VA OHIO VALLEY J.Blaine Hudson Vice Chairs Judith K.Stein,M.D. HISTORY STAFF University ofLouisville Otto Budig Steven Steinman lane Garvey Merrie Stewart Stillpass Editors R.Douglas Hurt Dee Gettler John M.Tew,Jr.,M.D. Christopher Phillips Purdue University Robert Sullivan James L.Turner DepartnientofHutory At Vontz,III Cincinnati James C. Klotter Treasurer University of Joey D.Williams MarkJ.Hauser Georgetown College Gregory Wolf A.Glenn Crothers Department ofHistory Bruce Levine Secretary THE FILSON University ofLouisville Uniwisity ofIllinois Martine R. Dunn at HISTORICAL Director GfResearch Urbana-Champaign SOCIETY BOARD OF Fbe Fihon Historical Society President and CEO DIRECTORS Harry N. Scheiber Douglass W McDooald Managing Editors UitioersityCalifoi' < nia at President Erin Clephas Berkeley Vice President of 7be Filson Historical Society Museums Orme Wilson,III Steven M. Stowe Tonya M.Matthews Ruby Rogers Indiana University Secretary Cincinnati Mt,3ftim Center David Bohl Margaret Roger D.Tate Cynthia Booth Barr Kulp EditorialAssistant Somerset Community College Stephanie Byrd Treasurer Brian Gebhat John E Cassidy J Walker Stites,m Department ofHistory Joe W.Trotter,Jr. David Davis Edwad D. Diller University ofCincit:,tati Carnegie Mellon University David L.Armstrong Deanna Donnelly J.McCauley Brown Editorial Board Altina Walier James Ellerhorst S.Gordon Dabney Stephen Aron University of Connecticut David E.Foxx Louise Farnsley Gardner Univer:ity ofCatifornia at Richard J.Hidy Holly Gathright LosAngeles CINCINNATI Francine S. Hiltz A.Stewart Lussig, MUSEUM CENTER Ronald A. Koetters 7homas T Noland,Jr. Joan E.Cashin BOARD OF Gary Z.Lindgren Anne Brewer Ogden Obio State Univmity TRUSTEES Kenneth W.Lowe H. Powell Starks Shenan R Murphy Ellen T.Eslinger Chair Robert W.Olson John R Stern William M. Street D¢Paul University Keith Harrison Ihomas Quinn Scott Robertson CraigT.Friend Past Chair Yvonne Robertson Director North Carolina State Uni·uersity George Vincent Lois Rosenthal Mark V.Wetherington
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Tbe Filson
CFNC1MNIT1 MUSEUM CENTER Historical Society AT UNION TERMINAL
0021-282 OHIO
VALLEY
HISTORY
Volume 8, Number 4, IVinter 2008
AJournal of the History and Culture of the Ohio Valley and the Upper South, published in Cincitin·ati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucki, by Cincinnati Museum Center and Ihe' Filson I listorical Society. Contents
Essays 1 A Commercial Embassy in the Old Northwest
ibe US.Indian Trading Factory at Fort Wayne, 1803-1812
David A. Nichols
17 Beyond Cane Ridge Ibe Great" Western Rerivals"in Louisville and Cincinnati,1828-1845
Bridget Ford
38 Searching for Slavery Fugitive Slaves in tbe Obio River Valley Borderland, 1830-1860
Matthew Salafia
Collections 64 Medical History at The Filson Essays Historical Society Collections Essay
James J. Holmberg
70 Records of the Cincinnati Union Terminal Company Collections Essay Christine Engels
Book 75 Reviews
Announcements 8-5
On the cover: Methodist Camp-Meeting in Kentucky at Night. From Henry Cas\Na\\,America and the American Church London: Gilbert and Rivington,1839).CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER Contributors
David A. Nichols is an assistant professor of history at Indiana State University. He is the author of Red Gentlemen and White Savages:Indians, Federalists, and the Search for Order on tbe American Frontier,published by the University Press of Virgini·a in 2008.
Bridget Ford is an assistant professor ofhistory at California State University, East Bay. Her Ph.D. dissertation, completed in 2002 at the University of California, Davis, is entitled American" Heartland: The Sentimentalization of Religion and Race Relations in Cincinnati and Louisville, 1820-1860."
Matthew A. Salafia is a doctoral student at the University of Notre Dame where he will receive his Ph.D. in May 2009. His broad research interests encompass nineteenth-century America with special emphases on slavery, borderlands, and the Ohio River Valley. A Commercial Embassy in the Old Northwest
Ibe U.S.Indian Trading Factory at Fort Wayne, 1803-1812
David A. Nichols
etween 1795 and 1822, the
American federal Mt LJgovernment conducted ati ambitious experi- ment in public enterprise: it created and 4 ' operated i: network of publicly funded K. 4* * fur-trading posts on the frontiers of , ,k< '. 41. . the United States. The posts, or fac- tories as they were called, purchased Native Americans' furs at prevailing 1 ' local prices and sold them manufac- A tured goods-cloth, ironware, gunpow- 9. der, tobacco-well below the prices offered by private traders. The facto- known factors, then ries man·agers, as Si ''1. shipped the furs and pelts to coastal , »4 - seaports for sale or export. The found- ers of the factory system, in particular President George Washington, hoped e.,"*r,8.2*,MEN* that the factories would tie the Trans- 9' m.m..Winalt*« Appalachian Indians the U.S. to gov- 4„'„*#=73*4 ernment with cords of economic interest, and at the same time drive private ped- dlers ·and British Can·adian fur traders, William Henry with ofwhose conduct and motives American Harrison vignette from Indian Wars. CINCINNATI MUSEUMCENTER officials were deeply suspicious, out of business. During the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, Congress and the War Department expanded the factory system from two posts to twelve, extending from Fort Wilkinson in Georgia to Michilimackinac in the upper Great Lakes to Fort Osage on the Missouri River. The trading-house system survived the Embargo of
WINTER 2008 1 A COMMERCIAL EMBASSY IN THE OLD NORTHWEST
1807-09, during which Congress temporarily stopped all American trade with the rest of the world, and the War of 1812 though( British troops and Indian warriors destroyed some of them during the latter conflict) The last factories remained open until 1822, when private fur traders, western territorial governors, and other opponents of the system finally convinced Congress to shutter the remaining trading houses i Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, who led the charge to ter- the factory minate system, characterized the program in his memoirs as twenty-five of P ier ' years injurious operation and costly expense, 1 T' ND I ANA 1'*'.18 1 1 and claimed that it clearly dem-
4- onstrated the" unfitness of the S *,50 rte ECS,4 *** flif, j'' izz/'% federal government to carry on 5« 1 F A c all®*any system of trade " Past his- 7 41 r %,8 L r - 6/,4#torians of the factory system, 7?tt- promising experiment for the A,/ amelioration of the condition r*q:W.49 r- »D f .4* 15,,_4 + of the red but concurred ilifi man"- i : . h with Benton that the factories' unsuited undertake such to a T<.'0 Puf»442. complex commercial enterprise ilARRilki'10»01.1, 1118¢!'ANE,Off10& fAK 2 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY DAVID A. NICHOLS them understood that, fi,r Woodland Indians, tr·,ide and diplomacy were conceptually interlocked pursuits; the friendly and ritualized exchange of goods was not only a product of peace but its prerequisite as well. In 1735, an Iroquois diplomat had observed, The trade 1 and the peace we take to be one thing, atia in fact Natiz'e Americ·,ins and Europeans had established a link between commerce and alli- ance even earlier, during the period of French suzerainty in the Great Lakes and Alississippi Valley, ivhen the French Croivii subsidized the fur trade to preserve the Native American 4 * military alliances that the tr·ade sustained. Eighteenth-century Europe·ans and Anglo- belief Americans shared Native Americ·ans' that stead,·commerce and good internation.il relations reinfbreed another. Followincr one b the lead of 1\Iontesq,tieu, I)avid Hume, and Joseph Addison, American vriters, of the Revolutionary generation ·argued that trade made different peoples more hutiiane, inter- dependelit, ind peaceful, and ultimatelv (in Anthony Wayne (1745-1796).CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER Addison's words)knit " mankind together in :i mutual intercourse of good otlices. The U.S. trading factories thus grew out of a joint understanding among Indians and white Americans that com- merce was itself the best kind of diplomacy. On a more practical level, the factory system's found- ers and supporters sought to convince potentially hostile - Indian nations that the U.S. government was their friend h'*,A A and ally. Ihe factories would do so by providing Indian hunters with inexpensive goods, by advancing them credit, :, ER-,"lElI and by purchasing their furs even when those peltries were tiqi. unsaleable in American coastal cities or in Europe. The pt* 1 trading houses also served as sites for treaty councils and r» 1 T/, warehouses for the annuity goods that the War Department Chief LittleTurtle (1752-1812), paid Indian for land and to some nations in return cessions ( from E. O. Randall and Daniel to ensure their ongoing economic dependence on the U.S. Ryan, History of Ohio:The Rise and of Finally,the factors routinely extended hos- Progress an American government). State,5 vols. (New York:Century pitality Indian visitors and collected infbrmation about to History,1912).CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER their nations' activities. In short, they were embassies as well as trading posts, and the factories were useful to the U.S. government insofar as they helped it increase its influence in Indian country.4 1[he Indian factory at Fort Wayne, which the War Department began building in the spring of 1802, epitomized the diplomatic dimension of WINTER 2008 3 A COMMERCIAL EMBASSY IN THE OLD NORTHWEST the factory system. Its origin testified to its founders' desire to accommo- date Native Americans. Secretary of War Henry Dearborn chose to build a trading house at Fort Wayne on the recommendation of Miami chief Little Turtle, who during an 1802 visit to Washington City told President Jefferson that the site would be both convenient for the Northwest Indians 4 and suitably far from white settlers who might t. 4 impose on 5 !·» ' lhere them. ( were at least a dozen Indian towns within 3{ - »» -»,fifty miles of the fort, while the white settlement, j. I L nearest 4 . 7 Piqua, Ohio,was nearly eighty miles away.): The fort itself had once been a symbol of American 9'.,military might. General Anthony Wayne established it at the forks of the Maumee River in 1794, at· the end of his victorious campaign against Little Turtle's Northwest Indian confederation, near a complex of towns that had 4 r. . .. . I I Col. John Johnston (1775 1861). once served as that confederation's headquarters. However, CINCINNAT MUSEUM CENTER by 1802 Wayne was six years in his grave and the garri- son at his eponymous fort reduced to a mere fifty infantrymen, most of whom were probably inexperienced first-term recruits who spent their days in construction work and other forms of non-military labor,rather than close-order drill and musket practice. It( is likely that the War Department employed some of the soldiers at the fort to build the factory store and the factor' s residence.) Rather than fearing Fort Wayne, the region's Indians regularly came to it to collect the annuities that the United States had promised them in the Treaty of Greenville 1795).( Fort Wayne was already becoming as much a diplomatic site as a military one: The trading post's first factor, John Johnston, arrived at Fort Wayne with his personal effects and the first consignment of trading goods in late 1802. Johnston was a twenty-seven-year-old Scots-Irish immigrant who in his teens had worked as a wagon driver for Anthony Wayne s army,and later as an unsuccessful shopkeeper and a law clerk. He enjoyed no more commercial success as a fur trader than as a storekeeper,at least not initially. During the Fort Wayne factory's first years of operation,Johnston did only a minimal business with Northwest Indian hunters, purchasing in 1803 a monthly average of 575 deer, raccoon, and other skins; in 1804 a monthly average of 180 skins; and in 1805 a monthly average of 135 skins, along with small amounts of corn, honey, tallow, and other produce. The factor remitted less than four thousand dollars worth of furs and other goods to the War Department between 1803 and 1805: In strictly commercial terms, the Fort Wayne trading house lagged behind its unproductive sister factory in nearby Detroit-and Secretary of War Henry Dearborn actually closed the Detroit trading house in 1805 because of low volume of business. Later that its year, Superintendent of Indian 4 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY DAVID A. NICHOLS SELECTED INDIAN PRODUCE SOLD TO THE FACTORY AT FORT WAYNE, 1803-1806 May-Dec. Alay-Sept. Jan.-Oct. July-Dec. 1803 1804 1805 1806 Bear 61 6 6 45 Beaver 7.5 0 4.5 17 Beeswax 5 6 39.5 7.85 Cat 60 12 17 47 I) eer 2213 549 432.5 1122 Fox 21 8 7 27 Mink 15 11 3 1 Moecasins 55 4 27 21 Muskrat 40 43 223 85 Otter 22 11 6 64 Raccoon 2161 256 651 1512 1 Sugar m. 4 m. 2 m. 10&lbs. 201 lbs. Mostfigures in this table represent individual furs and skins. Beaveris measured in pounds;in 1803 the factor recorded beaver purchases as individual pelts (five in all),and the author has assumed an average weight of one and a half pounds per pelt. Deerincludes doe,buck,and dressed skins. Moccasin figures are per pair. Maple sugoris measured initially by the mocock m")-(" a small birch barkbox of variable after size-and, March 1805, bythe pound. SOURCE: DAYBOOKS OF THE FORT WAYNE FACTORY. 