OHS Research Library, Oregon Argus, Serial no. 6 The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders

Oregon Abolitionists and their Followers

JIM M. LABBE

The issue of slavery in the United States is more complicated than traditional narratives of the “good guys” who opposed slavery and “bad guys” who practiced it. Racial policies enacted during the mid nineteenth century reveal ON MAY 26, 1855, organizers of the Oregon Free Soil Convention placed a call for “Friends of that most Oregonians were both anti-slavery and anti-Black — most, but not Freedom” in the Oregon Argus newspaper. The June 27, 1855, meeting was the first political anti- all. In Oregon, a minority of Whites opposed slavery on moral, religious, and slavery gathering in the Oregon Territory. The Free Soil Movement sought to appeal to a broad anti- ethical grounds and fought for its abolition. Even within abolitionist groups, slavery constituency, but the convention’s moralistic resolutions condemning slavery’s proponents as some still could find no room for notions of actual equality between the races, “oppressive and cruel,” advocating the complete “overthrow” of slavery, and championing universal but some could. Some were also willing to make great personal sacrifices and “human liberty” are indicative of the abolitionist sentiments of some of its organizers. face harsh reprisals for their beliefs. These stories must be also told before a true rendering of the slavery controversy in Oregon and the nation can be revealed.

final resolve: “That the ladies who have favored us with their presence, be requested to receive the thanks of this meeting for the manifestation they ON THE MORNING of June 27, 1855, the first political anti-slavery gather- have thus made in favor of HUMAN LIBERTY.”1 ing in the Oregon Territory, the Oregon Free Soil Convention, commenced The emergence and growth of the American abolitionist movement in Albany with over forty men and an unknown number of women and chil- between 1830 and the Civil War closely paralleled the overland migration to dren present. The convention’s resolutions, unanimously adopted, struck Oregon. Most historians of the antebellum period agree that after 1830, aboli- a distinctly moral tone, denouncing all Congressional legislation since the tionists demanded an immediate and complete end to slavery (“immediatism”), 1850 Fugitive Slave Act as “unjust and anti-republican, oppressive and asserted opposition in moral terms, and believed that racial prejudice lay at cruel” and railing against “aggressions of the slave power” that “by some the root of America’s social ills.2 Abolitionists consistently sought to advance artful ruse” might precipitate slavery upon Oregon and “any territory on African Americans’ “inalienable rights” as citizens of the United States as part the Pacific coast.” In declaring that “the question of slavery . . . can never of what historian Manisha Sinha describes as a broader “principled battle be compromised or settled but by the overthrow of an institution so utterly against racially restrictive notions of democracy.” The distinction between opposed to every principle of political as well as of all moral and religious abolitionism and broader anti-slavery politics became muddled as more abo- right,” the Oregon Free Soil Convention went further than the national Free litionists entered politics and anti-slavery arguments emphasized the general Soil Party, established in 1848, in its rejection of slavery. The delegates threat of slavery to American freedom and the republic. But as Sinha notes, planned to enlist everyone with the moral courage to favor the anti-slavery for abolitionists, the movement always remained firstly “the slave’s cause.”3 In cause, to meet again in October to craft a platform, and to share the con- Oregon, White supremacy dominated anti-slavery politics, with many oppo- vention proceedings with territorial newspapers. They concluded with one nents of slavery accepting or even advocating for its continuance or expan-

440 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 © 2019 Oregon Historical Society Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 441 sion elsewhere, as long as Oregon was preserved for the White race.4 Other posed degradation of White labor. Hence, in March 1857, editor W.L. Adams of anti-slavery men in Oregon, like many Northerners, came to morally condemn the Oregon Argus newspaper denounced Democrats as “black democracy . . . slavery and support its nationwide demise but either could not fathom or founded on ‘niggerism’,” and declared that “the Republicans are in favor of pre- remained ambivalent about the prospect of a multi-racial democracy in the serving new Territories sacred to free labor, out of love for the teeming millions United States.5 Still, others may have considered it a political liability to the of poor white laborers.” The Republican Party was therefore “the only white anti-slavery cause. 6Abolitionists and their ideas about greater racial equality, man’s party there is.”12 George Williams’s notorious “Free State Letter” (pub- however, were never entirely missing from anti-slavery politics, even in Oregon, lished in full elsewhere in this issue) rep-

whose historians have almost entirely overlooked them or only mentioned resents the culmination and distillation OHS Research Library, photo file no. 979, OrHi 086130 them in passing. Oregon’s Democratic politicians, however, put considerable of “white man’s” anti-slavery in Oregon. effort into assailing the abolitionists in their midst during the1850 s.7 Williams amplified anti-Black prejudice, Asahel Bush, editor of the Oregon Statesman and leader of the power- dismissed abolitionists as fanatics, and ful “Salem Clique” of prominent Democratic partisans, responded to the fortified assumptions about the purity of Free Soil Convention in his characteristic invective style. “A collection of the White race and its exclusive claims to old grannies held an abolition meeting in Albany,” he reported, declaring the region. Such sentiments prevailed in that these “nigger struck dames” had the audacity to expect the Statesman 1857, when a large majority of White male “to publish their stale fanaticism” and to ask “us to fill our columns with a voters adopted a state constitution that batch of Fred Douglasisms, which the sensible men who do patronize and rejected slavery, excluded free Blacks, sustain the paper don’t wish to see.” He dismissed the participants’ naive and denied suffrage and other civil rights moralism and added his frequent warning that “if anything could make the to all but White males.13 people of Oregon desire slavery, it would be the agitation of the subject But beyond the rhetoric of the most by such fanatics as these.”8 A week later, in a column entitled “Abolition- visible and powerful elites and the vast ism,” another powerful Democratic partisan and seasoned anti-abolitionist, majority of White male voters who gave Delazon Smith, piled on with similarly gendered and racist defamations and their consent can be found genuine a dismissal of the convention participants.9 Although small in number, the abolitionists who resisted Oregon’s Free Soil Convention attendees had clearly struck a nerve. White supremacist founding. White and DELAZON SMITH, a leading Democratic In the political debates leading up to statehood, Democratic partisans and Black, male and female, the overlooked partisan and published anti-abolitionist, editors across the territory branded their political opponents as “abolitionists” stories of Oregon abolitionists elucidate was among those who dismissed and or “black republicans” for their alleged “nigger-worshipping” and support an important part of our past, revealing denigrated the 1855 Free Soil Convention for “negro equality.” Democrats applied these labels indiscriminately both to how White supremacy functions to sup- participants and indiscriminately accused discredit and divide their opponents and to avoid conflict over slavery within press or marginalize dissent and the cir- them of “abolitionism,” a charge that was not their own party. Consequently, few individuals they targeted fit the label of cumstances that foster resistance. They entirely inaccurate. Smith played a key role in establishing viva voce voting in the Oregon “abolitionist” as historians have come to understand it.10 include the remarkable story of Black Territory in 1854, with the purpose of exposing As the Civil War approached, most Oregon politicians came to deride real abolitionists Abner H. and Sydna E.R.D. and controlling dissent in the electorate. abolitionists as fanatics because it was politically expedient and because abo- Francis, who directly collaborated with litionists advocated some degree of civil, political, or even social equality for prominent Eastern abolitionists such as African Americans — sentiments that directly challenged White supremacy.11 Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, opposed racist schemes to Slandering abolitionists and their support for greater racial equality became a resettle free Blacks in Africa, and championed Black civil rights in New Jersey popular tactic for uniting constituencies around the question of slavery. Bush, and New York — all before moving to Portland in 1851 and operating a suc- who quietly disfavored slavery in Oregon but rightly feared it would divide his cessful businesses until the early 1860s. Their lives and activism — spanning party, labeled his opponents the “Negro equality movement,” leading most of the East and West coasts of the United States as well as Canada — have yet to them to disavow abolitionism and base their opposition to slavery on its sup- receive a full historical account but highlight the uniquely repressive political

442 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 443 Jennings County Library environment in Oregon as well as a rare moment of interracial opposition to Black exclusion.14 In Oregon’s White abolitionists, the focus of this essay, we see a similar pattern of interracial experience and collaboration. They were individuals who had directly witnessed slavery or its effects and assisted in the struggle for Black freedom and equality before coming west. Even in far off Oregon, the abolitionist movement emerged from interracial experiences Jennings County Library and relationships driven by the struggle of Black people.15 Bush and Smith accurately branded some of the Free Soil Convention participants as abolitionists — moralistic advocates and agents of the immedi- ate emancipation and racial equality. Among them were two young farmers, both recent arrivals from southeast Indiana and related by marriage: Henry Hamilton Hicklin and William Taylor Baxter.16

