The Bitter, Enduring Legacy of Slavery in America
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
qTHE uarto No. 47 THE CLEMENTS LIBRARY ASSOCIATES spring-summer 2017 THE BITTER, ENDURING LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA In August 1791 the slaves of the plantations on the northern plain of St. Domingue (Haiti) rose up and took revenge on their masters. The prosperity of France’s richest colony had been enabled by a culture of wealthy planters, often-brutal overseers, and a large labor force of enslaved Africans. This edifice came crashing down with the French Revolution. The slaves set the sugar plantations afire as seen here in a view to the eastward from the port city of Cap Français. y the time early abolitionist rights and the reality of keeping others God through Moses, and approved by George Bourne wrote, “the in chains based on ethnicity, opponents Christ through his disciples,” he spoke detention of men in bondage and defenders of slavery battled in print for a significant number of antebellum indefinite, should receive unmitigat- to win adherents to their side of the white Americans. While the conclusion Bed execration” in 1834, slavery had struggle. For every John Woolman, of the Civil War and the ratification of been part of the American scene for George Bourne or William Lloyd the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 more than two centuries. First in the Garrison in the antislavery camp, brought a legal resolution to the issue British colonies, beginning with the defenders of slavery like William of slavery in America, the unbridgeable importation of some twenty African Harper, James Henry Hammond and philosophical gap over “the peculiar captives to Virginia in 1619, and then Thomas Dew wrote passionately of slav- institution” and its legacy has influenced in the United States after the American ery as a positive social good and a main- society, law and policy in the United Revolution, slavery had enormous stay of American economic prosperity. States to the present day. social, political and economic impact. When Hammond declared, “I firmly In this issue of The Quarto, our As Americans struggled with the stark believe that American slavery is not only curators provide glimpses of the divide between the rhetoric of individual not a sin, but especially commanded by Clements Library’s remarkable holdings of primary sources on American slavery. slavery are rich and compelling pictorial to do better. While reading the Library’s Associate Director and Map Curator sources for researchers in this field, as primary sources on slavery can be pain- Brian Dunnigan’s essay details the exis- Graphics Curator Clayton Lewis makes ful, it’s essential to understanding where tence of African American and Native clear in his illustrated essay. For space we’ve come from on race issues and to American enslavement in the Great reasons we did not focus attention in this realizing how far we still have to go. Lakes region during the eighteenth cen- issue on our holdings of books, pam- Here at the Clements we believe in the tury. Recent recipient of a U-M School phlets, and newspapers with slavery value of history to help build a better of Information graduate degree Noa content, but I can assure you that they future, the “applied history” approach Kasman, who for two years as a Joyce are both numerous and full of interesting that Benjamin Shambaugh and others Bonk Fellow has worked on digitizing material on all aspects of the subject. articulated a century ago during the our collections, writes about the fasci- I regard slavery and segregation Progressive era. “Where did we come nating information about slavery con- as regrettable proof that freedom and from” and “how did we get here” are tained in antiquarian maps, especially equality have always been elusive, important questions to pose in formulat- Edwin Hergesheimer’s 1861 Map shifting targets for Americans. Too ing answers to “where do we go from Showing the Distribution of the Slave often at various times in our history our here” and “how do we get there.” Population of the Southern States of noble, even inspiring words have led to Understanding the history of American the United States. Mary H. Parsons, action on behalf of some rather than all. slavery and its powerful effects on our longtime volunteer in the WLCL Although our lengthy individual and nation is a prime example of that reality, Manuscripts Division, uses an 1838 collective history of striving to build a and it’s one my WLCL colleagues and I letter from Nancy Adams in our Weld- better society on this continent merits are eager to help our researchers Grimké Papers as the basis for her evoc- genuine respect, our failure in many explore. ative article, “Documenting the cases to include large portions of our — J. Kevin Graffagnino Life of Nancy Adams, a Fugitive