1803- 1806, RECORDS OF THE OFFICE OF INDIAN TRADE, RG 75: 37, NA. Trade Willi·am Davy advised Secretary Dearborn to shut down the Fort Wayne house as well, and move its stores to the potentially more lucra- tive site of Michilimackinac. Dearborn refused because he disagreed with Davy's strictly financial analysis of that factory's shortcomings. Ihe' Fort Wayne factory and its factor had demonstrated their usefulness to the fed- eral and territorial governments in other ways. Between 1803 and 1805, Indiana Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison negotiated eight treaties with leaders of the Delaware, Miami, and other Northwest Indian n·ations, purch·asing from them most of the present state of Illinois and all of modern Indiana south of the east branch of White River. In return for their cessions the Indians annually received several thousand dollars, to be paid principally in blankets, calicos, gunpowder, saddles, and other manufactured goods. The factory served as a depot fbr these annuity goods, as well as a repository for gifts that the War Department paid to visiting chiefs-part of President Jefferson's policy of keeping the peace through liberalities and patronage to chiefs of influence."In addition,Fort Wayne WINTER 2008 5 A COMMERCIAL EMBASSY IN THE OLD NORTHWEST was the site of Harrison's 1803 and 1809 treaty councils with the Delawares, Miamis, Shawnees, and Potawatomis, and factor Johnston probably helped the governor with hospitality arrangements. In an indirect but important way, the Fort Wayne trading house helped advance the territorial govern- ment's diplomatic agenda: negotiating the peaceful transfer of land from the Northwest Indians to white American settlers and speculators.8 Federal officials also believed the factory might directly contribute to the acquisition of Indian land, by creating a pool of Native American debts that Governor Harrison could use to leverage land ces- sions. In the southeast, federal commissioners had per- suaded the Creeks and Cherokees to sellland in exchange 32# for the liquidation of debts owed to the factories at Fort j<*1 Wilkinson and Tellico. In 1803, President Jefferson wrote Harrison that the U.S. government would be" glad to see i**ti@**I'.1 '- the«{good and influential individuals among the[ Indians] run into debt, because we observe that when these debts William Henry Harrison (1773- get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become 1841).CINCINNATIMUSEUMCENTER willing to lop them off by a cession of lands. Harrison and Johnston would have been equally glad, but due to a lower volume of credit sales the Fort Wayne house accumulated Indian debt slowly-only 2,041 by late 1811, as compared to the eighteen thousand dollars of fac- tory debts that the Creeks and Cherokees had run up and cashed in. Ihat' 2,041 was further divided among different Indian nations, and each share was too small to induce any to sell their land. Nonetheless,Johnston and Harrison had a reasonable expectation that one day the Northwest Indians trading at Fort Wayne would follow their southern counterparts' lead: Meanwhile, Johnston, in ·addition to his duties as a factor, periodi- cally served as a spy and confidant for Governor Harrison. When in 1805 Delaware and Miami chiefs objected to several land cession treaties signed the previous year, Johnston reported to Harrison on the supposed leaders of the opposition: Miami chief Little Turtle and Little Turtle's son-in-law, U.S. agent William Wells. He claimed that both men had personally prof- ited from past land cessions and had objected to the 1804 treaties because they had not received a share of the proceeds. Harrison, who mistrusted Little Turtle and thought Wells wanted to be the grand sachem"of all the region's Indian communities, believed Johnston's interpretation of the event. Johnston,for his part,viewed Wells as a traveler in" the crooked miry paths of intrigue and deception. In 1809,in recognition of both Johnston's help to him and the factor's knowledge of the regional Indian population, Governor Harrison helped Johnston succeed Wells as federal agent to the Miami Indians, responsible for monitoring white travelers and traders in Miami territory and helping to resolve Indian-white disputes. Essentially, Johnston had become both the U.S. government's trading representative 6 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY DAVID A. NICHOLS and its diplomatic consul to the Miami nation. Johnston( served both as factor agent and until 1811, and as agent to the Miamis and Wyandots until the 18405.)10 Perhaps more important, Johnston kept Governor H·arrison and the War Department apprised of the activities of British fur traders in north- ern Indiana. Harrison and Secretary Dearborn viewed the Fort Wayne factory not merely as a commercial embassy,but ·also as an " advanced post in a commercial war with British Can·adian traders, whom Jay's Treaty ·allowed to operate within the United States and whom American officials believed were obstructing their efforts to turn the Northwest Indians into American clients. Five British Canadian trad- ers were in business at Fort Wayne when Johnston first arrived there, and they took p·ains, when talking with their Indi·an trading partners, to denigrate the factory and draw attention to their own competitive advantages such( Catahecassa (Black Hoof) better-quality goods and their knowledge of native as own 1717-1831),Shawnee chief, languages).At least one British trader decided to treat Thomas L.McKenney and Ha\\,History of the Indian the United States' factory as an enemy outpost in his terri_ TribesJamesof North American ... for April 1803, shortly before the factory opened, tory, in 3 vols. (Philadelphia: D.Rice and a Northwest Indian man in this trader's employ burned AN. Hart,1855),1:323. THEFILSONHISTORICALSOCIETY both the factory and Johnston's house. The governor par- doned both men ·at the request of the Indian's relatives, but the att·ack, which inflicted over two thousand dollars in damages, vividly demonstrated to American officials British traders viewed the factories the extent to which as threat their 1 a to interests: It was thus with some enthusiasm that Johnston kept Harrison apprised of both the activities and the eco- of British traders. Some of the several hun- nomic woes dred Canadian fur traders operating within the United Metea (d. 1827),Potawatomie States had predicted in 1802 that the United States' fac- chief,near Fort Wayne,Indiana, tories lit Fort Wayne and Detroit, and the inexpensive from Thomas L. McKenney and james Ha\\,History ofthe Indian goods those factories' shelves, would them. They on ruin Tribes of North American ... suffered blow 1803 when Britain and a more serious in 3 vols. (Philadelphia: D. Rice and A. N. Hart, 1855),2:59. France returned to Skyrocketing Atlantic shipping war. THEFILSONHISTORICALSOCIETY and insurance costs and the wartime collapse of the lux- ury trade in Europe dropped the bottom out of the Montreal and London fur markets. In 1804, Johnston observed that bearskins, for example, had fallen from twenty-eight to four dollars since news of the war reached Canada. Two years later, the factor gleefully reported that indebtedness, an overabundance of private competitors, and the continued depression of the European markets had ruined his British competitors. Many " of them WINTER 2008 7 A COMMERCIAL EMBASSY IN THE OLD NORTHWEST are on the eve ofbankruptcy and will be unable to prosecute the trade much longer,"he predicted.12 As his foreign rivals dropped out of the business or moved to new fur- trading territories,and as local Indians found fewer purchasers for their furs and other produce,Johnston observed a sharp increase in peltry sales to his factory. Fur sales averaged 487 per month during the second half of 1806. 11% In 1807,Johnston bought record 1,400 deerskins, and in 1 a 41 1808, the factory shipped 11,$ 331 worth ofpeltry,includ- dI ing 1,024 cat, fox, fisher, and muskrat pelts, 1,140 deer- Il-14 4#* skins, and a staggering 26,839 raccoon skins. Raccoons( 1'1* )53{ thrived in the southern Great Lakes region and hatters 1 and coat-makers particularly prized the dark, thick pelts of those living in central Indiana.)Sales fell off somewhat i between 1809 and 1811, but Johnston's shipments to the 9*"I"* ' 1 Indian-- superintendent' office in Georgetown still Quatawapea (Colonel Lewis) s were much larger than his early remittances. Over this three- d.1826),Shawnee chief, Thomas L. McKenneyand year period he shipped 16,$ 320 worth of commodities to TribesJamesofHall,NorthHistoryAmericanofthe ndian/ ... Georgetown, including 11,282 raccoon skins, 2,882 deer- 3 vols. Philadelphia:( D.Rice skins, and 3,664 muskrat pelts. Overall, between 1807 and A. N. Hart, 1855),2:55. and 1811 the Fort Wayne Indian trading house increased THEFILSONHISTORICALSOCIETY its net worth by $10,502, the largest gain of any of the ten 4@1 factories then in operation, That the factory had become a s «}going concern was thanks in part to the failure of private 1 lifl traders who lacked its public subsidies and the patronage j @1 1 1] of a territorial governor.13 The Fort Wayne factory's profitability depended even i more, of course, on continued demand for its produce. Here Johnston was fortunate that his principal receipts i werebeaversmallpelts- hatters'"rather thanfurs"-deerskins,raccoon,whichmuskrat,the factoriesfox, andin Payta Kootha (Captain Reed), Shawnee chief,from Thomas the southern United States purchased by the tens ofthou- McKenneyand Hall, L. James sands. Deerskins were principally an export commodity, History ofthe Indian Tribes for foreign of North American3 ...VOIS. which demand was falling in the early nine- Philadelphia: D.Rice and A. N. teenth century, and they tended to command low prices Hart, 1855),1: 249. THE HLSON when they rotting the docks in HISTORICALSOCIETY overseas- were not on America,as during the federal Embargo of 1807-09. Fort Wayne's furs and pelts,by contrast,fed a large domestic market for hatters furs-large enough that in 1805 forty American hatters had complained that the factories' superintendent, William Davy, was barring them from his office's fur auctions and sales, and demanded that Congress open these sales to them. By( 1809, the domestic demand for small furs had so out- stripped the supply that the superintendent of Indian trade,John Mason, had to ration them.)14 8 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY DAVID A. NICHOLS Johnston was also fortunate that most of his remittances to Philadelphia and Georgetown were light in weight, as transportation costs fom the Atlantic seaboard to Fort Wayne could be quite high. Manufactured goods sent fom eastern cities to the Fort Wayne factory went first by sailing ship to Albany a( relatively inexpensive voyage),then by wagon to Schenectady, and then by Durham boat to Buffalo,vi·,1 the Mohawk River,Lake Oneida, Lake Ontario, and the Niagara portage. Despite the substanti·al improve- ments that New York's Western Inland Lock Navigation Company had made to the Mohawk-Oneida corridor, freight costs from Alb·any to Buffalo still totaled nearly seventy dollars per ton, or about sixteen cents per ton-mile, in 1809. Transport by 1·ake schooner from Buffalo to Detroit was cheaper-only two dollars per barrel probably( about twenty to forty dollars per ton, or approximately seven to thirteen cents per ton-mile)- but transport costs rose considerably as laborers moved cargo by boat and wagon across Lake Eric and up the Maumee River at a cost of sixty dol- lars per ton. Totaling approximately one hundred and fifty dollars per ton, shipping costs from Albany to Fort Wayne exceeded those on some of the Office of Indian Trade's longest supply routes, like the Philadelphia to Chickasaw Bluffs route one( hundred and thirty-five dollars per ton)or the Georgetown to Fort Madison route one( hundred and forty dollars per ton). It was therefore all to the good, wrote Superintendent of Indian Trade John Mason, that Fort Wayne's returns consisted 1·argely of smaller furs, drafts on the War Department payment( for annuity goods which that depart- ment took from the factory's shelves),and cash, the last of-which the factory received from a few private traders and a few of its Indian customers.15 Johnston's Native American customers left no written records of their own, so it is not easy to determine what they thought of the factory except( in the case of the aforementioned arsonist).However, by 1806 or 1807 local Indians had become regular consumers of the trading house's merchandise. Factor Johnston's annual orders for manufactured goods indicate which of his wares were in greatest demand: rifles, rifle powder nearly( a ton ordered between 1808 and 1812),lead some( ofwhich Johnston bought from Illinois traders),scalping knives 936( ordered between 1808 and 1812),needles, thimbles, thread, gray wampum, saddles, bridles, and twist tobacco by the barrel. Johnston also ordered bar iron and German steel for the fort's black- smith, whom his Indian customers visited iii order to repair their tools, traps, and rifles. Most important, the factor ordered, stocked, and sold textiles: swanskin and baize cloth for men's leggings; russia duck for tent making; strong and coarse muslin; red,white, and yellow flannel; striped cotton cloth; calico cloth; blue strouds; and several hundred blankets. 16 While Johnston did not sell every commodity he ordered, his order forms constitute a competent estimate ofwhat his Indian customers actually WINTER 2008 9 A COMMERCIAL EMBASSY IN THE OLD NORTHWEST wanted. Superintendent of Indian Trade John Mason had ordered the factor to provide him with a particular" account of the local Indians' wants and needs, and Johnston included many specific details about particular com- modities that he could not have easily guessed on his own. For example, he requested of sail needles, which fillic/pi********v a gross tf*»f=*4 "-'- S<= 4, 9 ''t'*,St='f)"t '.4%*»' the Indians used to "sketch skins with t***» »* rifles have brass mounting,maple stocks, and three foot, eleven inch-long barrels; and identified gray wampum,ofwhich an essential article in the trade." In Old Fort Dearborn, U.S.military base and trading their specificity,Johnston' orders factory,1820,from Henry R.Schoolcraft,nformation / s attest Respecting the History,Condition,and Prospects of the to his and Superintendent Mason's desire Indian Tribes of the United States4 ... Philadelphia: accommodate J. B. LippinCOtt, vols. ( to their Indian trading 1856),4: 192. THEFILSON HISTORICAL sociETY partners' particular material demands, thereby underscoring their government's desire to retain these trading part- ners' friendship as( well as their business).Ihe ' orders also provide ser eral useful details about the economic culture of the Miamis, Ottawas, and Potawatomis who did business with the Fort Wayne trading house.17 First, not all of the factory's goods were strictly utilit:Trian. 