HENRY H. HICKLIN was born in San Jacinto, Jennings County, Indiana, in 1825. He arrived in Oregon with his extended family in 1851, after his father John L. Hicklin and his uncle James Hicklin had made an 1849 reconnais- sance trip. In most ways, the Hicklins typified the White, non-slaveholding farmers who settled Oregon in droves. They made the overland trip in a group of families, including the Baxters, Denneys, and Stotts, linked by marriage DR. JOHN L. HICKLIN AND HIS SPOUSE, MARTHA THORN HICKLIN, emigrated to and from the same neighborhood of southeast Indiana. They all benefited Washington County, Oregon, from Jennings County, Indiana, between 1849 and 1851 with their from the 1850 Oregon Donation Land Claim Act, through which the federal two sons and five daughters. They were part of a larger group of interrelated families — all government gifted White males (or sons of White males) and their spouses evangelical abolitionists — involved in a local abolitionist society and church whose members 17 to up to 640 acres of Native peoples’ lands. They filed claims and signed actively assisted fugitive slaves, resisted Indiana’s discriminatory Black laws, and participated in the required affidavits to secure farms clustered along Fanno Creek and the the abolitionist-led Liberty Party. In Oregon, John and his eldest son Henry H. Hicklin organized Lower Tualatin River in Washington County. their family and neighbors in opposition to the Oregon State Constitution, slavery, and Black This is the land of the Tualatin band of Kalapuya, who persisted despite exclusion during the 1857 constitutional referendum. encroaching settlers and devastating European diseases. The Tualatin Band of Kalapuya ceded their lands in the Tualatin Valley to the U.S. Government and agreed to their relocation to a reservation as part of the Willamette Val- ley Treaty, ratified by Congress in March1855 .18 Today, the Kalapuya people requisite social space to engage in activities that directly attacked slavery exercise their sovereign rights as members of the Confederated Tribes of and racial discrimination.” Most of these families had forefathers who served Grand Ronde. The Hicklins and their kinsmen, in settling on lands taken in the American Revolutionary War and had migrated from the Upper South from Native people and denied to African Americans and other non-Whites, to escape slavery. Almost all anti-formalist evangelicals, Baptists or Meth- exercised the privilege of being White men within American settler-colonial odists, they tended to believe, as Furnish notes, “that human actions not society. Nevertheless, their religious background and life experiences led words, deeds not intentions, were the substance of both religion and life.”20 them to oppose key aspects of the prevailing White supremacy. The families became key leaders among the region’s White Christian abo- The Hicklin, Denney, Baxter, and Stott families were among the early litionists. As they would along Fanno Creek a generation later, the Hicklins Euro-American settlers of Jennings and Jefferson counties of southeast and Stotts clustered their farms near the confluence of Big and Little Graham Indiana, located just north of the Ohio River and the border of the Upper creeks, just east of San Jacinto and only sixteen miles north of the Kentucky South.19 This region became what historian Mark Furnish describes as an border, at what became known as the “Hicklin Settlement.” It is difficult to know “anti-slavery environ, a place where antislavery sentiment and racial toler- exactly when, but probably at least by the early 1840s, the Hicklins, Baxters, ance were significant enough that abolitionists Black and White had the Stotts, Denneys, and other White Christian abolitionists began collaborating

444 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 445 directly with the free Black community in Madison, Indiana, just to the south Anti-Slavery Society (NCASS) in a schoolhouse just nine miles southwest to assist fugitive slaves escaping northward. The Hicklin Settlement became of San Jacinto.26 The NCASS recorded its proceedings over seven years a “stop” on the so-called Underground Railroad (UGRR), the loose network (1839–1845) in a minute book that documents the values and sensibility of trusted relationships that assisted fugitives fleeing slavery. The Baxters of White abolitionist communities in the region. It also recounts numerous operated another station to the southeast in Jefferson County, Indiana.21 The occasions of the Hicklins’ chairing meetings, lecturing, leading prayers, or risks of such “practical abolitionism,” serving as appointed liaisons to other anti-slavery societies.27 especially for Black people, meant that The NCASS constitution began by declaring that its purpose “shall be such interracial collaboration emerged the entire abolition of Slavery in the United States.” While acknowledging only after repeated contact fostered the U.S. Constitution did not prohibit slavery, the society aimed “to convince trusted relationships and reputations.22 all our fellow-citizens by arguments addressed to their understanding and The free Black communities in Jeffer- consciences, that slave-holding is a heinous sin in the sight of God, and that son County were likely instrumental the duty, safety and best interests of all concerned requires its immediate Courtesy of Ed Kirkpatrick in catalyzing and sustaining UGRR abandonment without expatriation.” This was immediate emancipation by operations after their arrival in signifi- means of moral suasion, which had emerged as the primary tactic of the cant numbers after 1830. By 1845, the second wave of abolitionism during the late 1820s. Prompted by a surge network was firmly established. The in slave revolts and the organization of more cohesive and outspoken Hicklins, the Baxters, and their neigh- communities of Northern free Blacks, immediatist abolitionism coalesced bors almost certainly collaborated with amidst the religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening. Christian leading Black abolitionists and UGRR abolitionists awoke to slavery as the nation’s mortal sin and racial prejudice operators living in Madison, including its primary social ill. Moral suasion relied on preaching, petitions, mass mail- William Anderson, Elijah Anderson, ings, or direct personal appeals to bring about slavery’s immediate end.28 and George DeBaptiste.23 Relation- The NCASS minutes also include scattered mentions of anti-abolitionist ships with such men probably helped mobs, censure of anti-slavery petitions or the abolitionist press, fugitive Henry’s uncle, Rev. Thomas Hicklin, slave legislation, and Indiana’s Black laws restricting the freedom and develop the reputation for thwarting education of African Americans.29 Such challenges and defeats eventually WILLIAM TAYLOR BAXTER, pictured here in slave hunters and securing safe pas- prompted the NCASS to become more active in politics, endeavoring “in a an undated photograph, and his brother-in-law, sage of every fugitive slave in his quar- Constitutional way, to influence Congress to put end to the domestic slave Henry H. Hicklin, were among the few known ter.24 During their early years and young trade, to abolish slavery in all those portions of our common country which abolitionists who attended the Oregon Free Soil Convention in 1855, shortly after emigrating from adulthood, Henry H. Hicklin, William T. come under its control,” and to work against slavery’s “entire subversion of Indiana. Baxter’s family was active in southeast Baxter, and their siblings would have all human rights” and for “the Declaration of Independence of our beloved Indiana’s interracial underground railroad in the had multiple opportunities to interact country.”30 The NCASS’s minutes recorded their resolutions for “the cause 1840s. His father, James Baxter, was a co-founder with Whites and Blacks actively assist- of universal liberty” and racial equality. The NCASS declared its legisla- of the biracial Eleutherian College in 1848. ing fugitive slaves’ flight to freedom. tive agenda of enacting laws to “protect equally the rights of all classes Henry’s youngest uncle, Lewis of our citizens irrespective of color so that our Liberties may be firmly Hicklin, was a Methodist circuit rider established in the Constitution and the laws of the land.”31 The NCASS also who traveled across Indiana, preaching abolitionism and organizing anti- expressed its intent to combat prejudice and improve the social wellbeing slavery societies. Lewis attended the American Anti-Slavery Society annual of Blacks through several resolutions supporting “their intellectual, moral conference in 1840. The Philanthropist, an Ohio abolitionist newspaper, and religious improvement, and by removing public prejudice.” Jefferson reported John L. Lewis, and Thomas Hicklin’s participation in the organization and Jennings county abolitionists would eventually operationalize this of the Indiana State Anti-Slavery Society in 1838, which Thomas attended later goal with the 1848 founding of the Eleutherian College under the leader- that year.25 In 1839 Lewis and Thomas Hicklin helped found the Neil’s Creek ship of Rev. Thomas Craven. William T. Baxter’s father, James Baxter, was

