between pro and antislavery settlers.

Between 1800 and 1810, William Henry Harrison and his business associates and
political allies actively campaigned for Congress to repeal the federal ban on slavery under the Northwest Ordinance. Once in control of the territorial legislature, proslavery settlers introduced new territorial statutes governing indentured servitude and apprenticeship, which allowed those seeking to circumvent the federal ban to extract labor from formerly enslaved people. By 1810, antislavery settlers had gained control of the territorial legislature and immediately began repealing these laws.

Recent scholarship on federal Indian policy and settler politics in the Old Northwest document either divisions over slavery among Harrison’s supporters or organized antislavery agitation on part of Harrison’s opponents. Although this study builds upon this existing literature, it also seeks to move beyond framing the struggle over the repeal of the Northwest Ordinance as a rivalry between pro and antislavery factions within settler politics.
Records from territorial circuit courts and county courts not only allow historians to identify the conflicting business and political interests among both pro and antislavery factions, but also to recognize how enslaved people were able to turn the tables against settlers attempting to circumvent the federal ban. In sum, this study demonstrates some of the ways in which microhistorical methods and practices can help historians of slavery’s westward expansion better interpret and integrate legislative and judicial sources.