7he Fort Wayne trading house stocked a number of items best described as per- sonal ornaments-silver jewelry, for ex·ample, or hair combs-and sold two commodities with a significant diplomatic function, namely tobacco and wampum. The Woodland and Plains Indians smoked tobacco at treaty cer- emonies as a ritual offering to celestial spirits and a seal" or memorial to an agreement of peace and friendship,"while the Woodland Indians employed and belts strings of wampum-drilled, bicolored shell beads-as a mne- monk device to "record"diplomatic speeches and certify their sincerity That Johnston recorded a demand for these items suggests that the southern Great Lakes Indians still regarded trade as a way of acquiring goods with a ceremonial and diplomatic function, and thus as a partly diplomatic rather than purely economic enterprise.18 Second, the Miami, Ottawa, and Potawatomi communities that traded with the Fort Wayne factory were not undergoing the dramatic economic changes characteristic ofthe contemporary southeastern Indians. In the early- nineteenth century,the Creeks and Choctaws of the Lower South embraced commercial horticulture, livestock raising, and domestic textile production, an economic transformation reflected in the inventories of the Indian trading factories at Fort Hawkins and Saint Stephens, which among( other goods) stocked cowbells, spindles, cotton cards, and carpentry tools. Ihese' conn- modities rarely appeared onjohii Johnston's shelves, and his Indian customers' marked demand for rifle powder, lead, fishhooks, and woven cloth indicates that they still based their local economies on commercial hunting, fishing, 10 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY DAVID A. NICHOLS subsistence agriculture, and trade. This, in turn, suggests that most of the lower Great Lakes Indians planned to continue relying on the fur and peltry trade to provide them with most of the m·anufactured goods they required. Fort Wayne and posts like it would therefore continue to play an important role in their economic lives for the foreseeable future:9 For all Johnston's efforts to ensure that his Northwest Indian customers had access to the goods they wanted, there is evidence th'at they were occa- sionally dissatisfied with the quality of the factor's wares. Johnston generally sold his wares at lower prices than those charged by private traders, but the merchandise on his shelves w·as frequently shoddy or otherwise undesirable. In 1805, both Johnston and Governor Harrison reported that many of the factory's goods were damaged in transit or altogether" unfit for the Indian trade."lohnston elaborated on this latter st,itement iii his correspotidence with the superintendent of Inditin trade, reporting in 1807, for example, that his trading partners would not purcliase crooked awl blades,country " calicos, or tiny but the best" glazed rifle powder, and that the federal trade office had sent him unsaleable jewelry-including too heavy broaches ·and too narrow hair pipes. A yelr 1.lter, Johnston carefully described the kind of silver jewelry that his Miami, Potawatomi, and Ottaw·a customers would buy: gorgets engraved with a" fish or animal, headbands with holes pierced through them for earbobs, small heart-shaped chest brooches, and ear wheels with patterns of four interlocking rings or flower petals.20 Iii 1808,Johnston returned 1,$750 worth of unsaleable merch·andise to Georgetown, including yards of 135 gingham,L an assortment of feathers and plumes, and five gross of nonesopretties. He further observed that he could only sell American-made cloth to the Northwest Indians so long as his British rivals had no British textiles for sale, for their" dry goods are such as the Indians have been ·accustomed to from time immemorial. Johnston had discovered what private fur traders had long known: that Indians were discriminating consumers, and that it was difficult to satisfy their demand for merchandise that was both of familiar make and high quality. The factor continued to do a brisk business with Northwest Indian hunters, nonetheless, in part for reasons other than the quality or price of Johnston's wares. 1[hese included the convenient location of the Fort Wayne factory,at the head of two important waterways;the factor's attentiveness to Indian demands, even when he could not always supply the specific goods they wanted; the free repair services offered by Fort Wayne's blacksmith; and the Miamis' and Potawatomis' longtime association of the fort with treaty conferences and annuity distributions-that is, with gift-giving and diplomacy.21 Some of the region's Indians, however, held unfavorable views of Fort Wayne and its factory. In particular, the followers of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, two Shawnee brothers who had formed a pan-Indian confed- eracy to oppose further land sales and assimilation of European-American WINTER 2008 11 A COMMERCIAL EMBASSY IN THE OLD NORTHWEST culture, remembered Fort Wayne tls the site of several disgraceful land- cession treaties, and viewed its garrison as all obstacle tO COmmutilcation between Native American towns on the Wabash River and the British at Fc, Malden. In September rt 1812, shortly after the outbreak of the sec- ond Anglo-American war, a force of five hundred Shawnee, Miami, and Potawatomi warriors associated with Tecumseh and allied with Britain laid siege to Fort Wayne. While the fort's eighty-man garrison held out until reinforcements arrived, the factory and other outbuildings were destroyed. It is hard to tell, though, whether the warriors besieging Fort Wayne intended to raze the factory because American soldiers in the fort burned the trading hc,use and other outbriildings in order to deny cover to potential attackers. In any event, the factory suffered losses which Secretary of War William Crawford later estimated 5,500. Four at $ other factories suffered a similar fate during the War of 1812.22 With the return of peace in 1815, Secretary Crawford decided not to rebuild the Fort Wayne factory. Just as Henry Dearborn had decided keep the trading to house open despite poor initial business, so too did William Crawford disregard the factory's later profitability when he chose to discontinue it. The original purpose of the Fort Wayne trading house, after all, had not been to make a profit, but rather to improve diplomatic relations with the Indians and counter British influence in the region. After the War of 1812,the U.S. governinent felt no need to do either. The United States' defeat of Tecumsch's confederacy destroyed the military prestige of of most the Woodland Indian nations,and U.S. officials concluded they no longer need treat the lower Great Lakes Indians as independent nations- which in turn meant there was no need for a commercial embassy to them. Moreover, the Treaty of Ghent did not explicitly restore the right of British traders to operate within American territory,and in 1816 Congress passed a law barring foreign peddlers from doing business with Indians in the United States, meaning there was less need to counter British traders' influence. Ihe Fort Wayne factory's former profitability remained the only signific ant reason to re-open it, and Secretary Crawford argued that profits" cannot be an inducement for continuing the systemor, -presumably, f-or rec)pening shuttered or destroyed factories. Private fur tr·aders who wanted those prof- its for themselves, most notably John Jacob Astor, certaitily agreed.21 llie closure of the Fort Wayne flictory signiled not the decline of the fur trade, which would thrive in the Maumee-Wabash region to( the ben- efit of private tr·ading companies)until the 1830s, but rather a structural change in the U.S. government's relationship with the Indian peoples of the Ohio Valley ·and lower Great Lakes region. Given that the fact- ory s primary purpose w:is to monopolize the Miami and Potawatomi Indians' trade and secure their friendship, the federal government, by keeping the Fort Wayne trading house open-in spite of arson, several 12 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY DAVID A. NICIIOLS bad trading years, and high transport costs-effectively argued that it was worthwhile to cultivate these Indi·ans' commercial and political depen- dence. At the same time, federal officials tacitly acknowledged that the Miamis ·and Potawatomis were still semi-independent nations during the first decade of the nineteenth century. By liquidating the factory after the W·ar of 1812, ind by withdrawing the last federil troops from Fort Wayne in April 1819, the War I)epartment acknowledged that these Indian dependence nations' on the United States could now be taken for granted, and that the U.S. government could now pursue whatever pol- chose icy it toward them. And if federal installations can he regarded as statements of national policy, then the next major federal office to open in Fort Wayne clearly identified the new policy: In 1822, the Treasury Department opened its Fort Wayne land oilice. This was an ominous sign indeed for northern Indiana's Native American peoples.24 The author would like to thank Nicole Etcheson, Bassam Factory,1805-1810;'Arkansas Historical Qi,arterlyll Yousif,and the anonvnious reviewers of Obio Valley History Autumn 1952),184-200; Plaisance,The " Choctaw for their helpful coniments. An earlier version of this essay Trading House, 1803-1822,"Alabama Historical was presented at the Tweiity-Sixth Annual Meeting of tlic Qua'*rlv 16 (Fall-Winter 1954).393-423; Russell Indiana Association c,t-Historians in Hant,vcr, Indiana. Alagn,ighi, "Sulphrir Fork Factory, 1817-1822," Feb. 18, 2006. 7he author gratefully acknowledges the Arkansas Historical Qucirterly 37S (uinmer 1978),168- assistance he received from Indiana State University in 83; Alagnaghi, Tlie" Belletontaine Indiati Factory, attending 1805-1808,"Missow· Historical this conference. i Re·vie:u 75 July 1981), 396-416; Magnaghi,Michigan' ' Indian Factory 1 Katherine Coman, Government" Factories: An s at I)etroit, 1802-1805,"In/imd Seas 38 (F,ill 1982), Attempt to Control Competition in the Fur Trade," 172-78;M,ignaghi, 'Michigan' Indian Factory at Americ, Economic Revie' 1 s 1,1 ui Apr. 1911),368-88; Alackinac, 1808-1812,"ibid, 39 Spring( 1983),22- Royal B. Way,lhe " United States Factory System 30; Iagriaglii, The" Sanduskv Indi·an Factory, 1806- ti,r Trading with the Indians, 1796-1822,"Mississippi 1812,"ibid, Fal] 39 ( 1983),174-79. A mok recent Kdley 1/isto/·h·al Revieu,6 (Sept. 1919),220-35; D:ivid article bz· Andrev Isenberg has a slightly different A. Nichols,The "' Main Mean of Their Political t,ike on the th c tories, arg· 21 i ng th,it they were a Management':George Washington and the Practice prcidzict of tlic Je#ersoni:ti,Republicans' suspicioti"" of of Indiati Trade in the Early Republic,"in George unfettered commerce;The " Niarket Revolution in the Was/}ington in and as C!,lture:Bicenten,!!y Explorations, Boiderlands: George Champlin Sibley in Missouri and Kevin Cope, ed. (New York: ANIS Studies in the Nev Alexic<,,1808-1826,"journal oftbe Early Republic Eighteenth Cetitury,2001),143- George 61; Harmon, 21 (14,112001),445-65 quote( 450). Sixty Years ofIn,lian Ajjilirs:Political,ICionomir,and Diplomatic,1789-1850 1941; New York: Kraus Reprint 3 Daniel Richter, 7be Orde,il ofthe Longbouse:Tbe Peoples Company, 1969),124-25. of the Iroquois League in the E.ra of European Colonizatio n Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 11iomas Fieto New York: I). 2 Hart Benton, 7birty K'ars' 1992),29 (first quote);Catliy Matson and Peter Onuf, AppletonCompany, & 1854),20-21 (first two quotes); A Union of Iilterests:Political and Econoinit·lbought ' in Milo M. ( baife,Cbicago and the Old Northwest:A Revolittion,iry Amiric,i Lawrence: University of Kansas Stlldy of tbe Evolution of the Northwestern Frontier, Press, 1990),15-29 (Addisc,n quote at 17);Marshall 7bwthe,·ivith a History of Fort DearboritCh' ( wago Sahlins, Sto,te Age Economics Chicago: University of University of Chicago Pi ess, 1913),302-304, 309 Chicago Press, 1972),185-230; Kathryn E. Holland tliird quote);Edg·ar B. Wesley,The " Government Braund,Deerskins and Dz#els:Tie Creek Indian 7')-tide Factory System among the Indians, 1795-1822," zoitb Anglo-America Lincoln: University of Nebraska Jot,rnal of Economic and Busines WINTER 2008 13 A COMMERCIAL EMBASSY IN THE OLD NORTHWEST Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 New( 7 Leonard Hill,John Johnston and the Indians, 11-12, 149- York: Cambridge University Press, 1991),94-141; 50; Contingent Expenses of the Fort Wayne Factory, William J. Eccles, The" Fur Trade and Eighteenth- May 3, 1803-May 3, 1804;D.iybooks of the Fort Century Imperialism,"William and Mary Quarterly, Wayne Factory,Records of the Office of Indian Trade; 3"i Ser.,40 July( 1983),341-62;Drew R. McCoy, Fort Wayne Daybooks for May-Dec. 1803, May-Sept. Tbe Elusive Republic:Political Economy in Jeffersonian 1804, and Jan.-Oct. 1805; List of Furs Forwarded to America 1980;( New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), William Irvine, Apr. 14, 1804; Accounts ofthe Fort 86-90. Wayne Factory,Apr. 23, 1805, all in RG 75:37,NA. 4 George Washington, Fifth Annual Message to 8 Magnaghi,Michigan' ' s Indian Factory.it Detroit," Congress,Dec. 3, 1793, in 7be Writings ofGeorge 176-77;Henry Dearborn to William Davy,Dec. 30, Washington,John C. Fitzpatrick, ed.,39 vols. 1805, Historical Collections of the Pioneer and Historical Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931- Society of Michigan,40 vols. Lansing:( The Society, 44),33:168; Louis Wright and Julia Macleod,William " 1876-1912),19: 311; Robert Owens, leffersonian" Benevolence the Ground: The Indian Cession Eaton,Timothy Pickering, and Indian Policy," on Land Huntington Library Quartery 9 Aug.( 1946),387-400; Treaties of William Henry Harrison, Journal o/-the Journal of the Coleraine Treaty Conference,May 12, Early Republic 11 Fall 2002),418-24; Daybooks for 1796,in American State Papers:Indian Affairs,2 vols. June 1-7,1803,Aug. 24, 1804,June 21-25, 1805, and Oct. Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1834),1:587 hereafter( 5-13, 1805, Daybooks of the Fort Wayne Factory, RG 75:37, NA; William Harrison to Henry Dearborn, ASPIA);Edward Price to James McHenry,Jan. 24, Sept. 16, 1805;Thomas Jefferson William Harrison, Apr. 3, 1797,and Price to James Byers,June 28, 1797,in to Apr. 28, 1805; and Journal of Proceedi the Letter Book ofthe Creek Trading House, Record Group ngs at Indian Treaty Fort Wayne, Sept. Oct. 75: Microfilm N-4: 41, 49,70, National Archives, at 1- 3, 1809, in Governor's Messages and Letters,Logan Esarey,ed.,2 Washington,DC (hereafter RG #:Entry or microfilm vols. Indianapolis:( Indiana Historical Commission, NA);War Department in Account with the Cherokee 1922),1:165, 127 ( 362-78;Johnston William Factory,Miscellaneous Accounts of the Cherokcc quote), to Davy,July 3, 1806, TPUS, 7:363. The treaties in Factory, 1799-1806, Records of the Office of Indian arc Indian Affairs,Latos,and Treaties,Charles Kappler, Trade,RG 75:34, NA;John Treat to Henry Dearborn, ed.,7 vols. Washington:( U.S. Government Printing Nov.15,1805,in Territorial Papers ofthe United States, Office, 1904),2:64-68, 70-78, 80-82, 89, 101-02. 26 vols. Washington:( U. S. Government Printing Office, 1934-1973),13:276-84 (hereafter TPUS) 9 Jefferson to Harrison, Feb. 27,1803, in 7be Works of o,na.,AP,-son, Paul L. Ford, ed.,12 vols. New( York: 5 Speech of Little Turtle to the President,Jan. 4, 1802, G.R Putnam' Sons, 1903),10: 370 quote);( Treaty of in Leonard U. Hill,Jobn Johnston and tbe Indians in tbe s Fort Wilkinson,June 16, 1802, in hdinil Affairs,Laius, Landtbe #' *Miamis Columbus,( Oh.:Stoneman ree and Treaties,2.·58-59; William McI.oughlin, Cherokee Press, 1957),16; Helen Hornbeck Tanner, Atlas of Great Renascence New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), I.akes Indian History Norman: University of Oklahoma 105-08; Debts owed the Fort Wayne Trading House, Press, 1986),98-99. The Indian communities Fort near Sept. 30, 1811, Miscellaneous Accounts of the Fort Wayne included Little Turtle' s own town. Wayne Factory,Records of the Office of Indian Trade, RG 75:58, NA. The actual Creek debt at Fort Wilkinson 6 Andrew Cayton, Frontiep Indiana Bloomington: around twenty thousand dollars. Johnston' first Indiana University Press, 1996),143-45, 161-64; was s supervisor,General William Irvine (superintendent of Return ofthe Army of the United States for the Year the Schuylkill Arsenal in Philadelphia),strictly forbade 1803,in American State Papers:Military A*irs,7 vols. him to give credit to Native Americans; subsequently Washington: Gales and Scaton, 1832-1861),1:175; Superintendent of Indian Trade John Mason permitted James McHenry to Arthur St. Clair,Mar. 29, 1799, the practice but urged the factor to exercise caution. See and St. Clair the Secretary ofWar,Apr. 7,1800, to Instructions to John Johnston,no date ca.