446 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 447 among the White abolitionist co-founders. The college defied Indiana Black grew to national stature by capitalizing on anxieties associated with the mid- exclusion laws and prevailing racial prejudices by teaching both White and century increase in European immigration. With the support of W.L. Adams, Black students. Eleutherian College became one of the few experiments Oregon Argus newspaper editor, the party became particularly strong in in biracial coeducation prior to the Civil War.32 Oregon. For Democrats, viva voce helped expose its sympathizers. Bush called In 1844, as the abolitionist-led Liberty Party mobilized its second presi- the passage of the 1854 viva voce voting bill a “Know-Nothing Antidote.”38 But dential campaign, NCASS threw its support behind the party, including the in a political community of White males acculturated to White supremacy and candidacy of James Hicklin, Henry’s eldest uncle, who ran unsuccessfully for manifest destiny, viva voce voting during the 1857 constitutional referendum the Indiana General Assembly.33 His candidacy raised the ire of neighbors less served to enforce not only partisan but also racial loyalties. sympathetic or hostile to abolitionism. In January 1845, the Graham Baptist The surviving viva voce poll books reveal individual voting behavior as Church expelled James Hicklin “for aiding to convey slaves from their Masters.” well as distinct voting blocs. In their detailed 1995 political history of Wash- At least ten other Hicklins and Stotts, including Henry, his unnamed sisters ington County, historians Paul Bourke and Donald DeBats use the poll books (likely Susan and Margaret), mother Martha, and father John L., immediately to document the strength and persistence of the county’s Know-Nothing/ left the church.34 Between 1847 and 1850, much of this same group joined other American Party that became a dominant Tigard Public Library local abolitionists in the Neil’s Creek Antislavery Baptist Church (NCABC), constituency of the Republican Party by which had formed in 1845 after the NCASS disbanded.35 The NCABC carried 1859. But their analysis also revealed the forward the NCASS egalitarian principles and led directly to the formation of distinct abolitionist faction that opposed Eleutherian College.36 both the xenophobic American Party and the pro-slavery Democrats. In the June THE INTERRACIAL UGRR, the NCASS, the Liberty Party, the NCABC, 1855 general election, not long after the and Eleutherian College were antecedent influences on the brothers who Free Soil Convention, a group of Hicklins, participated in the 1855 Oregon Free Soil Party Convention. Like his father Stotts, and Denneys, joined by Tigard, and uncles, Henry Hicklin became active in local civil service, mobilized boycotted the Democratic and American his kinsmen and neighbors in local elections, and represented abolition- party candidates for state offices and ists in the early organization of the Oregon Republican Party. Along Fanno voted only for the less-partisan local Creek and the Lower Tualatin River, the abolitionist families joined those of offices. In the1856 election, roughly the Wilson M. Tigard of Arkansas, Augustus Fanno of Maine, and the McKays same individuals again defied the two and Tuckers, two intermarried families also from southeast Indiana. The new major parties, this time by running as a neighbors became political associates and leaders of a distinct voting bloc group of independent candidates for who resisted partisan conformity, the White supremacist Constitution, slavery, territorial and local offices.39 and the exclusion of free Blacks from the newly forming state of Oregon.37 The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Their political resistance is recorded in poll books associated with the Scott decision stoked northern fears viva voce voting system established by the Democratic-controlled Territorial of “national slavery” and brought new Legislature in 1854, largely under the leadership of Delazon Smith. Used in urgency to the cause for Oregon state- many states during the nineteenth century, viva voce voting required voters to hood and to the organization of a viable cast their ballot vocally in public. In Oregon, precinct clerks recorded in poll anti-slavery party. Abolitionists were par- WILSON M. TIGARD, from Arkansas (and namesake for Tigard, Oregon), Augustus books individuals’ names and votes. Controversial from the start, viva voce ticularly outraged over the denial of Black Fanno from Maine, and several abolitionist applied community and partisan pressure to voters by exposing their loyalties rights in the United States.40 In October farming families from southeast Indiana 1856, Henry H. Hicklin, William T. Baxter, and allowing party leaders to potentially withhold patronage if voters waivered formed a distinct voting bloc in Washington from party dictates. In the mid 1850s, the primary challenge to the Oregon and Thomas H. Denney joined several County that opposed the Democratic and Democratic Party’s increasingly fragile political monopoly initially came from of their Fanno Creek neighbors in orga- Know-Nothing Parties before backing the the secretive, nativist Know-Nothing or American Party. The American Party nizing the Washington County Repbulic early Republican Party.

448 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 449 1840, five years before coming to Oregon, Kendall volunteered to deliver his church’s abolitionist message to congregations in South Carolina, where he eventually faced a violent anti-abolitionist mob and narrowly escaped with his life.44 Hicklin and Kendall both served on the platform drafting committee of the Free State Republican Convention, which delivered language that cham- pioned “the principles of the Declaration of Independence” and condemned slavery as “evil in its effects and consequences.”45 Beginning in 1854, the electorate repeatedly rejected proposals for a constitutional convention, but in June 1857, roughly 82 percent voted in sup- port. The Hicklins and many of their neighbors voted in opposition of the convention.46 The following August, the Democrat-dominated convention delivered an infamously White supremacist proposal to voters in November Poll Books for Elections, Oregon State Archives, Salem, Oregon Poll Books for Elections, Oregon State Archives, Salem, Oregon for Elections, Oregon State Books Poll

THIS DETAIL of the Butte Precinct poll book from the 1857 constitutional referendum depicts votes cast by abolitionists and their followers in Washington County, Oregon. The state’s viva voce voting system required local precinct clerks to record the name and votes of all eligible voters (White males) in poll books after each voter publicly stated his votes before a local precinct judge on election day.

Party; Henry Hicklin served as secretary.41 Hicklin and Thomas S. Kendall, also an Oregon Free Soil Convention participant, were among a few abolitionists who participated in organizing the Oregon Territory Republican Party at a February 1857 gathering in Albany.42 Kendall grew up in Xenia, Ohio, a center THE BUTTE PRECINCT POLL BOOK from the November 1857 constitutional referendum of Black and White religious abolitionism. His family had emigrated from the documents the total votes on the proposed constitution and separate provisions related to upper South as part of a group of anti-slavery “Seceders,” an independent sect slavery and allowing “free negroes” to settle in Oregon. Signatures of abolitionists John L. Hicklin of Scottish Presbyterianism known for actively excluding slaveholders from and his son Henry H. Hicklin appear on the document. John served as a judge, and Henry was their congregations and denouncing racial discrimination.43 In the summer of a precinct clerk.

450 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 451 1857. The proposed constitution explicitly granted rights and privileges to Whites, denied suffrage to any “Negro, Chinaman, or Mulatto,” denied Chinese 1857 OREGON CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM people property rights, and included separate component referendums on SUMMARY OF VOTING BLOCS FROM AVAILABLE PRECINCT POLL BOOKS slavery and excluding “free negros.” The latter component, when accepted by voters, denied Blacks not residing in the state at the time the right to settle TOTAL percent vote from available precinct poll books 47 PERCENT in Oregon, to access the courts, to make contracts, and to hold property. POLL OF TOTAL BOOK The document, which drew heavily from the Indiana Constitution, gave VOTING BLOC POLL VOTES Washington Clatsop Columbia Polk Wasco the Washington County abolitionists every reason to openly resist. The BOOK (581 County County County County County VOTES values that informed the men’s dissenting votes stemmed from their direct VOTES) (194 votes) (72 votes) (96 votes) (73 Votes) (144 votes) contact with the institution of slavery and with the struggle of free Blacks

and fugitive slaves, in which some had directly participated. James M. Stott Potential wrote a letter to the abolitionist National Era newspaper in Washington, D.C., “Abolitionist” explaining the struggle in Oregon: “I find many good Anti-Slavery men who No on constitution 59 10.2% 12.9% 13.7% 19.8% 0.0% 3.4% No on slavery fear we will be beaten; but I do not think there is much danger. If we should, Yes on “Free Negros” there is enough real grit here to give them trouble; and we will keep them hot, cost what it may.” On Election Day, November 9, 1857, Henry served as clerk and his father John L. as judge in the Butte Precinct; they recorded Anti-slavery fourteen votes (30 percent cast) opposing the constitution and slavery and Anti-Black No on slavery 384 66.1% 76.3% 58.9% 67.7% 65.8% 55.2% supporting “Free negros.” These voters included the Hicklins, Denneys, Yes on constitution Tuckers, and McKays as well as Fanno, Tigard, and several others. Count- No on “Free Negroes” ing their neighbors in adjacent Beaver Dam and Cedar Creek precincts, these voters cast 16 percent of the votes in the county’s three eastern-most Pro-slavery precincts. The other available poll books for Washington County indicate 132 22.7% 10.8% 23.3% 11.5% 34.2% 40.0% Yes on slavery that the potential “abolitionist vote” — no on the Constitution, no on slavery, and no on exclusion of free Blacks — constituted roughly 13 percent of votes 48 Abstained cast countywide. 6 1.0% 0.0% 4.1% 1.0% 0.0% 1.4% The thirteen remaining, available poll books from all or portions of Clatsop, on Slavery Question Columbia, Washington, Wasco, and Polk counties record the individual votes of 5.5 percent of the estimated 10,523 statewide electorate in November 1857. THIS TABLE, compiled by the author from poll books for elections, which are held at the Oregon While not a random statewide sample, the poll books record these voters’ State Archives and Oregon Historical Society, summarizes voting blocs from available precincts. Those specific sequence of votes that, in aggregate, reveal broad voting blocs includ- precincts include: Butte, Beaver Dam, Cedar Creek, Dairy Creek, and South Tualatin in Washington ing evidence of potential abolitionist voters beyond Washington County.49 County; Astoria (partial) and Clatsop in Clatsop County; Union, Rainier, Oak Point, and Scappose in Columbia County; Douglas in Polk County; and Wasco County's only county wide precinct, which We know that the actual statewide abolitionist vote was less than the included all portions of the Territory east of the Cascades. Sources available in note 49. 10.2 percent suggested by the summary of available poll books shown in the table on the previous page. First, a disproportional number of these poll book votes (62 percent) are from Washington, Clatsop, and Columbia counties, which tended to vote against the constitution and against the importantly, we cannot assume that all those who cast the potential “aboli- exclusion of free Blacks at higher rates than did voters statewide. More tionist vote” shared the sentiments of abolitionists. Certainly, many did not. voters in these three counties opposed the constitution (47.5 percent) and Washington County Constitutional Convention delegate Levi Andersen, slavery (84.2 percent) and supported free Blacks (18.6 percent) than voters for example, was a former Know-Nothing who became a Republican and statewide (73.6 percent, 30.4 percent, and 10.3 percent, respectively). More voted with his abolitionist neighbors, but he likely would have recoiled at