Slave.” population in the results requires honest Director Our photographic and other images of assessment and a renewed commitment Page 2 The Quarto SLAVERY ON THE LAKES ummer has come to Michigan and their populations. A panis woman to the Great Lakes that enfold the assisted trader Alexander Henry in evad- state’s two peninsulas. It is unlikely ing Ojibwa warriors when they surprised that many of us have ever given much and captured Michilimackinac in 1763. Sthought to the practice of human slavery Many prosperous traders, such as John as a part of daily life here during the Askin, owned both panis and African eighteenth century. The seaward flow Americans. Askin held two black men, of the waters over Niagara Falls and Pompey and Jupiter, during his years at through the heart of New France (later Michilimackinac. Panis appear in a British Canada) passed colonial towns variety of contexts during the French and Native villages where one was régime, including the fur trade. In 1737 almost certain to encounter persons in for instance, Detroit traders Beaubien bondage. In later years the establish- and Germain obtained a congé (trading ment of the Northwest Territory and license) that recorded the names of their Upper and Lower Canada would end crew of voyageurs. The document listed the practice, but until that time slavery one of the four men as “Pierre Panis de was a fact of life. Nation.” Discovering details of slavery on The relative numbers of the two the Great Lakes is a bit more complicat- types of slaves is more difficult to deter- ed than it is farther to the south, where mine. Censuses taken at Detroit from the overwhelming majority of enslaved 1750 through 1782 distinguish only the persons were of African or part-African categories of female and male “slaves.” This detail from Francis Pfister’s 1771 descent. In the northern forests of the It appears that African slaves were found “Plan of Niagara” shows the garrison gar- Great Lakes and Laurentian region at Detroit at least by the late 1730s, and dens at upper right. Fences enclose pas- many slaves were Native Americans, merchant James Sterling held two black tures outside the fort where the Grahams’ people usually described under the men in 1764. As a general observation, panis girls cared for the family’s cow. generic term panis. This name is it seems likely that panis made up the generally supposed to be a corruption majority of the enslaved population dur- Lower Canada in 1791 abolished the of “Pawnee,” a nation residing on the ing the town’s early years, but the ratio enslavement of those born after that eastern Great Plains. Panis were gener- gradually shifted to reflect an increase in time in the British-controlled areas, but ally captives taken during the incessant the number of slaves of African descent. grandfathered those who were already conflict and raiding between Native Some of the growth probably reflects in bondage. Since the British occupied nations or between Native Americans slaves taken as booty during British and the Great Lakes posts for thirteen years and European colonists. Indian raids from Detroit against the after the Treaty of Paris ended the War The distinction between African Kentucky settlements during the War for Independence, this affected Detroit and panis slaves is often difficult to for Independence. Many were carried to and Michilimackinac. When the United discern. Surviving church records, Detroit by the British-allied Indians and States took possession of these places in such as the ledger of births, marriages, then traded or sold. The warriors who 1796, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and burials at Ste. Anne de Michili- accompanied Captain Henry Bird on his applied, and slavery was prohibited in mackinac, usually identify panis as successful raid against the Kentuckians the territory. During the decade after such, and occasionally note slaves of in 1780 presented him with a female 1800 and the formation of the Michigan African descent as well. Panis were slave named Esther to thank him for Territory in 1805, some Canadian slaves much in evidence—and in demand— his capable leadership. escaped bondage by crossing to the at the military and fur-trading posts The slave population grew slowly United States, a reversal of the familiar scattered around the lakes. In 1768, at eighteenth-century Detroit—from practice of fugitive slaves following the for example, Surgeon John Graham and 33 in 1750 to 179 by 1782. Slaves North Star to freedom in Canada. his wife Isabella searched in vain for numbered 85 in 1773; 127 in 1778; 142 Slavery was a familiar and accepted domestic help among the wives of Fort in 1779; and 175 in 1780. The number practice in the Great Lakes region of the Niagara’s soldiers because most already of slave-holders increased as well, from eighteenth century. Enslaved Native worked for other officers.