( 1802),Irvine- in Arthur St. Clair Papers, microfilm, reels 4:658, Newbold Family Papers, Box 9, Folder 7, I listorical and 5:27,Ohio Historical Societv, Columbus, Oh. Society of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia;John Mason The author' conclusions about Fort Wayne' infantry s s to John Johnston,Jan. 19, 1808, Letters Sent by the garrison drawn from J. C. A. Stagg,Soldiers " are Superintendent ofIndian Trade,RG 75:Microfilm M- in Peace and War: Comparative Perspectives on the 16, Reel 1, A:35-36, NA. Recruitment of the United States Army, 1802-1815," William and Mary Quarterly,W Ser. 57Jan. ( 1000), 10 Gail Thornbrough, ed.,Letter Book oftbe Indian 79-120; and Francis Paul Prucha, 7be Sword of tbe Agency at Fort Wayne,1809-1815 Indianapolis: Republic:Ibe ' United States Army on the Frontier,1783- Indiana Historical Society,1961),15 first( quote); 1846 (New York: Macmillan, 1969),169-92, 207. Johnston to Harrison, lune 24, 1810, John Gibson and 14 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY DAVID A. NICHOLS Francis Vigo to Harrison, July 6, 1805, and Harrison Indian Trade, RG 75:4: 42, 51, 64, NA; Statement of Governor' Factories, to Dearborn,July 10, Sept. 16, 1805 in s Gain and Loss on the United States' Indian Messages and Letters,1:432 second quote),145, 148-49, Dec. 31 1807-Sept. 30, 1811, ASPIA, 1:784. Some 165; Johnston to Harrison, Feb. 28, 1806, and Johnston of the factory's potential British competitors went far to the Secretary of War, Apr. 15, 1809, TPUS, 7:343- afield in search of new territorv; the Nlichilimackinac 44, 647-48; Francis Paul Prucha, 73:Great Filther: Company, for itistance, began trading for furs and pelts lbe United States Gover,! nd the American India,! jizent a s in Arkansas iii 1807,just one year after its founding. I.incoln: Universitv of Nebraska Press, 1986),58. See Wavne Morris, Traders" and Factories on the Arkansas Frontier. 1805-1822,"Arkanscis Historkal 11 7' of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation between reaty Quarter/v 28 Spring( 1969),28-48, esp. 38-39. Great Britain and the United States, Nov. 19, 1794, in Statement of Gain States Statutes at Large of tie United States,49 vols.Boston: ( 14 and Loss c,n the United Little, Brown, 1848-1936),8:117-18; Harrison to Indian Factories, Dec. 31, 1807-Sept. 30 1811, ASPIA, Dearborn, July 15, 1801, in Governot s' Messiges and 1·784·,Memorial of Sundry Man t,facturers of Hats in tbe Letters, 1: 27;John Johnston to N. J. Vischer, Sept. City of Philadelphia,Dee.6,1805 Washington: A. and 18, 1805, in Hill,John Jobnston andtbe Indi,ins, 23; G. Way, 1806),3-5, Slason to l·leirr' Dearborn, Oct. Daybook for Jan. 31, 1804 and 1-lousehold Expenses 9, 1809,Letters Sent by the Superintendent of Indian Trade, RG Reel NA. fbi Feb. 1805, Fort Wayne Factory ID,i>,books, RG 75: 2, B: 63-64, 75:37.NA. On the political and cultural background 15 Mr. Irwin' Account of the Shipment of Goods, Oct. of anti-British sentiment on the early-nineteenth- s 28, 1809, Miscellaneous Accounts of the Chicago century frontier,sce Robert M. Owens, Jr.,Mr. Factory, Records of the Oilice of Indian Trade, RG JefTerson's Hammer:William Henry Harrison and the 75: 37, NA; Philip Lord, Jr, "1[he Mohawk/Oneida Originsime, «)ie,· 1,1 Indian Policv Norman:( University of Oklahoma Press, 2007),135-39. Corridor: Tlhe Geography of Inland Navigation across New Xork,"m lbe- Sixty Years' War fbi tbe Great Lakes, 12 Johnston to Villiam\ Davy,July 18, 1806,TPUS, David Skaggs and Larry Nelson, cds. East( Lansing Fzi,Trade 7:370-71 quote);( Harold Innis, 7be in Michigan State University Press, 2001),275-90; Canada:An Introdilition Canadian Economii Historv to Freight Rates, ca. 1809-1810, Memoranduni Book, New Haven, Ct.:Yale University Press, 1930),241; 1807-1813, Records of the Office of Indian Trade, RG Matthew Ernest to the Secretary of the Treasury, 75: 6:93-94, NA; Statement of Account of the United Nov. 1, 1802, ASPIA, 1.684; David I.avender,Some " States' Indi·an Factory at Fort Wayne, Dec. 31, 1807- American Characteristics of the American Fur Sept. 30, 1811, ASPIA, 1:791. Durham boats were Company,in Aspects ofthe Fur Trade:Selected Papers large, sturdy vessels with a five-man crew and a cargo Dale of the 1965 North American Flir Trade Conference, capacin oftvelve tons. Mason also experimented Morgan, et al.,eds. St.( Paul: Minnesota II istorical with shipping goods by wagon from Cincinnati to Society,1967),32-33;Anti Carlos, The" Causes and Fort VaT·\ ne, but this too was Ian expensive supply r17 1 . · Origins of the North American tur iraae kivalry, rozite, with freight rates of eighty dollars per ton, or 1804-1810,"Journal of Economic History 41Dec ( .1981), abc,ut fifty cents per ton mile; sce Receipt to Francis 777-94; Report of.John Johnston, Jan. 1, 1804, Fort Johnston. Sept. 30, 1810, Miscellaneous Accounts Wayne Factory Daybooks, RG 75: 37, NA. The volume of the R,rt Wayne Factory,RG 75:58, NA. Native of fur exports from London to Europe fell by 50 to 90 American customers who used cash at Fort Wayne percent between 1800 tind 1808; the aggregate value ot included a party of Delawares who in the summer exported furs fell 70 percent during the s.ame period; of 1806 paid over seven hundred dollars for chintz, sce Carlos, Causes" and Origins,"781-84. strouds, russia sheeting, calico, handkerchiefs, stockings, thread, shirt patterns, and saddlery; see 13 Gregory Evans Dowd, A irited* Resistance:732 entries ofluly 8-9, 1806, Daybooks of the Fort Wayne North American Indian Strugglefor Unity, 1745-1815 Factory, RG 75:37,NA. Baltimore, Md.:Thc Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992),120; Furs and Peltries Forwarded, Mar. 10,Apr. 16 Goods Wanted for the Fort Wayne Trading House, 9, May 25, 1808, Miscellaneous Accounts of the Fort Dec. 1, 1807, 1)ec. 29, 1808, Jan. 14, 1810, Feb. 24, Wayne Factory, RG 75:58, NA;James Clavton, Thc" 1812, in Miscellaneous Accounts of the Fort Wayne Growth and Economic Significance of the American Factory,RG 75:58, NA. Sce also the Daybooks of Frir Trade, 1790-1890,"inperts * of the Fur Trade, the Fort Wayne Factory for Aug. 1804,Mar.-May 67;Furs and Peltry Forw·arded, May 1809, May-June 1805,July 1805,July 1806, RG 75:37,NA. Russia Fort 1810, and Apr.-June 1811, iii Bert Griswold, duck was heavy linen dc,th; strouds were a fabric made I'Kiyne.·Gateway oftbe West Indianapolis:( Indiana from woolen rags, sold in eighteen inch-wide bolts, Library and History Dept, 1927),563-64, 580-81, and originally manufactured in Britain's Stroudwater 661-62; Invoices Inward, Records of the Office of valley; see Francis Jennings, 7be Invasion Amerted: WINTER 2008 15 A COMMERCIAL EMBASSY IN THE OLD NORTHWEST Indians,Colonialism,and the Cant of Conquest Chapel 25, 1808, and Goods Wanted for the Fort Wayne Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1975),99- Trading House,Dec. 29, 1808, all in Miscellaneous 100; and Kathryn Holland Braund, Deerskins and Accounts of the Fort Wayne Factory, RG 75:58, NA; Dtiffeis,124-25. Daniel Richter, Facing East/Pom Indian Country, 175; T Tackle to the Earl ot-Bathurst,Nov. 24, 1812, in 17 John Mason John Johnston,Jan. 19, 1808, Letters to Collections ofthe State Historical Society of Wisconsin,31 Sent by the Superintendent of Indian Trade, RG 75: vols. Madison:( The Society, 1888-1931),20:4;John Reel 1, A:35-36 (first Goods Wanted for the quote); Sugden, Tecumseb:A Life New York: Henry Holt, Fort Wayne Trading House, Dec. 1, 1807 second( 1997),212, 258. Nonesopretties were colored ribbons. quote),Dec. 29, 1808 third( quote),in Miscellaneous Accounts of the Fort Wayne Factory, RG 75:58, NA. 22 Griswold, Fort Wayne,51,55·,Sugden, Tecumseb, On the ethnic identity of Johnston's Indian customers, 106-07,171, 182-85, 270, 312-16;Tanner,Atlas of sec Daybooks of the Fort Wayne Factory for Aug. Great Lakes Indian History,109,-Benjamin Stickney 1804,Jan. 1805, and Oct. RG 75: NA. Letter Book 1806, 37, to William Crawford, Oct. 1, 1815, in oftbe Indian Agency at Fort Wayne,233-34; Report 18 James Warren Springer,An " Ethnohistork Study of of the Secretary of War to Congress, Mar. 13, 1816, the Smoking Complex in Eastern North America, ASPIA, 2:59. Losses would have been greater had not Etbnobistory 28 Summer 1981),217-35 quote( 222); Benjamin Stickney,who succeeded Johnston as factor Timothy Smith, Wampum" as Primitive Valuables, in 1811, moved the factory's merchandise into the fort Research in Economic Anthropology 5 1983),225-46. in Aug. 1812. 19 James Taylor Carson, Searchingfor tbe Bright Patb:Ube 23 Report of the Secretary ofWar to Congress, Mar. 13, Mississippi Cboctawsfrom Prebistory through Removal 1816,ASPIA,2:26-28 quote( 26);Donald Hickey, 7be Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999),67- Wai-of 1812:A Forgotten Conflict Urbana: University of 68;Jonathan Halstead to William Irvine,June Illinois Press, 1989),303-04; Edgar B. Wesley, Some" 26, 1803, Sept. 4, 1804, Letter Book of the Creek Official Aspects of the Fur Trade in the Northwest, Trading House, RG 75: Microfilm N-4: 248-49, 264, 1815-1825,"North Dakota Historical Quarterly 6 1932), NA. See also Inventory of Goods on Hand at Fort 206;Way, The" United States Factory System,"229-30. Wayne Trading House,Mar. 31, 1810, Miscellaneous George Harmon argued that the closure of the Accounts of the Fort Wayne Factory,RG 75:58, NA. remaining factories in 1822 was due to the increasing Fishhooks appear in Johnston's merchandise order of weakness"and political irrelevance of the Woodland Dec. 29, 1808 see( n.16, above). Indian nations; see Sixty Years ofIndian Alfairs,128. 20 Harrison to Dearborn, July 10, 1805, in Governor's 24 Paul Chrisler Phillips, The" Fur Trade in the Maumec- Messages and Letters,1:150 first quote);Goods Wabash Country,"in Studies in American History Wanted for the Fort Wayne Trading House, Dec. Dedicated to James Albert WoodburnBloommgton: ( 1, 1807 second( and third quotes),and Report of Indiana University Studies, 1925), Cayton, John Johnston,Sept. 10, 1807,in Miscellaneous 89-118; Frontier Indiana, Malcolm Accounts of the Fort Wayne Factory, RG 75:58, NA; 263-64, 266-67; Rohrbough, 7be Land Office Business:11€Settlement Memorandum on Silverware Received from John Johnston, Dec. 7, 1808, Memorandum Book, Records and Administration ofAmerican Public Lands,1789- 1837 of the Office ofIndian Trade,RG 75:6: 31-33, NA 1968; Belmont, Ca.:Wadsworth Publishing Company,1990),140. The Delawares, Miamis, and fourth quote);Hill,Jobn Johnston and tbe Indians,23. Potawatomis ceded their land claims to all of Indiana south of the Wabash River and of the 21 Report ofJohn Johnston,Dec. 29, 1808 quote),( Goods in 1818 to most of the and Returned to the Superintendent ofIndian Trade,Mav rest state in 1826 1828. 16 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Beyond Cane Ridge Ibe 'Great Western Reruiruals"in Louisville and Cincinnati, 1828-1845 Bridget Ford n December 5, 1839, five days after the popular itiner·ant John Newland Maffitt began preaching in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, the opening scene of the new millennium on e.arth took place in a boarding house, at least in the mind of one participant, Maxwell Pierson Gaddis. On that evening, Gaddis arrived home from Methodist cl· meeting and a ass r consecrated his soul" ·and body ·anew, a living sac- 10* 1MI rifice unto God."With everyone in the board- 01* ing house already gone to bed, Gaddis felt" my d i. 1 heart melt like wax before the fire, and my eyes suffused in tears ofjoy."He then conversed directly with the Holy Ghost, who asked him, Do you give up all?"After he promised to do so, the Holy Spirit immediately" whis- A pered in my heart, in sweetest accents, Yes, ' I '%*ii* 1%2*«*m=fai«£3 receive I instantly from now vou: rose up my St* 33../»=*«3 5». t»»,» t =R prostrate position on the floor, and exclaimed with 05*r r.: emphasis, I' am the Lord's forever! I am the Lord's forever! I am the Lord's forever!"'Gaddis's cries ofjoy Maxwell Pierson Gaddis (1811- awakened the other boardinghouse residents, and 1888),frontispiece Footprints soon ofa tinerant/ (Cincinnati: four including began persons, a servant woman, strug- Methodist Book Concern, 1855). gling for their souls. Gaddis next ran down the street to THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY another boardinghouse and roused its inhabitants to pray- ing. 111 language utterly fails to convey to the reader any adequate idea of the power felt within me,"Gaddis wrote of that night. It" did seem to me that I had power and compass of voice to arouse the city of Cincinnati- yea, even a slumbering world.„1 Evangelicals fondly reminisced over the hundreds of memorable camp meetings taking place in rural Ohio and Kentucky in the first decades of the nineteenth century,but they would commemorate the urban revivals of the 1830s and early 1840s as especially remarkable. The minister Maxwell Pierson Gaddis,for one,had attended a continuous round ofcamp meetings WINTER 2008 17 BEYOND CANE RIDGE in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky, where he witnessed the revivalistic prowess ofMethodist preachers Henry B. Bascom,John Collins, William B. Christie, and James B. Finley. Nevertheless, for Gaddis, who ministered at Cincinnati's Wesley Chapel between 1839 and 1841, the gen-" eral waking up and rallying around the cross"during Cincinnati's Revival of 1840 promised the swift establishment of a true heaven on earth in a way that all the rural camp meetings he had attended in his youth had never seemed to augur, despite their raw emotional power.2 1[he Ohio Valley's two most populous cities, Cincinnati and Louisville, became the unlikely centers of the "Great Western Revivals"of the 18305 and 1840s. In the view of Richard Wade, residents of western cities had been disinterested in, if not inhospitable to, revivalism before 1830. Evangelical Protestants living in Ohio and Kentucky had long had their own tradition of open-air camp meetings, in which great crowds congre- gated for several days of thunderous preaching and mass conversions, but these were essentially" rural"phenomena. Indeed, revivals sprang from the isolation of agricultural living and the spiritual starvation of people unattended by regular services. The most famous of these revivals took place in 1801, when thousands of settler families gathered at Cane Ridge, near Paris, Kentucky,to hear Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist preach- ers reclaim sinners for seven straight days, and the rural setting became synonymous with western revivalism. The urban West, though, remained unmoved by this godly" upheaval."In Wade's words, The" flames of the Great Revival licked very close to the towns, but could not find inflamina- ble material in them. Unlike the fervor fueling religious expansion in rural precincts, growth in the cities occurred in a more orderly fashion, when of education and refinement founded churches and of men institutions higher learning for the training of ministers. From Wade's account, one would hardly have predicted that the West's most urbane residents would be so susceptible to the revival enthusiasm gripping the region after 1828.3 After the night of December 5, 1839,with both Gaddis and Maffitt in peak form, Cincinnatians enjoyed a melting' time."By the end of the fol- 1 lowing January, thousands upon thousands nad witnessed their preaching and sinners awakened" and converted at every coming together. It seemed a harbinger ofgenuine moral revolution that William Henry Harrison,then a presidential candidate, attended Cincinnati's Wesley Chapel every night for a week to sing and pray with the penitent. One evening, when Maffitt struck up a hymn, To" die on the field of battle, With glory in my soul," Harrison was moved to approach the pulpit, take Maffitt's hand, and join the chorus. According to Gaddis, the ·audience stood rapt as the revival preacher and war veteran sang together of a bright"' glory'"shortly to come. The West's revivals thus appeared not to discriminate. Servants as well as powerful politicians were swept up in the urban awakenings in Cincinnati 18 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY 7"' a,¥4 '™" h t 1* 444 3' 1, -242 1» r 1 f*/4 4* 1*5 1. S.»jt XV th,3, .I -- W. I :. 