452 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 453 OHS Research Library, neg. no.003255 being identified as one.50 Baptist merchant Josiah Failing arrived from New County abolitionists were not the only York with his family in 1851 and briefly served as Portland mayor in1853 and Oregonians who agreed. 1854. He also cast the abolitionist vote but, according to a biographer, was County precinct abstracts reveal not “an abolitionist in the sense of laying violent hands upon an institution, the geographic variability obscured by recognized by the Constitution of the United States.”51 aggregate statewide election returns. Many anti-Democrats opposed the proposed constitution due to Oregon’s Combined with additional information, small population, concerns over taxation, or the Democrats’ domination of they point to pockets of abolitionist the convention. Some voted for “Free Negros” in alignment with Northern resistance. The Sandy precinct, encom- “free labor” ideology and commercial interests in maintaining the labor sup- passing much of east Multnomah County, ply for marine trade and urban development, especially in Portland and on for example, was one of several outlier the lower Columbia River.52 Most anti-slavery voters were indifferent or even precincts in the 1857 referendum. That averse to the moral arguments about the plight of Blacks, enslaved or free. precinct’s thirty-four voters registered Oregonian editor Thomas Dryer spoke for many of these voters when he strong opposition to the constitution (44.8 announced, “While we oppose slavery, we deny being an abolitionist in the percent) and slavery (94.1 percent), and modern sense. We claim to be a ‘free white man over the age of 21 years,’ unusually high support for “Free Negros” and therefore entitled by the constitution of our country, to all the rights and (32.4 percent), at least in comparison to privileges of freemen.”53 statewide returns (30.4 percent, 73.6 per- Nevertheless, first-hand observers alluded to a separate and distinct aboli- cent, and 10.3 percent, respectively). The tionist vote within the electorate. In recounting the dominant Know-Nothing and Sandy precinct was the home of Henry TIMOTHY W. DAVENPORT came from a Whig factions of the nascent Republican Party, Timothy W. Davenport specifi- Hicklin’s cousin Felix G. Hicklin, James family of abolitionists active in the Illinois cally recalled that there were also “many members of the Freesoil, abolition M. Stott (Felix’s father-in-law), and their underground railroad. He became active in and temperance parties, who could not be rallied under any declaration in wives, Sarah J. Stott Hicklin and Elizabeth antislavery politics in Oregon after settling opposition to their principles, but might vote in opposition to the Democracy.”54 Denney Stott. At least until 1858, Samuel near Silverton in 1852. Near the end of his Even as Bush rhetorically applied the “abolitionist” label to most of his anti- R. Baxter (the brother of William T. Baxter) life, in 1908, he wrote two lengthy essays Democrat opponents, he observed that the moralistic anti-slavery voters whom also lived and owned land in the precinct. for the Oregon Historical Society Quarterly he associated with the “negro-monomaniacs” amounted to no more than 500 58 All these individuals and their families on antislavery efforts in the 1850s and voters in Oregon.55 Using available poll books to conservatively estimate the had the same connection to abolitionist specifically recollected that “the colored brother had few defenders” in the fight. potential abolitionist vote against the constitution, slavery, and Black exclu- agitation in southeast Indiana’s Jennings sion suggests that Bush’s approximation may have been close to the mark.56 and Jefferson counties before coming At the national level, the Oregon Constitution remained controversial west with their Washington County relatives.59 among abolitionists, even after voters proposed to enter the Union as a free Across the state, there were almost two-dozen other outlier precincts state. As historian Eric Foner notes, debate over the Oregon Constitution was where the votes against the constitution, against slavery, and in favor of free the only point before the Civil War when the rights of free Blacks became Blacks were higher than the statewide returns. One of the more extreme “the subject of prolonged discussion in Congress.” The abolitionist wing of outliers was in notoriously pro-slavery southern Oregon. The seventeen vot- the Republican Party explicitly rejected Oregon statehood because of the ers in Jackson County’s “Mansinita” precinct, near modern-day Central Point, constitution’s severe racism. Senator Henry Wilson (MA) called it “unconsti- voted 85 percent against the constitution, 100 percent against slavery, and 40 tutional, inhumane, and unchristian.” Representative Nehemiah Abbot (ME) percent against Black exclusion. Such outlier precincts tended to be smaller, declared: “You may have to go back to the earliest monuments of the human suggesting the strong influence of a few individuals. Bourke and DeBats race . . . you may search the journals of barbarians and pirates . . . and you examined whether multiple social and cultural factors (such as occupation, will find nothing that is more infamous and inhuman than the Negro sec- wealth, age, marital status, religion, and region of origin) could explain voting tion of the Oregon Constitution.”57 Evidence indicates that the Washington behavior and party affiliation in Washington County during the late 1850s and

454 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 455 found that those factors explained little. Instead, spatially related “neighbor- Mary Anna Cooke Thompson, an abolitionist, leading woman suffragist, and hood contagion effects” associated with proximal family connections and local Oregon’s first female physician. Thompson did not come to Oregon until personal relationships best explained individual and group behavior. While just after the Civil War, but beginning in the 1840s while the entire family was abolitionist voters and their followers were always in the minority, the power still in Illinois, she became active in efforts to aid fugitive slaves and combat of the local, community-based politics that the Democrats tried to strengthen racial prejudice, and according to a biographer,

