Meanwhile, Down on the Farm:African-American Settlement

Stephen A. Vincent. Southern Seed, Northern Soil: African-American Farm Communities in the Midwest, 1765-1900. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. xvii + 224 pp. $35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-253-33577-7. Reviewed by G. C. Waldrep Published on H-Indiana (July, 2000) In 1909, when W.E.B. DuBois announced in DuBois's excellent leads-- have ignored the exis‐ his Colored American Magazine that "Throughout tence of these communities, which dotted the the United States there are numbers of communi‐ length and breadth of the Old Northwest but ties of black folk, segregated, more or less autono‐ which were concentrated in southern Ohio and mous, going their quiet way unknown of most of southern and central Indiana. The largest--in Cass the surrounding world," most of his readers were County, Michigan--was the subject of a deeply probably perplexed. The Great Migration had flawed (and fagrantly ahistorical) sociological been the principle fact of African- American life study some years ago; more recently, in 1993, Xe‐ in the Old Northwestern states (Ohio, Indiana, Illi‐ nia McCord published a much more useful over‐ nois, Michigan, and Wisconsin) for decades, the view of the Indiana settlements in an attempt to often exclusive model upon which conceptions of promote further historical inquiry. Led by Coy Black life in the North were based. As DuBois Robbins, a number of local historians and geneal‐ went on to note, however, "there are in Ohio and ogists have attempted since the early 1990s to ex‐ Indiana perhaps a dozen such communities, ro‐ cavate and publish records relating to rural mantic in history and rich in social lessons." African-American communities in Indiana. But Though DuBois did not elaborate as to how the Stephen Vincent's book is the frst extended schol‐ histories of these communities were "romantic" or arly treatment of any such community in the precisely what "social lessons" they might pro‐ ninety-three years since DuBois frst drew read‐ vide, he was at least aware of their existence. Had ers' attentions to them. Meticulously researched, he been writing ffty years earlier, he could have Vincent's account at long last begins to fll a glar‐ mentioned four or more times as many rural "col‐ ing lacuna in both African-American history and ored" enclaves in the region. the story of the American Midwest more general‐ Ironically, contemporary scholars of African- ly. American history--usually so quick to pick up H-Net Reviews Vincent grew up near one such settlement-- of community at each location" (p.67). Perhaps. the Roberts Settlement in Hamilton County, Indi‐ What is sure is that the vicissitudes of the late ana--and began researching its history in his un‐ nineteenth century--including subdivision of ex‐ dergraduate days. His book--a substantially ex‐ isting land holdings, escalating racial tension (in‐ panded revision of his Ph.D. dissertation--chroni‐ cluding discriminatory legislation), fnancial pan‐ cles not only the Roberts Settlement but also its ics and pressures on small-scale farming, the lure parent community, the so- called Beech Settle‐ of the region's growing cities, and increased ties ment of Rush County. "The Beech," as it was with African-Americans of other backgrounds and known, was established in the late 1820s by "free communities--steadily ate away at both settle‐ people of color" from the border counties of east‐ ments' insular success. Like most mixed-race and ern North Carolina and Virginia: mostly mixed- African- American communities in the rural race families with some property and social American Midwest, both communities were shells stature, both of which they found to be under in‐ of their former selves by 1900. creasing attack during the 1820s and 1830s. The But they were not quite dead. One of the Roberts and Jeffries families were among hun‐ more intriguing aspects of the settlements' histo‐ dreds that sought new homes in the Midwest dur‐ ries, as chronicled by Vincent, are the homecom‐ ing these years. Although some of these migrants ings celebrations, which began at the Beech in came to Indiana as individuals or individual fami‐ 1904 and at the Roberts Settlement (where the de‐ lies, most--like the Robertses and Jeffrieses--reset‐ cline was slower) in 1924. As Vincent notes, these tled in clusters made up of extended kinship net‐ homecomings were not only reunions and social works. They arrived in Indiana with enough mon‐ events; they were also celebrations of the ideal ey to buy land, which, they understood, was the the settlements had supposedly embodied, in key to their economic and social survival. At the terms of both prosperity and place. The home‐ peak of their development and prosperity, circa comings--which continue to this day--amounted to 1870, the two communities included 86 families, annual, ongoing exercises in creating some kind hundreds of residents, schools