44*4#TA «*St : A 1.-- f> 2 *'*'.0 & . & as R l' f f)9'11.4 0. L' j. 4 4 ¥ i t 4 . 4 2 ,. 4.-' 4 *i *4 -&*t©+ 5, 3.I h 1*4 r.: 1# i 6*3*FY-- I VT. : and the Methodist Camp-Meeting in Kentuckyat Night From Henry Caswa\\,America American Church(London Gilbert and RIVIngton, 1839) CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER and Louisville Touching all classes of people in so short a span of time, the Great Western Revivals promised a speedy deliverance from sin 4 But theiein, ironically, lily the sources of discord for urban congre- gations For all of their succes«in bringing hundreds, if not thousands, of the repentant to witness and experience God's saving grace, the Great Western Revivals would prove a sore test for evangelicals iii Cincinnati and Louisville In fact,even as the revivals approached the height of their emo- tional power and popular appeal, they strained churches' ability to take in new members while maintaining congregational peace Worse yet, so bit- tei weie the disputes following the revival,and so disappointed were min- isters and laymen and women- who recognized the failure of the Great Western Revivals to usher in a new era of peace and rejoicing on earth, that evangelicals in Cincinnati and Louisville swore off use of large-scale revival meetings for years to come Moreover, any potential for biracial cooperation geneiated by the revivals was gieatly limited, if not eliminated, by the secession of the southern churches, including those in Kentucky, from the national religious denominations and associations in 1844-45 Cincinnati and Louisville stood at the fault line of this dramatic rupture ill the churches, and in important ways bore the brunt of its divisiveness 5 therefore offer The urban revivals in Cincinnati and Louisville a contrast to the studies of northern communities in New York and New England, scholars and to more general histories of the Second" Great Awakening, as have long denominated the revivals between the Revolution and the Civil WINTER 2008 19 BEYOND CANE RIDGE f Main square of the Duck Creek Methodist Episcopal Church camp meeting,during service, from 1852. near Cincinnati, Leslie's Magazine, CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER War. Surveying this scholarship,James Bratt expresses concern that reviv- alism before the Civil War has gone untouched as a success story of popu- lar Protestantism defeating all comers to bring evangelical Christianity to the apogee of influence in American history."Departing from this story line, the Ohio Valley's urban revivals lend support to Bratt's proposition that the revivals might not have worked, might not have achieved the pur- poses their advocates and chroniclers vested in them."If the urban awak- enings of the 1830s and early 1840s in Cincinnati and Louisville suggest a counter-narrative to studies describing evangelical ascendancy nationally,so do they allow us to look beyond Cane Ridge as the defining event in west- ern religious history. According to Ellen Eslinger, camp meeting revival- ism's distinctive rituals and open-air settings offered a sense" of connection and belonging"among people struggling to respond to a rapidly developing market economy in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. 1[he Ohio Valley's urban revivals also took place at a moment of deep economic distress, but any psychological relief that the revivals provided its participants must have been remarkably short-lived. Because the revivals in Cincinnati and Louisville destabilized longstanding congregations and sent many minis- ters packing, they bred far more divisions than connections within evan- gelical communities.6 But if the urban revivals of even the 1830s and 40s were not success- ful in the ways that their participants had hoped they would be, they can- not be dismissed as inconsequential. Instead,paying special attention to the challenges faced by the Ohio Valley's urban congregations in the immediate aftermath of the Great Western Revivals helps to bring together two streams 20 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BRIDGET FORD of historiography not easily reconciled-that of religious revivalism and the history of sectionalism. If the revivals were so successful in drawing a widely scattered and socially variegated population throughout the United States into a common religious culture ofevangelicalism,then how are we to make sense of the fracturing ofthe n·ation's most popular evangelical denominations over slavery in 1844? The southern churches' secessions so hard on the heels of the extraordinary awakening of the early 1840s becomes less perplexing if we examine the bitter dissension and strains faced by congregations follow- ing the revivals. By 1844, when southern church secession rent Methodist and Baptist denominations and associations, the Ohio Valley's urban con- gregations were in considerable disarray. Absent the unifying and focused energy of the revivals, northern and southern churches had less holding them together at the moment that southern ministers began to champ at the seces- sion bit. After the embittering conclusion to the revivals, ministers and lay- men and women- may even have discovered a relative peace in the building up of the sectional churches. In this way, the Ohio Valley's urban revivals afford new insights into evangelicals' great challenges at mid-century. To nineteenth-century evangelicals,the agricultural metaphors ofthe Old and New Testaments had seemed fitting for the inland West. The Rev. Lyman Beecher described the Ohio Valley as a great field" in which to plant the seeds of an immort·al harvest"in 1835, and many less famous religious pro- moters of the region were struck by its natural ·advantage, for scattering the precious seeds of spiritual life and health and salvation. The power of these biblical metaphors notwithstanding, Protestant sects of diverse belief and ori- gin, from New England Congregationalists to the more southern Disciples of Christ, chose to make the bustling entrep6ts of Cincinnati and Louisville headquarters for their proselytizing efforts in the West after 1830: Urbanites' commercial wealth, these Protestants came to understand, paid for missionary enterprises, clerical training,and church building. This view impelled comfortably situated eastern ministers like Beecher and many a zealous youth to consider settling in the Ohio Valley's } cities rather than its rural hinterlands, and by 1840, their con- 6„ gregations had become the powerhouses of western evangelism. 0 Jonathan Blanchard, a New School Presbyterian from Vermont, had debated whether to accept a call to minister to the Sixth Street Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati in 1838. Generally" I hate the thought of a city,"he wrote to his fiancte in Vermont. But Rev. Jonathan the greater Ohio Valley was to" be the seat of Empire7 he pre- Blanchard (1811- dicted, and with Cincinnati poised to reign as the commercial cap- 1892),from Clyde ital of this developing empire, Blanchard accepted the Sixth Street S.K\\by,Minority of One (Grand Rapids, call. Ministers like Blanchard acknowl- Presbyterian Church's Mi.:Eerdmans, edged that commercial power begot religious influence.8 1959). WINTER 2008 21 BEYOND CANE RIDGE Yet Blanchard's middle-class congregation would not just coolly under- write others'evangelistic fervor. Members ofthe Sixth Street Church would themselves participate in an extraordinary season of religious renewal in Cincinnati and Louisville labeled by contemporaries as the Great Western Revivals. By organizing and attending special protracted meetings and out-of-doors gatherings, urban congregations in the Ohio Valley promoted the emotion-filled conversions characteristic of Protestant revivalism before the Civil War and invited thousands of religious seekers into the region's churches. Between 1830 and 1840, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches in Cincinnati added about 2,900 new members, a sure demonstra- tion of revivalism's significance in driving Protestant growth befbre 1845. In Louisville, these same churches enrolled roughly 1,960 new members in the decade before 1840: Because these increases exceeded rates of general population growth, new migration to the Ohio River valley cannot entirely explain Protestant expansion in Cincinnati and Louisville between 1830 and 1840. Why this rapid growth in church membership occurred has been a subject of long- standing inquiry among historians, in part because the phenomenon was so geographically widespread. The Ohio Valley's river cities represented just one locus of revival activity taking place throughout the Northeast, espe- cially New York, at almost precisely the same time as the so-called Great Western Revivals. Moreover, these western revivals had much in common with earlier religious awakenings in their emphasis upon an emotional con- version experience. Indeed, it is difficult to identify unique social or politi- cal as( opposed to religious)sources for distinct revival cycles since, in the words of one religious historian,Revivalism " has always been an intrinsic 10 part of the Protestant impulse toward reform and renewal. Still, most historians cite the economic and psychological disloca- tions produced by a newly competitive market economy to help explain Americans' restless religious seeking during the first half of the nineteenth century. Certainly Cincinnati and Louisville's rapid development testi- fied to Americans' aggressive pursuit of new commercial markets and per- sonal financial gain. Although precise connections between Americans' economic and spiritual strivings have been difficult to establish, it seems likely that the structured emotional release provided by evangelical reviv- als offered a certain psychological relief to uprooted newcomers arriving in the Ohio River valley between 1820 and 1840. Reaching their zenith in the late 1830s and early 1840s, urbanites' spiritual awakening in Cincinnati and Louisville also coincided with successive financial panics and a severe economic depression lasting until 1843, suggesting that religion offered succor in troubling times.11 Contemporaries, though, saw only the supernatural at work in the Great Western Reviv·als. After Cincinnati's black Union Baptist Church baptized 22 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BRIDGET FORD eighty-four new converts in the waters of the Ohio River, members under- stood that God has" poured out his spirit in a copious manner,and brought a multitude of precious souls into his fold. The unpredictability of genu- ine revival activity lent credence to participants' sense of their supern·atu- ral origins. A congregation might resolve to holde' A Protracted meating sic]Commencing Savothe Sabbath][ the 23 of May, as did Union Baptist Church in 1841, but such a decision could not guarantee that new converts would present themselves, thereby transforming a mere meeting into a true revival. An entirely random event triggered reviv·al activity ·at Cincinnati's Sixth Street B·aptist Church. Although the congregation's recent prayer meetings had been cold" and devoid of special interest, a stranger appeared one Sabbath morning and expressed to one of the ushers his deep con- cern on account of his sinfulness."The str'anger's anxiety over the state of his soul moved the church's pastor, Rev. Samuel Lynd, to renew special prayer meetings and a revival seemed" to begin at once....A]11, even [ the pastor,were taken bv surprise, as church members later recalled. Within fbur montlis of the stranger's providential appearance, Lynd h.id baptized about two hundred new members. Whv some ferv:" int sid[ prayers for the outpouring of the holy spirit failed, leaving the prayerful exhausted and demoralized, was difficult to explain. Contemporaries usually blamed their insufficient devotion selfish when confronted with futile own or motives a revival effort. But when pravers succeeded in bearing precious fruit, ·as they did in the early 1840s, contemporaries understood the work is that of the Holy Spirit and not of-themselves.12 Perh·aps because of this unpredictable element, the Great Western Revivals did not produce a continuous stream of new members into the churches between 1828 and 1843. Rather, a peculiar ebb and flow char- acterized revival meetings in Cincinnati and Louisville in the fifteen years after 1828, when British traveler and writer Frances Trollope arrived in Cincinnati to find the subject of revival'"' talked of by every one we met throughout the town. In the late 1820s, camp meetings,prayer meetings, and protracted meetings consumed the energies of Protestant groups in the two cities all at once, giving both black and white Cincinnatians and Louisvillians their first inklings of a widespread revival. A witness to these early years of Cincmnati's awakening, the Presbyterian minister and( first president of Oberlin College)Asa Mahan, later wrote,Never " in the his- tory of the world, as I believe, were Christians more sincere, ardent, and single-hearted. Yet in the 1830s, contrary to expectations for a gen- eral revival, religious enthusiasm flickered crratically among the different denominations and congregations-except for the Methodists, who main- tained a near constant state of spiritual excitement for the entire decade. Then, in a brief and unexpected surge of activity-just four months between December 1839 and April 1840 in Cincinnati and several months in late WINTER 2008 23 BEYOND CANE RIDGE 1842 and e,irly 1843 in Louisville-Protestant churches of every stripe added the majority of the Great Western Revivals'new converts 11 The numbers arc striking Cincinnati's Methodist churches reported some 730 new members in a single year,representing a 40 percent increase between 1839 and 1840, Cincinnati's white Baptists invited over two hun- dred religious seekers into their congregation in 1840, a 77 percent increase over the previous years' membership total, and between late 1842 and early 1843, Louisville's black and white Baptists offered 432 converts the right' hand of fellowship,"a 47 percent increase The Ohio Valley' Protestants therefore looked back upon the Revival" of 1840"with greater reverence than the preceding twelve years of fitful revival activity As late as 1888, Cincinnati's participants recalled the Revival of 1840 as an" event the influ- ence of which lS still felt in this Church and city-ayel which will be felt throughout eternity" With their revival's apogee occurring slightly later, Louisville's Baptists declared the year 1842 a" glorious one in our history" In the Weftern Chritian Advocate,Maxwell Gaddis boasted that 0]"[ur love- In feast may well be called the Ce?ttenary Mammoth Love-Feast one eve- tbousand ning alone, he wrote, one partook of the broken body and shed blood of the Son of God 14" In Gaddis's chronology, the Revival of 1840 began in December 1839 with the arrival in Cincinnati of renowned itinerant John Newland Maffitt Since his York the 181,.1,....