through policies such as viva voce voting could cut both ways. Abolitionists “prominent abolitionists were honored guests Calumet, 1860 likely leveraged relationships, reputations, and private peer pressure in oppos- in her Illinois home.”62 ing slavery and Oregon’s “infamous and inhumane” constitution.60 The degree to which historians have come But abolitionists such as John Beeson (1803–1889) mostly stood alone in to understand women’s instrumental role in the their particularly iconoclastic challenge to Oregon’s White supremacy. He, abolitionist movement make these relation- his wife Anna Welborn Beeson, and their son Welborn settled near Talent, ships all the more significant. Black and White Oregon, in the outlier Eden precinct in 1853. Originally from Lincolnshire, women — including leaders such as Phillis England, and arriving in New York in 1830, Beeson was radicalized in the Wheatley, the Grimke sisters, Sojourner Truth, abolitionist cause in La Salle, Illinois, where he moved in 1834. He partici- and Maria Weston Chapman — were not only pated in the UGRR and the Liberty Party before moving to southern Oregon. among the leading minds of abolitionism but In 1855, he ran unsuccessfully for the Territorial Legislature as a Republican were also its most energetic and numerous opposing slavery and supporting the rights of both Blacks and Native people. agitators and petitioners.63 We see only the Beeson had defended the Takelma, Shasta, and other Athabaskan-speaking contours of such influence in antebellum Ore- people in the Rogue Valley who faced attempted genocide during the Rogue gon. Apart from their participation in the 1846 River Indian War (1855-1856). Exposing White atrocities and injustices quickly founding of the NCABC in Jennings County, isolated Beeson from even sympathetic neighbors. Ostracism and physi- we have no evidence of abolitionist agitation, cal threats forced him to leave his family behind and flee the state in1856 . overt or covert, on the part of the four Hicklin Beeson returned to New York City, where he continued speaking and writing sisters (Susan, Margaret, Lucy, and Martha A.), RADICAL ABOLITIONIST John Beeson about the dispossession of Native people by Whites. His 1857 treatise, A Plea their mother Martha Thorn Hicklin, or their two engaged in abolitionist activities in La Salle County, Illinois, until he immigrated for the Indians, with Facts and Features from the Late War in Oregon, was aunts and cousins who settled in Clackamas to Jackson County, Oregon, in 1853. There, published and widely read, especially in abolitionist circles, and it boosted and Multnomah counties.64 Nevertheless, at Beeson earned the enmity of local Whites 61 his national reputation as a humanitarian defender of Native peoples. least some of them may have been among the for his opposition to the Rogue River War, The available precinct poll books point directly to other individuals who unnamed women honored at the 1855 Oregon which forced him to leave his family and were either abolitionists or sympathetic to the cause. Here, we find possible Free Soil Convention for their devotion to return to the East. Before departing in 1856, evidence of women influencing the votes of their husbands and brothers. “Human Liberty.” Beeson ran unsuccessfully for Territorial In small Rainer precinct located in Columbia County, for example, James C. Some of the most active abolitionists did Legislature as a Republican, advocating Gilbreath from Arkansas cast the potential abolitionist vote, but his younger not remain in Oregon. As national events for the justice of Native and Black people. brother John E. Gilbreath did not. Many things could explain this difference, hurled the country toward war over slavery, but James’s 1849 marriage to Sarah Ann Tigard, Wilson M. Tigard’s younger Henry Hicklin decided his energies were best sister, before coming west from Arkansas may have influenced his vote. In spent elsewhere. Sometime in 1859 he returned to Indiana. The 1860 Census Washington County’s Beaver Dam (Beaverton) precinct, George Cooke also listed him living back in Jefferson County, in the household of Rev. Thomas cast the abolitionist vote, alongside Thomas H. Denney, Thomas Tucker, and Craven, the leading founder of Eleutherian College.65 Like many abolitionists, several others. Born in New York in 1829, Cooke was the third son of English Henry lost faith in the peaceful extinction of slavery in the United States. On immigrants Horatio and Anna Cooke who moved their family to Chicago in September 16, 1861, in Lewisville, Indiana, he mustered into the Union Army’s 1839. Cooke arrived in Oregon and settled in eastern Washington County in 36th Regiment of the Indiana Infantry. Having given up a relatively secure and 1852, about the same time as his abolitionist neighbors. His older sister was comfortable life as an Oregon farmer, he went to fight in some of the bloodiest

456 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 457 Oregon Health & Science University Archives battles of the Civil War. These included the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga that but simply as a human response to resulted in some 34,000 casualties and where Henry himself was captured. the horrors of chattel slavery and the He was later exchanged, survived the war, and returned to Indiana.66 In 1868 severe racism of nineteenth-century he secured a land claim in Greenwood County, Kansas, under the Homestead America. As historian James Huston Act’s special provisions for Union soldiers. There he married, eventually had observes, the nineteenth century abo- two sons, and remained active in local politics and civil service until he died litionist movement emerged from the suddenly in 1873 at age forty-seven. There is no evidence Henry Hamilton first generation of Northerners who did Hicklin ever returned to Oregon.67 not grow up in a slave society but who The political marginalization of abolitionists during Oregon’s founding nevertheless experienced slavery or its partially explains their loss to historical memory. So does the fact that there effects, directly or indirectly, in or near were simply so few. Timothy W. Davenport also had abolitionist roots and the South, and from the struggle of engaged in the early organization of free Blacks and fugitive slaves to gain Oregon’s Republican Party. In recounting and expand their freedom in the North. disputes over slavery and Black exclusion Hence, the experiential interpretation in Oregon some forty-five years after, he inexorably recognizes Black people observed that, “even among those actively and their actions as essential drivers of engaged in extending the free-state abolitionism.70 cause, the inalienable rights of the negro We see this in the stories of Ore- were seldom mentioned. The colored gon abolitionists and their followers brother had few defenders.”68 We know far explored here. Slavery and the struggle MARY ANNA COOKE THOMPSON, more about those who tried to establish of Black people were not abstractions abolitionist, woman suffragist, and Oregon’s and secure Oregon for Whites in the ante- for the Hicklins, the Baxters, and their first female physician, did not arrive in Oregon OHS Research Library, Org. Lot 500, b4, 606-1 Org. Lot Library, OHS Research bellum period than we do about those few neighbors and kin, or for individuals until after the Civil War. Poll books, however, who resisted. For that reason, their stories such as Thomas S. Kendall, John Bee- indicate that her younger brother, George have special significance. son, and Mary Anna Cooke Thompson. Cooke, joined his abolitionist neighbors in Understanding the experiences of They had all witnessed the peculiar Washington County’s Beaver Dam precinct these marginal voices can help answer institution or its effects firsthand, and in opposing the Constitution, slavery, and Black exclusion during the 1857 constitutional persistent historical questions regarding many had developed direct personal referendum. the social profile of nineteenth-century relationships with African Americans, abolitionists and their followers, especially both fugitive and free. These relation- those in the American West.69 Their sto- ships and experiences, combined with their culturally and religiously inherited REV. THOMAS SIMPSON KENDALL came from a family of “Seceders,” a radical sect of ries illustrate the primary impulse behind sense of justice, helped stir these men and women into action. Scottish Presbyterians known for opposing nineteenth-century abolitionism and the Among the intended legacies of Oregon’s White supremacist founding — slavery and racial discrimination during circumstances that engender solidarity of the public policies’ attempting to exclude Black people and to annihilate, the antebellum period. In 1840, in South and dissent in the face of systems of dispossess, and marginalize Native peoples and other people of color — is Carolina, an anti-abolitionist mob assaulted oppression. Oregon’s abolitionist history the segregation of people by racial identity. This segregation has helped him, and he barely escaped alive. After supports an experiential interpretation of sustain the persistent escapist myth that Oregon and the Pacific Northwest relocating to Oregon during the late 1840s, abolitionism: that the growth and spread was and could remain aloof from the nation’s history of slavery and rac- he became active in antislavery politics and of the movement is best explained not ism. It has severed or limited the interracial relationships and experiences was among the few abolitionists involved in the 1855 Free Soil Convention and early as an impulse of capitalist reformers so important to mounting and sustaining resistance. In the process, it has organization of the Oregon Republican Party. or socially anxious religious zealots also disconnected Oregonians from people in their history who did not just