and churches, and of usable, relevant past. Like all such efforts, these combined land ownership exceeding 4000 acres. exercises involved the promotion and embroidery Vincent's discussion of the communities' his‐ of some aspects of the communities' histories, the tories from the frontier period through maturity elision or suppression of others. Vincent's discus‐ and decline is drawn--especially in the early sion of these dynamics is tentative--occupying a years--from disparate, fragmentary sources. His dozen or so of the book's fnal pages--but evoca‐ ability to contextualize the documented activities tive nevertheless, easily one of the most fascinat‐ of community members (buying a particular ing sections and a fine conclusion for the whole. farm, marrying a particular partner) makes up in The most obvious value of Vincent's study is large part for the lack of a richer evidential basis. the considerable light it sheds not only on the in‐ He is particularly good at sorting through the tertwined histories of the Roberts and Beech Set‐ myriad and often contradictory dynamics of the tlements, but on the general phenomenon of non‐ pioneer generation's relations with local white white rural settlements in the Midwest. As Vin‐ Quakers. Less convincing are his discussions of in‐ cent notes, the families in both settlements were ternal divisions within the communities, which he related to residents of many similar communities, documents in terms of class, background, tenure, and so his narrative at various points widens out racial status, and religion but dismisses as "more to cover African-American and mixed- race peo‐ than offset...by other factors which tended to en‐ ples in the region more generally. courage the development of a new, shared sense 2 H-Net Reviews Vincent's book is also exemplary in its ability ing all African Americans, they were also percep‐ to synthesize "story"--that is, a readable narrative tibly different from the vast majority of other framework--from sparse sources. The Robertses, blacks. their kin and neighbors were middling people, the For the most part the families that founded kind least visible in early American records. They these communities had been free for generations, did not leave diaries; their daily lives were not, even for centuries, prior to the move to Indiana; for the most part, chronicled in local newspapers. many had no tradition of bondage whatsoever. As Their ability to "blend in" with their surround‐ Vincent goes on to note, "their ancestry in many ings, both in North Carolina and in Indiana, was instances was decidedly multi-racial than pre‐ often an important key to their very survival. In dominately African. Some, in fact, had very little fact what sets the Roberts Settlement apart from African ancestry at all." Vincent is certainly right so many others, for the professional historian, is in noting--again, as early as his introduction-- that the existence of a cache of letters written by com‐ despite this racial complexity, local whites "nor‐ munity members dating back to the migrations of mally refused to accept them on anything ap‐ the late 1820s. The existence of these letters is a proaching equal footing," preferring to think of huge boost to Vincent, but they do serve to ob‐ them as "colored" or "mulatto" which, as time scure somewhat the real achievement of this went on, meant "Black." "These descriptive labels book, in terms of the historian's craft. Teasing out shifted from place to place but, in keeping with what we like to think of as "history" from obscure the broader trends of American race relations, tax and court records, inferring motives and generally gave increasing emphasis over time to glossing recondite evidence--none of this is new to the African element in Beech and Roberts resi‐ American social historians of the early 21st centu‐ dents' identity" (p. xvii). ry. Seeing it done so well, however, remains an But not always across the region, and not unusual treat. even always within these two particular settle‐ The most complex question raised by Vin‐ ments. As Vincent shows in his excellent gallery of cent's book, however, hovers at the margins of his photographs, community residents varied--in story: the question of what it meant for mixed- terms of appearance--from distinctly "African- race families of long standing in the Old South to American" to virtually white. Although they were remake their lives in Indiana as African-Ameri‐ "an African-descended people," this did not neces‐ cans. As Vincent notes in his introduction, by the sarily make them "African-American," in terms of second half of the nineteenth century inhabitants their own identities or those white neighbors at‐ of the Roberts Settlement clearly identified as tempted to foist upon them. The Jeffries family, Black: young men enrolled for military service in the principal landowning clan of the Beech Settle‐ the U.S.

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