«»4 AY::'.- ..'«'. immigration to New in 1829, 131 Irish-born Maffitt had preached to audiences flf*T SKETCHES.,_ , ' stretching from New Hampshire to Alabama Despite allegations of indiscretions with female u converts while he was married, and then his sub- 2 sequent divorce in the 1830s, Maffitt's national b popularity as a Methodist minister earned him 4 : t'; the chaplaincy of the House of Representatives 9 1841 Before this he labored t in appointment, in im****4-Ik , 0*,»» » f the Ohio River valley, his revival tyI. , / concentrating 4· ..: written and i ti Louisville Maffitt's Pulpit Sketches, 1/94..:, blished while he resided in Louisville in early 08189It*E„81' 1839, primed the Methodist preacher for glory, ..«**9»»p*=*@317 4 7 r and he viewed the Ohio River valley gis uniquely In poised to advance the Redeemer's kingdom strikingly militant language, he prophesied that Title page to John Newland Maffit (1794- 1850),Pu/pit Sketches(Louisville W H soon America" will be seen coming up out of Johnston, 1839) THE FILsoN His-roRICALSOCIETY the wilderness, terrible as an army with banners, travelling in the greatness of the strength of the Lord of Hosts " Time was nigh, he insisted, for a special" out-pouring of the Holy Spirit"and the consecration of this western world as a vast theatre of millennial piety 24 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BRIDGET FORD and happiness. Maffitt's grandiose hope seemed nearly realized when, in just one month's time, he induced over four hundred persons attending meetings at Cincinnati's Wesley Chapel to proclaim their assurances of sal- vation. Gaddis hazarded a guess that these converts constituted a" larger number, perhaps, than was ever received into full membership at any one time in America. Wesley Chapel's successes signaled a new Christi·an era: God is setting the captive free,"Gaddis exulted.15 If the Great Western Revivals in the Ohio Valley held out the prom- isc of collective redemption, so did they seem to beckon new possibilities for relations the race in here-and- now. For Louisville especially the evidence suggests th·at black Baptists' dramatic growth during the reviv·als inspired white evan- 1 11 gelicals to greater spiritual exet- tion. In 1839,the white-led First Baptist Church of Louisville A ' f nominally oversaw the city's African Church,"although · the white and black congrega its worshipped separately. Under the pastoral care of Elder He irv Adams, a black minister born in Georgia, Louisville's African F rst Baptist Church Fifth and Green Streets,Louisville,Kentucky, n.d. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY Church began to add hundreds of new members to the First Church's rolls in the late 1830s. A legendary preacher,Adams doubled" in three years"the membership of First Baptist Church, so that by 1840 white members ofthe congregation expressed embar- rassment at their lethargy relative to fellow black congregants. It is useless to say,that this African Church is prospering,'the white clerk reported to the local Long Run Association. In 1842, when the African Church was for- mally constituted as an independent Baptist church, Adams took with him two-thirds of the nearly eight hundred members of First Baptist,and in 1843 his church added another 214 converts, far outstripping growth among the other twenty-four urban and rural churches in the region.16 The remaining white members at First Baptist Church struggled to emulate Adams's successes. To do so, they brought in a special revivalist from Hamilton, New York,to lead a protracted meeting in the early 1840s, yet after three" daily meetings for four weeks,"the yield was negligible. The New York revivalist abandoned the work, but Louisville's white Baptists pressed on with daily" prayer"for a revival. After this month-long effort still failed to produce any new converts, they commenced" another pro- tracted meeting."Just when all seemed for naught,their prayers touched off WINTER 2008 25 BEYOND CANE RIDGE a powerful revival that brought some eighty new souls into the church in late 1842, a refreshing" from on high"that rewarded the dogged perseverance of the congregants of Louisville's First Baptist Church.17 These contemporaneous revivals briefly brought black and white Baptists together in new ways to support missionary causes in the early 1840s, when Adams's independent church sought full membership in the white-led Long Run Association. For two years, until 1844, Louisville's leading black Baptist congregation contributed generously to the denom- ination's foreign missions to Africa and to the operations of the associa- tion. In Adams's view, successfully bringing so many converts to Christ had earned him equal standing with his white ministerial brethren, and he pressed the men of the Long Run Association to allow him to represent his church at meetings. Along with the swift decline of the revivals, racialist views held by white Baptists and secessionist politics dashed Adams's hopes, and with them promises for a common evangelical mission that blacks and whites alike shared.18 Black Baptists were not alone in their revival disappointments. Contrary to widespread expectations for a lasting heaven on earth, Cincinnati's Revival of 1840 survived only a few short winter months, and the vast majority of Wesley Chapel's converts fell away from the churches. By late 1845, just fifty-one or( 11.9 percent)of the original 428 revival converts from January and February of 1840 remained members of Wesley Chapel. Of the 377 converts who left the church, only seventy-one removed with certificates, that is, with declared intentions to join another Methodist congrega- tion. The others vanished from church records. As critics of revivals often charged, converts during the Revival of 1840 likely joined for the tempo- rary elation derived from a conversion experience or re-commitment to faith,but then lost interest as religious excitements waned, to be replaced by the ordinary rigors of church life. In 1835, James Freeman Clarke, writing from Louisville, had told his friend Margaret Fuller that Maffitt" made a hundred converts here two years ago, of whom five only were in the church six months after."Apparently,Maffitt's converts from previous revivals did not have reputations for longevity.19 As an itinerant, Maffitt also did not command much patience for post-revival congregational life. In the middle of Wesley Chapel's revival, Maffitt returned to Kentucky,leaving Gaddis to DRIVE" THE BATTLE"onward, as he wrote in a private letter to the Cincinnati min- ister. Although Gaddis labored valiantly to continue the work, by April 1840, Methodist revival energies had flagged ·and conversions slowed to proved a trickle. Gaddis soon realized that the Revival of 1840 had not unique. Declension soon followed in the wake of spiritual triumph,just as it had in every prior religious awakening. Recalling biblical precedent- It was immediately after 'supper' that the disciples were called to a great 26 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BRIDGET FORD trial of faith"'-provided Gaddis some comfort, but in late 1841, his tour of duty as a revivalist abruptly ended. In a disappointing work reassign- ment, church leaders selected him to serve as' the agent for a Methodist women's seminary in Virginia, work he considered at"·best unple·... asant, and Gaddis decamped.20 Presbyterians, especially those belonging to the theologically liberal New School"branch of the church, had eagerly promoted the revival in late 1839, re·aped hundreds of new souls for the church in early 1840, and then suffered crushing disappointment in the revival's aftermath. Jonathan Blanchard's labors at Cincinn·ati's Sixth Presbyterian Church offer a poi- enant example. In 1839,Blanchard delivered an address at Oberlin College, which he later published in pamphlet form ·as A Perfect State of Society,in prophesied the ·adv·ance of the Redeemer's kingdom on earth. According to Blanchard, the millennium would not produce an ·actual heaven on earth, but rather a human society efficienth' arranged to" take up sinful mortals and fit them for heaven."Ihus ' Blanchard's perfect" society"on earth was characterized by a const·,int state of revival, always converting and prepar- I ing humans for a more glorious Paradise above. Already in 1839, the Presbyterian minister sensed the dawning of this new social organiz·a tion for perpetual awakening to Christ. T]"[he world is on its way back to God!"he rejoiced before Oberlin's students.11 Blanchard's version of the perfect" state of society entailed ardu- ous labor. No" millennium will change or alter the terms of discipleship laid down by Christ,"he warned. He charged all Protestants with con- stant advocacy for the c·ause of Christ and ceaseless struggle against sin. In the five ye·ars following the delivery of this charge to Oberlin's students, Blanchard strove mightily to usher in his vision. Beginning in Cincinnati in late 1839, he fasted and prayed for a spirit" of holiness to come on the church to which I minister; and on all the churches iii this pl·ace."For the next several months, he and his wife, Mary Blanchard, exhausted them- sclves with prayer meetings «every morning and night"to bring sinners back to God. On February 15, 1840, in the midst of a revival crowded with religious seekers, Jonathan reported to his sister that Mary's "health has suffered from long attending meetings while nursing their son,Jonathan Edwards; two weeks later,this firstborn child died. The Blanchards quickly resumed their fatiguing schedule. By May 1840, they were holding prayer meetings 3," 4 and sometimes 5 times][ a week besides evening meetings." Their labors were not without reward. 1[hrough the spring and summer months of 1840, the Blanchards' Sixth Presbyterian Church invited more than a hundred new members into the congregation.22 But for the next several years, Blanchard family correspondence and Jonathan's private journal reveal growing frustration over an inability to sustain revival feeling in the church. In a journal entry written in late 1841, Jonathan begged God for a resumption of his grace: WINTER 2008 27 BEYOND CANE RIDGE 0 that it may please thee to make this season a time of salvation to this people. My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy statutes. 0 that men would keep thy law. Keep me oh!...0 God, my own my lips and fill my heart with songs....Make no tarrying. Between 1840 and 1845, brief revivals came and went at Sixth Presbyterian Church, and all told, Jonathan and Mary Blanchard claimed more than four hundred converts to Christ before they left Cincinnati in 1845. Yet fallow seasons inevitably followed each harvest of souls, and by 1844 both 7, appeared considerably worn down by these unrelenting cycles. In a let- ter to Mary written in 1845, Jonathan finally concluded,I "am not fit for promoting God'[ s]work."1[ he" Gospel in Cincinnati, he continued, does" not look and work like the gospel in the New Testament....lhere must be some way for us to see holiness advance instead of drivelling bid and dying as it does there except in a few of God's friends[._]"In 1845, despairing of his abilities as an evangelist, Blanchard gave up the ministry to become a prominent educator in Illinois.23 In 1882,Asa Mahan,the former president of Oberlin College, offered a critical retrospective of the Great Western Revivals. While " the world shall stand,"he wrote, the western revivals will..." constitute a memorable era in the history of the Church of God. Yet according to Mahan, the reviv- als were noteworthy not so much for their success in bringing thousands of new converts into Protestant churches, as for their troubling consequences. Although the Ohio Valley's revivals gave" promise of ever-enduring fertil- ity,"they so" soon dispersed, and were][ followed by long years of spiritual dearth. Even the most prominent revival churches, he observed, demon- strated a visible reluctance to re-engage in any revival measures during the 1840s and SOs.24 This outcome seemed contrary to reason: How could a triumphant reli- gious awakening spell the end of revivalism? Here Mahan found Jonathan Blanchard's example relevant. Blanchard had put" forth his best efforts, and preached all his great revival discourses,...blut all to[ very little purpose, and his power as a preacher was never renewed."While evangelists like Blanchard labored earnestly,Mahan suggested that they expended too much of"sensation: energy for the sake Blanchard, for one, found himself trapped in an escalating struggle for new souls. For each revival cycle he had to offer ever more extreme emotional appeals. In Mahan's view,the ordinary" min- istrations of the word" served just as well to draw penitents into the church.25 In arguing that the Great Western Revivals marked the end of an era, Mahan apprehended an actual statistical trend. Protestant churches experienced their greatest increases between about 1820 and 1840, due largely to the numerous revivals in both cities, but after 1840, Presbyterian and Methodist churches experienced only slight growth in Cincinnati. 