458 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 459 pontificate but took direct action to resist White supremacy. Oregonians of 2; June 15, 1858, p 2; May 25, 1859, p. 2; March 1, 16. Weekly Oregonian, July 7, 1855; Genea- Founding of the every generation have faced consequential choices about racial exclusion 1859, p. 2; David Alan Johnson, logical Material in Oregon Donation Land Claims Far West: California, Oregon and Nevada 1840- Volume I & II, Centennial Issue, Abstracted from or inclusion within their social and political milieu. Hence, better understand- 1890 (Berkeley: University of California Press, Applications, Genealogical Forum of Portland, ing these voices of dissent in Oregon’s past can enlighten and inspire the 1992), 64; Robert Johannsen, Frontier Politics 1957 & 1959; William Taylor Baxter married the related choices and actions we face today. and The Sectional Conflict: The Pacific Northwest Hicklins’ younger sister, Margaret Hicklin, in April on the Eve of the Civil War (Seattle: University 1853, Early Oregonian Database, https://sos. of Washington Press, 1955), 45–46, 203–204; oregon.gov/archives/Pages/db-early-oregonians. Barbara Mahoney, “Oregon Democracy: Asahel aspx (accessed November 29, 2019). Bush, Slavery, and the Statehood Debate,” Or- 17. On the DLCA, see also in this issue, egon Historical Quarterly 110:2 (Summer 2009): Kenneth Coleman, “‘We’ll All Start Even’: White 202–227. Even Bush eventually faced suspicions Egalitarianism and The Oregon Donation Land NOTES of “abolitionism” from pro-slavery Democratic Claim,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, 120:4 (Winter partisan Matthew Deady. 2019): 414–37. 1. Oregon Argus, July 5, 1855, p. 1; Weekly Antislavery,” American Political Thought 4:3 11. In this essay I consider “White suprem- 18. Paul Bourke and Donald DeBats, Washing- Oregonian, July 7, 1855, p. 2; A Free Soil Con- (Summer 2015), 439–54; David Brion Davis, acy” to be a racial doctrine that assumes the ton County: Politics and Community in Antebellum vention in Olympia the year before was actually “Review: Antislavery or Abolition?” Reviews in superiority of a distinct “White race” and posits America, (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins the first antislavery party gathering in the Pacific American History 1:1 (March 1973), 95–99; Laura that people of the White race should rule over University Press, 1995), 42–43; Ronald Spores, Northwest, Olympia Pioneer and Democrat, Au- L. Mitchell, “‘Matters of Justice between Man and other races or justifiably exploit the labor or land “Too Small a Place: The Removal of the Willamette gust 26, 1854; Free Soil Party Platform of 1848, Man” Northern Divines, the Bible, and the Fugitive of non-Whites. I use the term “Black exclusion” Valley Indians, 1850–1856,” American Indian Buffalo, New York, August 9–10, 1848, https:// Slave Act of 1850,” in Religion and the Antebel- in the context of nineteenth-century Oregon Quarterly 17:2 (Spring 1993): 176, 181; Melinda www.americanfreesoilparty.org/free-soil-plat- lum Debate over Slavery, John R. McKivigan and to mean the outlawing of Blacks from settling Jetté, “Kalapuya Treaty of 1855,” Oregon Ency- form-1848 (accessed November 1, 2019). The Mitchell Snay, eds, (Athens: University of Georgia and the excluding of them from equal civil and clopedia, https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/ resolutions of Oregon Free Soil Party were likely Press, 1998) 134–39. political rights. kalapuya_treaty (accessed November 17, 2019). influenced by the 1854 Appeal of the Indepen- 6. Eric Foner, Free Soil Free Labor, and Free 12. Oregon Argus, March 14, 1857; Oregon 19. William Hicklin and his wife Margaret dent Democrats in Congress to the People of the Men, 262–64; T.W. Davenport, “Slavery Question Statesman, March 31, 1857; Johnson, Founding Thorn migrated from Kentucky to Jennings Coun- United States co-authored by leading political in Oregon Part I,” Oregon Historical Quarterly of the Far West, 64; Mahoney, “Oregon Democ- ty by 1819, http://www.ingenweb.org/injennings/ abolitionists and infused with their reasoning and 9:3 (September 1908): 236–37; T.W. Davenport, racy: Asahel Bush, Slavery, and the Statehood pages/histories/memofbigger.html (accessed No- rhetoric; See Manisha Sinha, The Slaves Cause: “Slavery Question in Oregon Part II,” Oregon Debate,” 213; Berwanger, The Frontier Against vember 17, 2019); “Old Pioneer Gone,” Hillsboro A History of Abolition (New Haven & London: Historical Quarterly 9:4 (December 1908): 372. Slavery, 78–96. Independent, October 26, 1876, p. 3; Harvey K. Yale University Press, 2016), 478–90, 495–96; 7. Historian James Stewart makes this point 13. George H. Williams, “Free-State Letter,” Hines, An Illustrated History of the State of Or- Eric Foner, Free Soil Free Labor, and Free Men: more generally about anti-slavery politics in the Oregon Historical Quarterly 9:3 (September egon (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co., 1893), The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the United States in James Brewer Stewart, Holy 1908): 254–73; Johannsen, Frontier Politics and 1027–28; Pasha Palombi Smith, Hicklins Vol. 1 & 2 Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press 1970 Warriors: Abolitionism and American Slavery The Sectional Conflict, 46,77–78, 203–204. (Mabton, Wash.: D&P Enterprises, 1987), 728–30; & 1995), 73–133; H.S. Robinson “Starkweather (New York: Hill and Wang, 1976), 107. For the 14. Marta Cieslak, “Abner Hunt Francis Early Oregonian Database, https://sos.oregon. Saga — Chapter One,” H.S. Robinson Papers, one historical account of a religious abolitionist (1812?–1872)” Black Past, January 28, 2007, gov/archives/Pages/db-early-oregonians.aspx Mss 924 [hereafter H.S. Robinson Papers], box in Oregon who resisted slavery and White rac- https://www.blackpast.org/african-american- (accessed November 17, 2019). On the Baxters 2, February 7, 1952, Oregon Historical Society ism in the 1850s and 1860s, see Egbert S. Oliver, history/francis-abner-hunt-1872 (accessed No- and Denneys, see 1820 U.S. Census, Jefferson Research Library, Portland, Oregon [hereafter “Obed Dickinson and the ‘Negro Question’ in vember 29, 2019); Pacific Appeal, July 4, 1863; C. County, Indiana, and 1820 U.S. Census, Jennings OHS Research Library]. Salem’, Oregon Historical Quarterly, 92:1 (Spring Peter Ripley, ed., The Black Abolitionist Papers County, Indiana. On the Stotts, see Charles Henry 2. James L. Huston, “The Experiential Basis 1991): 4–40. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, Carey, History of Oregon Vol. 3 (Chicago: Pioneer of the Northern Antislavery Impulse,” Journal of 8. Oregon Statesman, July 14, 1855. Gen- 1991), 102–107; Keith, “Unwelcome Settlers: Black Publishing Co., 1922), 183. Southern History, 56:4 (1990): 614 dered and racist attacks on abolitionists were and Mulatto Oregon Pioneers,” 39–40; Taylor 20. Furnish, A Rosetta Stone on Slavery’s 3. Sinha, The Slave’s Cause, 1–5, 379, common in the mid nineteenth century, see Sinha, “Slaves and Freemen: Blacks in the Oregon Doorstep, x, 160, 347; Smith, Hicklins Vol. 1 & 2, 421–60, 500–85; Huston, “The Experiential The Slaves Cause, 278. Country, 1840–1860,” 164–170; Taylor, In Search 728–59; email correspondence with historian Basis,” 614. 9. “Abolitionism,” Oregon Statesman, July of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the Mark Furnish and Sheila Kell, genealogist and lo- 4. Eugene H. Berwanger, The Frontier 21, 1855, Biographical Note, Delazon Smith American West, 1528–1990, 82–83, 103. cal historian at Jennings County Library, Indiana, Against Slavery: Western Anti-Negro Prejudice Family Papers, Archives West Website, http:// 15. The driving force of black people, en- November 26, 2019. and the Slavery Extension Controversy (Urbana: archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/ slaved and free, in the interracial abolitionist 21. Furnish, A Rosetta Stone on Slavery’s University of Illinois Press, 1967), 78–96. xv62250/pdf (accessed November 1, 2019). movement is a central theme in Manisha Sinha’s Doorstep, 292–327; Jefferson County Historical 5. Manisha Sinha “Did He Die an Aboli- 10. Weekly Oregon Statesman, September 9, recent history of abolitionism, The Slave’s Cause, Society, African Americans in and around Jef- tionist? The Evolution of Abraham Lincoln’s 1856, p. 2; April 29, 1856, p. 2; March 16, 1858, p. 1–3, 299–338, 381–460. ferson County, Madison, Indiana, undated