28 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BRIDGET FORD Baptists bucked this trend to some extent, but still showed greatly reduced rates of increase. In Louisville, Protestants continued to add members through 1843, the last year of significant revival activity in the city,but 1850 membership figures for the southern city nevertheless show evidence of declining growth. The shifting fortunes ofle·ading Protestant denomina- tions are most clearly seen in the cumulative totals for both cities. Church growth slowed dramatically after the earlr 1840s, with Cincinnati register- ing a small 18.2 percent increase and Louisville 50 percent by 1850, rates far below general population increases fi,r the two cities. In 1871, leading Presbyterian churchmen in Cincinnati admitted the humiliating fact, that our denomination·al development h·as by no means kept pace with the gen- eral increase ofpopulation."26 L.arge revivals placed enormous strain on congregitions, and Cincinnatitins and Louisvillians were not eager to repeat their embittering experiences in the aftermath of the aw·akening of 1840. In his 1882 autobiogr·aphy,Asa Mahan lamented that the western reviv·als produced excessive confidence in converts who claimed newfound power to "do ·111 the will of God. Driven by self-righteousness, these new church members undertook intense and tireless disciplining ofbelievers who failed to achieve perfectly sinless lives on earth. Those who suffered such ruthless disciplining, however devout they might have been, realized not the" new life, and joy, and peace, ind·, power that came with acceptance of the gospel of-Christ,but rather groan- ing bondage under the law of sin and death. Thus the awakening's conse- quences proved dire. Ministers like Blanch·ard foreswore all revival work, believers abandoned the churches r·ather than suffer "terrible discipline, and congregations fell victim to internal dissension. Under the circum- stances, Mahan wrote, nothing" could be expected but a decline of those revivals."27 Because of their high number of converts in such a short period of time, the urban awakenings in Cincinnati and Louisville in the early 1840s amplified problems latent within revivalism. Baptist church records provide unusual insight into the dynamics ofrevival and the toll it took on congrega- tional harmony. The vast outpouring of-God's grace produced an adminis- trative nightmare for congregations ill equipped to provide the watch-" care" and disciplinary oversight for so many new members. Through the 1830s, Baptist churches in Cincinnati and Louisville hovered around two hun- dred and fifty members. At this size, a pastor along with seven deacons could normally manage a congregation s internal affairs and gospel order among the members. During ordinary times, congregations careflly scru- tinized prospective members, who first met with the pastor and then had to pass muster with deacons and rank-and-file members. Bad seeds could be culled out, and the insufficiently converted worked with, before they assumed the full responsibilities of membership. Not surprisingly,many WINTER2008 29 BEYOND CANE RIDGE of the safeguards to prevent loose characters from joining the church failed when twenty people were baptized in a single day and fifty or more mem- bers received in a single week,as happened during the winter and spring of 1840. Perhaps because the 1840 awakening started" with a stranger ask- of the ushers ing one to pray for him"at Cincinnati's Ninth Street Baptist Church, this particular revival seemed especially prone to lapses in charac- ter judgment. For example, a woman who went by the romantic name of Matilda Rose"was baptized at Ninth Street during the first two weeks of the church's four-month revival. She likely did not attend the church with any regularity after the revival season had passed, for in 1843, when she came under scrutiny for immoral conduct, none of the deacons appeared to know anything about her circumstances or history. 1[he deacons learned from a boarding-house proprietor that" a Mr. Reedabout ... six weeks ago brought as his wife a woman, whose name was formerly Matilda Rose"to the house. Soon after her arrival, Rose displayed scandalous"" behavior, proving herself a bad" character."Before the church could catch up with her, Rose abandoned the husband and was last seen on a steamboat bound for Louisville. Revival convert Williamson Burdsall proved little better, although the deacons were able to find him after a two-year absence from church meetings. Burdsall admitted feeling little" or no interest in the cause of Christ, or in the Church."When the deacons enquired" whether he thought he had ever met with a change of heart-he said he had felt some change for a short time."But now,two years after his baptism, he never prayed and cared little for his spiritual state. Gratuitously,Burdsall remarked that there others the church were in as bad as he was."1he Ninth Street Baptist Church excluded both Rose and Burdsall.28 Hasty acceptance of a convert embroiled Cincinnati's first independent black Baptist church, Union Baptist, in controversy and strife for almost a year. A week into Union Baptist Church's revival, a prominent barber and shop owner in Cincinnati, Lewis R Brux, was baptized. Before his conversion, Brux had briefly courted a woman named Emma Valentine, a member of Union Baptist since 1837, who gave birth to an illegitimate child some two months after he joined the church. While Brux's role in the affair remained speculative, Valentine's more visible transgression divided the church into feuding camps. A council of three Baptist churches rec- ommended her exclusion, which the church promptly carried out. But soon after her exclusion, a deacon brought charges against Brux for father- ing Valentine's child and keeping concealed what has now involved the church in great difficulty."The church nevertheless dropped the case on" the ground that the conduct referred to took place before the conversion of the brother."Despite this exoneration, Brux's fathering of Valentine's ille- gitimate child became widespread knowledge. Angry disputes over what 30 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BRIDGET FORD some considered a double standard continued for another eight months, until the church passed a deceptively simple resolution: Resolve" that Emmer Vallintine testifide that Louis R Brux never prommissed to marrey her."Valentine's exclusion therefore stood while Brux continued to enjoy the church's fellowship.19 New converts frequently backslid or disappointed churches-whether or not theyjoined during a revival season. But the Revival of 1840 h·ad pro- duced an unprecedented number of converts in a short period of time. In the five years following the awakening, disciplinary problems overwhelmed churches and the number of exclusions spiked upward. In 1842, the Ninth Street Baptist Church excluded sixteen members, a striking contrast with the annual ·average of three during the previous ten years of the church's existence. In 1845, the Union Baptist Church excluded twenty-eight mem- bers, a remarkable 8 percent of its total membership. Congreg:itions deeply disliked excluding members because all Baptists had an obligation to save or reclaim crring members from the sins into which they have fallen."A last resort, exclusions reminded congregtitions of their shortcomings.30 Yet exclusions were just the tip of the iceberg. In the revival's after- math,investig·ations ofmembers'transgressions swamped deacons,who had a special responsibility to encourage the wavering and to prosecute sinners according to the gospel" discipline"contained in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew. In order to cope with new members, the major Baptist churches in Cincinnati and Louisville soon revamped their church covenants and disciplinary by-laws. 7[he First Colored Baptist Church of Louisville, for- merly known as the African Church, created a new committee of seven men to assist" the[ deacons] in any matters of discipline."Cincinnati's Union B·aptist Church formed a new committee to ade" the Decons In Settling all Difficulteys that might acur Betwen members before Coming Yet to the Church." this seemed to have little effect in easing the deacons' workload. In the next three months, the church charged some twenty- six persons with disorderly behavior, including the pastor. Deacon Henry Williams accused Elder Satchell of sayin" in A surmond sermon][ that they came forward with Lawing like Fal foul][ Red tongs tonguedl[ serpents[,1 Applying it to the members."This cryptic allegation, read in context, sug- gests that Elder Satchell had reservations about the number of complaints church members were bringing against each other. At the next meet- ing, in an effort to prevent minor difficulties from escalating into formal charges, the congregation created vigilant" committees"to visite" the mem- bers and reporte thare condition to the Church at Each Church meating." Cincinnati's white Baptist church ·also adopted a new disciplinary regime to handle its burgeoning caseload. In October 1840, the church created a committee on discipline"to labor" with members for the settlement of pri- vate offences, and to investigate charges of public offence."In 1841, Ninth WINTER 2008 31 BEYOND CANE RIDGE Street Baptist further refined this plan by creating special visiting commit- tees to hold" spiritual conversation"with members and to" pray with them." This arrangement was intended as an early warning system so that the church would know about peculiar" cases"needing immediate attention.21 As Asa Mahan recalled in 1882, churches began to ratchet up the requirements for membership in an effort to create a purer fellowship in Christ the aftermath of the in Great Western Revivals. Indeed, a certain number of moral ultraists wreaked havoc in the congregations by investi- gating and excluding new members at a higher rate than in previous years, at a cost to congregational harmony. Thus the same perfectionist impulses dividing antebellum reformers into moderate and radical camps affected the churches. At the behest of purists, congregitions passed resolutions demanding total abstinence from liquor and the cessation of all work on Sundays. These new rules of discipline help to account for the high number of offenders brought before deacons.32 In both black and white B·aptist churches, Sabbath-day work restric- th)ns generated hard feelings,iii part because the Revival of 1840 coincided with of the one worst economic recessions in the nation's history,the so- called Panic of 1837. Many church members believed they had no choice but to work on Sundays and sensed a selective application of the rules. In 1843, revival convert John Sigendorf ran afoul of several prohibitions by selling liquor on a steamboat operating on Sundays. Sigendorf claimed to be " driven by actual necessity"and argued that wealthier members had not been brought before the church for owning steamboats running on Sundays. How then is it that I a poor boy must be singled out to answer for a crime[?]" Sigendorf asked the deacons. Though the church eventually suspended four steamboat owners for violating" the Lord's day,"a perception lingered that the church' s rules targeted poorer members. This same sense of injustice crept into black churches, which in early 1840 began citing members who worked on the Sabbath. After a barber who had been admonished to stop shaving on Sundays complained that the church was Acting" Partial,"the church decided not to press the issue. Intended to complement revivalists' mood of moral seriousness, the higher bars to church fellowship had exac- erbated class tensions.33 The revivals of the early 1840s also disrupted longstanding relation- ships between pastors and congreg:itions. While congregations struggled to maint·ain gospel order and political harmony in the revival's aftermath, pastors tried to regain their own equilibrium. Samuel Lynd, the pastor at Ninth Street Church in Cincinnati since its founding in 1830, seemed unable to adjust to post-revival life. Members who appeared perfectly satis- fied with Lynd's preaching before the revival now found fault with him. For example, Thomas and Rebecca Ryland had been members of Ninth Street since the early 1830s, and Lynd had baptized Rebecca in 1833. After the 32 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BRIDGET FORD 1840 revival, though, the Rylands stopped attending Ninth Street. When a deacon investigated,he discovered the cause of their disaffection: 1[hey believe that any man, who is called to preach the Gospel,has no need to study his sermons. All he has to do is simply open his mouth and the Lord will fill Sister Rvl;ind it.... said the best ser- mons she ever heard ivere from men right out of-the cori»field and out of the woods. She at the top of-her voice declared her dislike to the Pastor ·and the Church. S][ aid she did not believe in big I and little you and all such stuff. Lynd had always been a scholarly minister; he once complained that three" whole days spent in study will scarcely suffice to make one sermon. After a season of extraordinkiry revival, le,irned sermons no longer appealed to some. Tensions over Lytid's scholasticism and neglect of his pastoral duties eventu:illy led to his resignation in 1845. Similarly,it . Union Baptist Church, church members became dissatisfied with the college-educated Charles Satchell, who the claimed wass" not Edefring to them."Until Satchell's resienation in 1845, the church cast about for a new pastor each year following the revival. Exposed to revival meetings' emotional highs, the congregations at Union Baptist and Ninth Street Baptist Churches demanded more of their settled ministers, and both men failed to live up to new expectati)ns. 34 Unsurprisingly,given the emotional turmoil and disciplinary excesses faced by congregations and individuals in the aftermath of the Great Western Revivals, churches in Cincinn·ati and Louisville showed a decided prefer- ence for small-scale pr·ayer meetings and carefully orchestrated protracted meetings in the late 1840s and 1850s. Of course, evangelic·al ministers and committed lay-persons never wholly abandoned their dream, foretold in Scripture, of a thousand years of peace and joy under Christ's reign. Ille ' revivals that periodically erupted across the country after 1840 sparked new hopes. Recognizing that the large scale and fast pace characterizing urban revivals posed special problems for congregations, Cincinnatians and Louisvillians chose to aw·ait rather than pursue another extraordinary sea- son of refreshing such as they had experienced during the Great Western Revivals. Qtiestions over slavery,not the failure of the revivals,led to the ruptures in the Baptist and Methodist denominations in 1844. Nevertheless,the difficult aftermath of the urban revivals provides an important backdrop for under- standing the fracturing of the nation's churches following such a remarkable awakening. Many of the Ohio River valley's white congregations and minis- ters who helped to forge the separate sectional denominations had themselves participated in the revivals, and witnessed their disillusioning conclusion. WINTER2008 33 BEYOND CANE RIDGE With longstanding ministers vacating pulpits and congregations laboring to reestablish gospel order,evangelical identity was increasingly tied inextricably to sectionalized regions. In the case of the slave state churches, this included the ability to own and control black slaves. Black evangelicals turned to their own church building, apart from white supervision in Louisville and with increasing emphasis on assisting fugitive slaves in Cincinnati. To be sure, evangelical Protestantism had tempo- rarily drawn a swelling population into the Ohio Valley's urban churches, but the zeal fomented by the revivals would find its new outlet in the growing sec- tional controversy over slavery. In May 1845, Louisville played host to the con- vention of ministers establishing the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. More than just a convenient setting for newly designated southern ministers to Methodist Episcopal Church,Cincinnati from Youths declare their independence from the Magazine,August 5, 1836. CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER national Methodist Church, Louisville's white ministers helped to chart the course towards denominational separa- tion by forming the first Committee on Division"among Southern Church r• 1 conferences, thus enterting_1 into the work of revolution with a thorough good-will, as the Cincinnati Methodist editor Charles Elliott later com- plained. The dreams of national integration through a common evangelical Protestantism rapidly evaporated as the revivals ran their course.35 Although the 3.Wakening of the 1830s and 1840s called into question the efficacy of revivals to build up stable religious communities, events in Cincinnati and Louisville had nevertheless shown that cities were not hos- tile to religion,and that churches and missionary undertakings often pros- pered in urban environments. Ihe' Ohio Valley's cities offered dynamic settings-easily drawn crowds, financial support for ministers and itiner- ant preachers, rich print media resources to broadcast religious happenings, and bustling competition among denominations. Protestants continued to use agricultural metaphors such as sowing"" and reaping"' when they spoke of their evangelism, but they acknowledged that new converts could as eas- ily be found in the crowded boardinghouses of cities like Cincinnati and Louisville as in rural hamlets like Cane Ridge.36 1 Maxwell Pierson Gaddis, Foot-Prints ofan Itinerant 3 Richard C. Wade, 7/be Urban Frontier.