460 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 461 reprint of early twentieth century publication, p. duty and privilege to advocate the cause of the Indiana, and transcribed from microfilm of the Acculturation of the Immigrant,” Journal of Pres- 1–40; “F.M. Merrell description of Underground oppressed,” it is not clear if any of the attendees original in the holdings of the Jennings County byterian History 46:3 (September 1968): 157–74; Railroad in Indiana,” January 1896, in Wilbur H. were Black. Minute Book of the Neil’s Creek Anti- Public Library (microfilmed in 1976 by the Indiana Furnish, A Rosetta Stone on Slavery’s Doorstep, Siebert Underground Railroad Collection, Ohio Slavery Society, 1839–1845, transcribed from the State Library). 36–37, 206, n50. History Connection [hereafter Siebert Under- original document at the Indiana State Library, 35. African Americans in and around Jef- 44. The Philanthropist, November 4, 1840; ground Railroad Collection], https://ohiomemory. (Reproduced by the History Center, Jefferson ferson County, 21–22; The Hicklin’s religious “Letter from the Rev. Thomas Kendall addressed org/digital/collection/siebert/id/11102 (accessed County Historical Society, Madison, Ind., n.d.) separatism typified that of radical Christian to the Editor of the Religious Monitor,” Religious November 29, 2019); “F.M. Merrell referral letter 27. Minute Book of the Neil’s Creek Anti- abolitionists or “come-outers” in the 1840s and Monitor and Evangelical Repository, Vol. XVII, to Wilbur H. Siebert,” January 30, 1896, Siebert Slavery Society, January 5, 1839, January 26, 1850s who broke from their Baptists, Method- 257–60; “Minutes of the Synod,” Religious Underground Railroad Collection; John H. Tib- 1839, June 15, 1839, November 28, 1840, Sep- ist, and Presbyterian churches over slavery, Monitor and Evangelical Repository, June 1840, bets, Reminiscences of Slavery Times, (typed tember 15, 1841, February 26, 1842, February 25, especially as all three denominations fractured 29–32; “Article X — Persecution for Righteous- manuscript, Historic Eleutherian College, Inc., 1843, August 31, 1844, February 22, 1845. along sectional lines. John R. McKivigan, “The ness’ Sake,” October 1840, 233–35. 2008), original manuscript dated 1888, Theodore 28. Minute Book of the Neil’s Creek Anti- Antislavery ‘Comeouter’ Sects: A Neglected 45. Weekly Oregonian, February 21, 1857; L. Steele Papers, M0263, box 2, folder 2, Indiana Slavery Society, January 5, 1839, January 26, Dimension of the Abolitionist Movement,” Civil Abolitionists in the 1840s and 1850s frequently Historical Society, Indianapolis, Indiana, https:// 1839, January 4, 1840; Stewart, Holy Warriors: War History 26:2 (June 1980): 142–60; Sinha, The invoked the Declaration of Independence to www.fordwebtech.com/tibbets-history/JohnTib- Abolitionism and American Slavery, 33–96; Slaves Cause, 256. intentionally and tacitly support racial equality betsLetter.php (accessed November 29, 2019). Sinha, The Slaves Cause, 160–227. 36. Furnish, A Rosetta Stone on Slavery’s while imparting patriotic allegiance, Sinha, The 22. James Oliver Horton, Free People of 29. Minute Book of the Neil’s Creek Anti- Doorstep, 354–55. Slaves Cause: A History of Abolition, 68, 156, 212, Color: Inside the African American Community, Slavery Society, January 26, 1839, January 4, 37. Like the others, Tigard and Fanno had 215, 233, 296–97, 404, 409, 447, 583; Stewart, (Washington, D.C., and London: Smithsonian 1840, February 1841, February 1840, September spent time in the south and witnessed Southern Holy Warriors, 32. Institute Press, 1993), 64–67. 15, 1841. Thomas Hicklin faced an anti-abolitionist slave society first hand. Fanno married the Den- 46. Johannsen, Frontier Politics and The 23. Furnish, A Rosetta Stone on Slavery’s mob when publicly lecturing on emancipation ney brothers’ sister, Rebecca Jane Denney. H.S. Sectional Conflict, 30–33; Poll Books for Elec- Doorstep, 11, 297–300, 325–27, 232, 354; Jeffer- in Lancaster Township, Jefferson County, in Au- Robinson, “Augustus Fanno” and “Starkweather tions, Washington County, Butte, Beaver Dam, son County Historical Society, African Americans gust 1841. Furnish, A Rosetta Stone on Slavery’s Saga” H.S. Robinson Papers, OHS Research South Tualatin, and Cedar Creek Precincts, June in and around Jefferson County, 4–14, 22–23; Doorstep, 320–21. Library; Charles Henry Carey, History of Oregon, 1857, Oregon State Archives, Salem Oregon. Levi Coffin,Reminiscences of Levi Coffin: The 30. Minute Book of the Neil’s Creek Anti- Vol. 3 (Chicago: The Pioneer Historical Publishing 47. Charles H. Carey, ed., The Oregon Reputed President of the Underground Railroad Slavery Society, January 5, 1839, and January Co., 1922), 183–84; Bourke and DeBats Washing- Constitution and Proceedings and Debates of (Cincinnati, Ohio: Western Tract Society, 1876; 26, 1839. ton County, 164–165, 286–87. the Constitutional Convention of 1857 (Salem: reprint, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968), 31. Minute Book of the Neil’s Creek Anti- 38. Bourke and DeBats Washington County, State Printing Department, 1926), 404–406, 427, 181–83, 227–28. See also William C. Thompson, Slavery Society, June 15, 1839, February undated, 159–165, 177–178, 286–287. 429–30; Nokes, Breaking Chains, 121–39; Amy Eleutherian Institute biographical sketch, June 1840, and September 15, 1841. The list of founding 39. Bourke and DeBats, Washington County, E. Platt, with Laura Cray, “’Out of Order’ Pasting 1923, in Siebert Underground Railroad Collection. NCASS members included both men and women 286–87; Poll Books for Elections, Washington Together the Slavery Debate in the Oregon 24. African Americans in and around Jef- but subsequent minutes only list the men. County for Butte and Beaver Dam, June 1855 and Constitution,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 120:1 ferson County, 7, 23. On different occasions both 32. Minute Book of the Neil’s Creek Anti- June 1856 elections, Oregon State Archives, Sa- (Spring 2019): 74–93. George DeBaptiste and Thomas Hicklin faced Slavery Society, January 5, 1839; Furnish, A lem, Oregon. Contrary to the account by Bourke 48. National Era, October 22, 1857, p. 3; charges of violating Indiana Black Laws before Rosetta Stone on Slavery’s Doorstep, 2–4, and DeBats, no votes by Baxter or Fanno were Poll Books for Elections, Washington County the Indiana Supreme Court were defended by the 352–408; William C. Thompson, “Eleutherian recorded in Butte poll books for this election, Butte, Beaver Dam, South Tualatin, Cedar Creek, same attorney, Stephen C. Stevens; Furnish, A Ro- Institute: A Sketch of a Unique Step in the Edu- but Wilson Tigard joined the boycott of major Dairy Creek Precincts, November 1857, Oregon setta Stone on Slavery’s Doorstep, 229–232 n90. cational History of Indiana,” Indiana Magazine candidates. State Archives, Salem Oregon; Bourke and 25. A Tour Through Indiana in 1840, The Di- of History, 19:2 (June 1923), 109–131; Madison 40. Woodward, “The Rise and Early History DeBats Washington County, 164–65, 268–73, ary of John Parson of Petersburg, Virginia, Kate Courier, (Madison, Ind.) May 8, 1900, 2. of Political Parties in Oregon Part VI,” Oregon and 284–86; Early Oregonian Database, acces- Milner Rabb ed., (New York: Robert M. McBride 33. Minute Book of the Neil’s Creek Anti- Historical Quarterly 12:2 (June 1911): 136–46, sible on the Oregon Secretary of State website: & Co., 1920), 13, 40–41, 284; The Philanthropist, Slavery Society, May 25, 1845; 1816–1851 Indiana 160–63; Davenport, “Slavery Question in Oregon https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/db-early- August 11, 1838, p. 3, September 3, 1838, p. 2, Election Returns, compiled by Dorothy Riker and Part I,” 226–30, 241; Berwanger, The Frontier oregonians.aspx (accessed November 29, 2019); September 25, 1838,p. 2–3, November 12, 1839, Gayle Thornbrough (Indianapolis: Indiana Histori- Against Slavery, 85–87; Sinha, The Slaves Carey, History of Oregon Vol. 3, 570. By 1857, p. 2, April 14, 1840, p. 2; The Liberator, May 29, cal Bureau, Indiana Historical Collections Vol. XL, Cause, 570–71. the Stotts and Baxters had moved to or likely 1840, p. 1. 1960), 282. James Hicklin received just 3 percent 41. Weekly Oregonian, November 29, 1856, voted in other precincts for which poll books 26. Furnish, A Rosetta Stone on Slavery’s of the 1,377 votes cast. p. 2. are unavailable. Doorstep, 310–311. While the NACSS had unani- 34. Minutes of the Graham Baptist Church, 42. Weekly Oregonian, February 21, 1857, 49. Poll Books for Elections, Washington, mously resolved “to lay aside all sectarian and January 1845, received by email on February p. 2. Columbia, Clatsop, and Wasco Counties, No- other prejudices and gladly receive as members, 6, 2019, from Sheila Kell genealogy and local 43. William L. Fisk, “The Associate Reformed vember 1857, Oregon State Archives, Salem whatever their creed or color, who esteem it a history librarian at the Jennings County Library, Church in the Old Northwest: A Chapter in the Oregon; Douglas Precinct, Polk County Poll

462 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 463 Book 1857, Oregon Politics Collection, Mss 55. “Slavery in Territories,” Oregon States- J. Hoffman,History of La Salle County Illinoise, 66. Furlough Papers of Henry Hicklin, 1513, box 12/16, OHS Research Library. The total man, March 31, 1857, p. 2, cited in Mahoney, (Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1906), 174. Military Collection, 1838–2010, OHS Research number of statewide voters (10,523) was de- “Oregon Democracy”, 213–16. 62. Poll Books for Elections, November Library, Mss 1514, Series C, Folder 3/31; George rived from votes tabulated in the available poll 56. The available poll books indicate that 10.2 1857, Oregon State Archives, Salem Oregon; Hazzard, Hazzard’s History of Henry County, books, precinct abstracts, and county abstracts percent of voters cast the “potential abolitionist “Mary Anna Thompson, MD” in Joseph Gaston, 1822–1906, (New Castle, Ind.: George Hazzard correcting for errors in reporting precinct votes vote,” against the Constitution, against slavery, Portland, Oregon, Its History and Builders, Vol. author and publisher, 1906), 328; William Grose, in Linn, Yamhill, and Wasco Counties. This total and for “Free Negros.” Applying this percentage 2 (Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1911), The Story of the Marches, Battles and Incidents includes a conservative estimate of abstentions directly to the 10,523 voters statewide, gives 734–37; “Mr. and Mrs. Horatio Cooke” in Trans- of the 36th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry by summing the highest vote totals of the three 1,073 potential abolitionist votes. However voters actions of the Twenty-Second Annual Reunion (New Castle, Ind.: The Courier Company Press, referendum components (Constitution, Slavery, only cast 1,081 votes statewide for “Free Negros” of the Oregon Pioneer Association for 1894 1891) 21, 179–89; “The State Sabbath School Con- “Free Negros) at the most local, disaggregated and the available poll books also indicate that (Portland, Ore.: George H. Himes and Company, vention – Second Day,” Evansville Daily Journal level possible. This also allowed the calculation only about 60 percent of voters who supported 1895), 63–66; H.K. Hines, An Illustrated History (Evansville, Indiana), Saturday, June 1865; of an abstention rates for the three component “Free Negros” also voted against slavery and the of the State Oregon (Chicago: Lewis Publishing 67.”Greenwood County,” Leavenworth votes. The highest rate of abstention by far Constitution, in part because some pro-slavery Company, 1893), 999–1,000; Early Oregonian Times (Kansas), November 11, 1869, p. 2; U.S. was for the vote on “Free Negros.” Roughly 8 voters also supported “Free Negros.” If we apply Database, accessible on the Oregon Secretary Census 1870, Janesville Township, Greenwood percent of statewide voters abstained on the this latter percentage, 60 percent, directly to total of State website: https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/ County, Kansas, p. 2; Kansas Territorial Mar- “Free Negro” vote. This abstention rate ranged who voted for “Free Negros” statewide (1,081), Pages/db-early-oregonians.aspx. Locating ad- riages, Records of Coffey County District Court, from 1.5 percent in Curry County to 13 percent we get an estimated 649 voters statewide (6.1 ditional poll books from November 1857 refer- 1859–1984, Unit ID 216809, Book A, p. 65, in Multnomah County. percent) who cast the potential abolitionist vote. endum would be invaluable for further research. Kansas Historical Society; “Commissioners Pro- 50. Bourke and DeBats, Washington County, What percentage of this number were Bush’s 63. On women’s leadership in abolitionism, ceedings,” The Eureka Herald and Greenwood 219; Poll Books for Elections, Washington, County, “negro-monomaniacs,” genuine abolitionists or see Sinha, The Slaves Cause, 1–5, 130–59, 195– County Republican (Kansas), January 26, 1871, November 1857, Oregon State Archives, Salem their followers is difficult to say 227, 266–338, 398–99; Julie Roy Jeffery, Great p. 4, April 13, 1871, p. 3, and July 27, 1871, p. 1; Oregon. 57. Quoted from Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in H.H. Hicklin, Kansas Wills and Probate Records, 51. Failing, whose “political views were a Free Men, 288–90. the Antislavery Movement (Chapel Hill: University 1803–1987, Greenwood, Kansas, Case Number matter first of reason and then of faith,” appar- 58. Election Returns 1844–1859, Oregon of North Carolina Press, 1998); Daniel Carpenter 198, ancestry.com. ently opposed the Constitution due to the small State Archives, Salem, Oregon; U.S. Census 1860, and Colin D.Moore, “When Canvassers Became 68. Davenport, “Slavery Question in Oregon size of Oregon’s population, Joseph Gaston, Sandy Precinct, Multnomah County, Oregon, 96- Activist: Antislavery Petitioning and the Political Part II,” 372; Davenport, “ Slavery Question in Or- Portland, Oregon, Its History and Builders, Vol. 2, 97. “F.G. Hicklin,” “James M. Stott,” and “Samuel mobilization of American Women,” American Politi- egon Part I,” 236–37; “Hon. Timothy Woodbridge (Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1911), 55–57; R. Baxter,” in Portrait and Biographical Record of cal Science Review 108:3 (August 2014): 479–98. Davenport,” Portrait and biographical record of Failing also signed an 1851 petition advocating Portland and Vicinity, Oregon (Chicago: Chapman 64. Jane Hicklin, John L. Hicklin’s younger the Willamette Valley, Oregon, 942–44; Histori- the repeal of the Territorial Black exclusion law Publishing Co., 1903), 649–50, 676–77 sister, married Hugh Gordon also from Jennings cal note, Davenport Family Papers, University when it threatened the removal of Black mer- 59. H.S. Robinson, “Starkweather Saga, County, Indiana before moving to Clackamas of Oregon Special Collections and University chant and abolitionist Abner H. Francis and his Chapter Nine” H.S. Robinson Papers, OHS Re- County: U.S. Census 1860, Upper Mollala Pre- Archives, http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ brother. Provisional and Territorial Governments search Library; Carey, History of Oregon Vol. 3, cinct, page 175: H.S. Robinson, “Starkweather ark:/80444/xv88243/pdf (accessed November Papers, 1841–1859, Microfilm File 621, OHS Re- 183–84; Furnish, A Rosetta Stone on Slavery’s Saga” H.S. Robinson Papers, OHS Research 29, 2019). search Library. Doorstep, 243–339. Library; Felix Hicklin’s older sister Emily Marga- 69. Robert R. Dykstra, “Review of The Fron- 52. Coleman, Dangerous Subjects, 155–56; 60. County Precinct Abstracts, November ret Hicklin married Benjamin Hall and settled in tier Against Slavery: Western Anti-Negro Preju- Berwanger, The Frontier Against Slavery, 89–90. 1857 Election, Oregon State Archives, Salem, the Sandy Precinct with her brother and James dice and the Slavery Extension Controversy,” Civil 53. Johnson, Founding of the Far West, 64, Oregon; Bourke and DeBats, Washington County, M. Stott: “F.G. Hicklin” and “James M. Stott” War History, Vol. 14, No 2, Kent State University, 404, note 83, citing Oregonian June 27, 1857. 177–78, 211–95; Davenport, “Slavery Question in Portrait and biographical record of Portland and June 1968. Edward Magdol, The Antislavery Rank 54. Davenport, “Slavery Question in Oregon Oregon Part I,” 251–52. vicinity, Oregon (Chicago: Chapman Publishing and File: A Social Profile of the Abolitionists’ Con- Part I,” 219; Davenport, “Slavery Question in Or- 61. John Beeson, The Plea for the Indian, with Co., 1903), 676–77; Early Oregonian Database, stituency (New York, Greenwood Press, 1986). egon Part II,” 316. Davenport also notes that in Facts and Features from the Late War in Oregon, https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/db-early- 70. Huston, “The Experiential,” 609–640; Rogue Valley “all but the radicals” defended free (New York: John Beeson, 1859), 83; Jan Wright, oregonians.aspx (accessed November 29, 2019). James L. Huston, “Abolitionists, Political Econo- Blacks although none of them were up to the task Oregon Outcast: Jonhn Beeson’s Struggle for 65. Henry Hicklin last appeared on the mists, and Capitalism,” Journal of the Early of publicly awakening “men to the generous sym- Justice for the Indians, 1853–1889, (Copyright Jan Washington County Tax Assessment Roles in 1859. Republic, 20:3 (2000): 487–521; Manisha Sinha, pathies of equal fraternity.” This may have been a Wright, 2018) 47–69; Nathan Douthit, Uncertain Oregon Territorial and Provisional Government Pa- “The Problem of Abolition in the Age of Capital- reference to John Beeson’s impolitic espousal of Encounters: Indians and Whites at Peace and pers, Microfilm file 12279C, OHS Research Library. ism,” American Historical Review, 124:1 (February Black and Native American rights during his 1855 War in Southern Oregon, 1820s–1860s (Corvallis, See also U.S. Census 1860, Lancaster Township, 2019): 144–63; Sinha, The Slaves Cause, 1–3, candidacy for the Territorial Legislature. Oregon State University Press, 2002), 110, 130; U. Jefferson County, Indiana, p. 168. 299–338, 381–460

464 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Labbe, The Colored Brother’s Few Defenders 465