·7be Rise of Cincinnati: Methodist Book Concern, 1855),240-46. Western Cities,1790-1830 Cambridge, Ma.:Harvard University Press, 1959),134, 133. On Cane Ridge, 2 For use of the phrase Great" Western Revivals,"see see John B. Boles, 7be Great Revival,1787-1805 Asa Mahan,Autobiograpby:Intellectual,Moral,and Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1972); Spiritual London, Eng.:T Woolmer,1882),215; Paul Conkin, Cane Ridge:America's Pentecost Madison: Gaddis, Foot-Prints, 252. University of Wisconsin Press, 1990);and Ellen 34 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BRIDGET FORD Eslinger, Citize,is of Zioj!:7be Social Origins oj Camp minutes. I h'ave therefore relied on additional sources, Meeting Revivalism Knc,xville: The University of including Shackel fird Miller,Historical Sketch oj the Tennessee Press, 1999) First Presbyterian Church ofI.ouisville Louisville: n.p.,1916),33, Presbytery[ of Cincinnati and the 4 Gaddis, Foot-Pri, 148,252,181. its, Alinisterial Association of-Cinciniati],P,·esbyterianism iii iii(:fi 11,1,1 ti:Its History,Itsition and Dittv Cincititiati: 5 lhe- peak of the revivals in Cincinnati and Louisville n.p.,1871),4-5. occurred at the tail-end of the national revival cliron<,logy,with Cincinn.iti' urb· revival Cat!} and Female. s greatest an 10 arine Brekus, St,y,ngers P,({.1'im,·: taking place in 1840 and Louisville' in 1842 and early s Pr:„i·bi,ig i,1 America, 1740-1845Chape\ ( Hil\. 1843. On the of separation the northern and southern University of North Carolina Press, 1998),36. On the churclies ,ind tlle special problems faced by bc,rder chronology of the revivals, sce Richard Carwardine, regions, Ricliard J. Carwitidine, Ei,angeli,cils kl Tra), antic Rei,ivalism: sce a/ fat/ Popit/a)·E-vange/Iealisin Politics in Ailtebellum Ain:Tica New Haven, Ct.:Yale in R,·itain andAmerica, 1790-1865 Westport, Ct. Universitv Press, 1993),162-66. Greenwood Press, 1978),45-56. 6 James D. Bratt, Religic," Anti-Revivalism in us 11 Relevant schi,larship on revivalism includes Marr P. Antebellum America," /ual oftbe Early Republic 24 02,1 Ry·an.Cradle oftb:Middle Class.711,·Faniily in Oneida Citizens ofZion, 225. Spring 2004),68; Eslinger, Cot,jity,New York.1790-1865 New York: Cam],ridge University Press, 1981);Charles Sellers, 7be Market 7 I. Beecher, Plea,/8,the· Mt, 1835; New York: yman st ( Revolu tion:Jacksonian Anierica, 1815-1846 New York: Arno Press, 1977).35; Cincinnati Bible Society, 7be Oxford University Press, 1992);Paul E. Johnson, First Annual Report oftbe Cincinnati Bible Society A Shopkeeper' Millennium:Sorietv and Revivals in Cincinnati: s Li,c,ker and Revnolds, 1830),15. Rocb,·ster,New York, 1815-18.37 (New York: Hill and D:, V.ing, 1978);and Randolph Roth, 7be nocratir 8 Ji,nath,in Blanchard tc,liar j· th,ery Bent, May 12, Dilemma:Religion, Reform,and the Social Order in the 1838, atid M,ir. 28, 1838, Correspondence, bc, 1, x New Jonathan Blancliard Cc}llection, Buswell Xlemorial Connectictit River 141/ley of 14·mont.1791-1850 York: Canibridge Universit)·Press, 1987).On the Library Archives and Special Collecticins, IVheaton financial crises of the late 1830s and early 1840s, Cc,tlege, Wheaton, IL [liereafter BAILA] see Daniel Walker Howe, What Hatb God H/rought.·73, 9 I tracked menibership statistics through church Transformation ofAmerica,1815-1848 New York: and denominational records. 14, Oxford Universiti Press, 2()07),501-08. associati(,n 1 Presbiterians, sce General Assembly of the 12 Regular Baptist Churches ot-Color,Minutes oftbe 1resbyterian Church ill the U. S. A, Mi)!lites of-t/}e Fifth Annual Association of tbe Regula,-Btipfist Churches enera/Asse,jibly oftbe Piesbyterian Church in the Unite,t of Color in Ohio 1840... Chillicothe, Oh.: States of Americti 1821-1837);General Assenibly of n.p., 1840),5- Minutes of the the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (New School), 6, Unic,n Baptist Church, Ala>·20, 1841, Union Baptist Church, Cincinnati, Minittes oftbe General Assembly ofthe Presbyterian Oil (microfilm Church iii tbe U,lited States ofAmerica1838- ( 1860)·, in possession of the author, used by permission of Union Baptist Church);Ninth Street General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the Baptist Church,Semi-Centennial oftbe Ninth Street U.S.A.Old ( Schooll,Minutes oftbe General Assembly Baptist Church of Cincinnati,November 7.8,and 9,1880 of tie Pi-esbyterian Cbm,/3 in the United States of Ame,-ici] Cincinnati: 1880),16;Alaric Ann H,111 to Mrs. 1838-1860).Fc,r Methodists, see Methodist n.p., Elizabeth Booth, Apr.28, 1842, Booth-Beall Family F.piscop·41\Church,Minutes oj be/ Annital Conferences Papers, Tic Filson Historical Society,Lc,uisville, Kv. of-tbe Methodist Episcopal Cbitrch1820- ( 1860)and Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Minutes of 13 Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners oftbe Americaits, tbeAnnual Con#, 1845-1860).14, Baptists, rnres ( r Herbert Van[ hal, intro. 1832;( London, Eng.:The sce Miami Baptist Assc,ciation (Ohio),Minittes of Folio Society, 1974),71; Mahan,Autobiograpby, 223. tbe Miami Baptist Association 1820-( 1836)·,M'vami Association of Regular Baptists Ohio),( Minittes of 14 For church growth figures, see sources listed in note 8, the Mi i Association of Regular Baptists1837- ( 1860)·, am abc,ve; Ninth Street Baptist Church, Semi-Centennial, Regular Mi, of tbe Baptist Churches ofColor, rutes 15,Minutes oftbe Long Run AssociationLouisvme·. ( J Annual Associations oftbe Regular Baptist Churches Eliot and Co.,1842),15; Gaddis, Foot-Prints,252. of Color iii Ohio 1837 and 1840);and Long Run Association (Kentucky),Minutes oftbe Long Run 15 Rev. John Newl:i, d Maffitt, Pu/pit Sketebes, First Association of Baptistr 0 815-1860).Because ofthe split Serirs Louisville: W. Harrison Johnston, 1839),30- in the Presbyterian Church, membership statistics 31; Gaddis, Foot-Pt ii,ts,272,275. On Maffitt, sce for Cincinnati and Louisville are spotty in oflicial Robert E. Cray, I"ligh Stvle and I,ow Morals: John WINTER 2008 35 BEYOND CANE RIDGE Newland Maffitt and the Methodist Church, 1794- 21 Jonathan Blanchard,A Perfect State of Society:Address 1850,"Methodist History 45 Oct. 2006),31-42;and Depre the Soclety of Inquiry,in Oberlin Collegiate Carwardine, Transatlantic Reviealism, 22. I have Institute Oberlin, Oh.:James Steele, 1839),4-5, 16. calculated the number of Maffitt's converts from 22 Ibid.,9;Jonathan Blanchard,Journal " and Notebook, Wesley Chapel's membership records, according to 1829-1842,"Nov. Jonathan which at least 428 persons claiming salvation joined 13, 1839; Blanchard to Sclima Blanchard,Feb. 15, 1840, and Mary Blanchard the Methodist church on a probationary basis in Jan. 1840, and became full members ofthe church six to Selima Blanchard, May 4, 1840, Correspondence, box 1,Jonathan Blanchard Collection,BMLA. The months later. Church clerks maintained two separate membership lists during the period under consideration church growth figures for carly 1840 come from Blanchard,Journal " for this study: 1834-1844 and 1845-1850. These and Notebook,"Oct. 25, 1840. I have relied upon Blanchard' observations here lists provide the member's name, along with the date s which because official Presbyterian membership figures after on the member was either received" into full 1837 are incomplete. See also Clyde S. Kilby, Minority connection"indicating ( a conversion experience and six ofOne:Ibe ' Biography ofJonatban Blanchard Grand months probation period)or received" by certificate" Rapids, Mi.:Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., from another Methodist church).The records also 1959), 86. indicate when the member left the church, either removed by certificate,"removed ' without certificate," 23 Blanchard,Journal " and Notebook,"Sept. 17, 1841; withdrawn," excluded."I compiled database or " a William Walter Blanchard to Jacob and Selima Allen, of the 428 members who were received" into full Feb. 10, 1844, and Jonathan Blanchard to Mary connection"in July 1840, after their probationary Blanchard, Apr. 11, 1845, Correspondence, box 1, in period. Illese' particular church membership lists do Jonathan Blanchard Collection,BLMA. Because of not indicate the names of those who converted during the incompleteness of official Presbyterian records, I the revival but then failed the of to meet requirements have drawn the figure offour hundred converts from the six-month probationaryperiod. Given anccdotal Kilby, Minority ofOne,99. evidence from Gaddis, however,it appears that many more claimed to be converted at the height of the 24 Mahan,Autobiograpby,215-16, 228. revival than actually joined Wesley Chapel six months 25 Ibid., later. Wesley Chapel Methodist CburebCincinnati), ( 229,243, 161. Member Records,Book One, 1834-1867 Salt( Lake City: 26 Sec note 8, above; Presbytery[ of Cincinnati], Genealogical Society of Utah, 1995),microfilm reel 17. Presbyterianism in Cincinnati,5. 16 Minutes oftbe Long Run Association 1839),6; n.p., 27 Mahan, Autobiography,245-47,239. Minutes oftbe Long Run Association Louisville: Office of Baptist Banner, 1840),8; Minutes of the Long Run 28 Lakewood Baptist Church,Our " Church 1 listory" Association Louisville: J. Eliot and Co.,1842),4, 8, Cincinnati: Lakewood Baptist Church, n.d., Minutes ofthe Long Run Association Louisville: Banner photocopy),2;Minutes of the Lakewood Baptist Office, 1843),3-5. Church,July 11, 1840 and May 10, 1842, Lakewood Baptist Church microfilm( in possession of the author, 17 Minutes (1842),13, 15. used by permission of the Lakewood Baptist Church). 18 Minutes 1842),( 9, Minutes 1843),( 10, 13; Minutes 29 Minutes of the Union Baptist Church,Feb. 8, 1835, ofthe Long Run Associati. Louisville: W. C. Buck, on Apr.24, 1840,Jan. 8, 1841. 1844),5. 30 Miami Baptist Association, Minutes,1831-1845; 19 To calculate the figures cited here, I took the names Government and Discipline of the Ninth Street database ofrevivalists- in my taken from the 1834- Baptist Church,"Minutes ofthe Lakewood Baptist 1844 membership list-and compared them with Church, Oct. 13, 1840. those names appearing on the new 1845-1850 list see note 14, above).I also used the 1834-1844 list to 31 W.W. Gardner, Circular" Letter: On the determine those persons who had left "by certificate. Qualifications and Duties of Deacons,"in Long Run Wesley Chapel Methodist CburebCincinnati), ( Member Association, Minutes 1846).6;Minutes of the Fifth Records,Book One,1834-1867,James Freeman Clarke, Street Baptist Church Louisville),( Nov. 12, 1846, Autobiography,Diary and Correspondence,Edward University Archives and Records Center, University Everett Hale, ed. 1891;( New York: Negro Universities of Louisville, Kentucky;Minutes of the Union Baptist Press, 1968),109. Church, Sept. 1, Dec. 15, and Dec. 24, 1840;Minutes of the Lakewood Baptist Church, Oct. 13, 1840 and 20 Gaddis, Foot-Prints,263,271,287. Dec. 14, 1841. 36 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BRIDGET FORD 32 For similar phenomena in the Northeast, see Roth, 12, 1843, and Mar. 25, 1844; Minutes of the Union Democratic Dilemma,210-12;John L. Thomas, Baptist Church, Dec. 9, 1842. Romantic Reform in America, 1815-1865,"American Charles Elliott, Quarter/v 17 Winter 1965),656-81. 35 History oftbe Great Secessionfjom tbe Methodist Episcopal Cbtlrib in tbe Year 1845,Eventuating 33 Mitiutes of the Lakewc,c,d Baptist Church, Aug. 15 iii tbe Organization oftbe New Cht,rch,Entitled tbe and Sept. 19, 1843; Minutes of the Union B.iptist Methodist E.piscop,il Church, Sot,th"Cincinnati: Church, Feb. 9, 1842. Vestern Book Concern, 1855),414. 34 Alinutes ofthe Lakewood Baptist Church, Sept. 36 Ii,*itites ofthe Long Run Association18423, ( 13. WINTER 2008 37 ZES 41„ I. Ai12* St) I... i. l 461 * PG 4 1 . r 1, 2 $ 4. 9 V. 4 1 . j 41,1' f : 4, A L#l 3 S. i S I. ' I. %.1 ' 3 1 h . f. I. f.. I I 1 k r 4 r Formerslavequarters the on Winston place,Burlington Boone County,Kentucky,1868 THE FL SON HISTOR(AL SOC ET i Searching for Slavery Fugitiue Slaues in the Ohio River Valley Borderland,1830-1860 Matthew Salafia n the 18505, Richard Daly enjoyed considerable freedom for a man I in bondage Daly lived in Trimble County, Kentucky, on a planta- tion along the Ohio River owned by two brothers, Samuel and George Ferrin Daly worked on the farm and regularly attended the market in free of Indiana He Madison, across the river in the nominally state mar- ried Kitty, a house servant from a neighboring plantation, and they had four children before Kitty died in childbirth at the age of twenty Daly protected his family as best he could and visited his children nightly According to Daly's later description, in the 1850s he yearned to be free, 38 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA but he also recognized that despite his enslaved status he still enjoyed some opportunities and autonomy. Daly understood that he could obtain free- dom whenever he wanted but he later claimed that he never thought about running awav. He did not accept' the legitimacy of slavery nor was lie sat- isfied with his enslaved status; by his own estimate he helped thirty slaves escape from bondage. However, Daly did not believe that the uncertain he would hold st.itus in the "free"states w.as necessarilv better. More important, his ·affection for his family oversh·adowed the advantages of freedom. Bondage conditioned his life, but love motivated Dah:He loved his family more than he wanted freedom. Only when Slrs." Ho·agliti,"tile woman who owned Daly's children, decided to give his d.lughter Mary to her own daughter in Louisville did he decide NARRATil'E AND· WRITINGS to escape slavery. For I)aly, who had not con- sidered escape before, running away or "steal- ing his freedom atid the freedom of his children AN 1)RE W JACKSON, became the only w·ay he could keep his family 3 4 -1 int·act. In 1857, the devoted father escaped to 337 F KENTUCKY ; Canada witli his four children.1 r r,7 1NNG N ACCOUbl OV BIRTl,. AND TV;ENTT SU TZARR . D·.113 ' story provides Ivindow into how iS 1.$,r n W,Lt A •LA%K : 1[!4 ESCAPE : m ¥rARS Om L· s a ZT!ER ...... KS E]· t'...... :3 ... persolial considerations and the geographic bor- 4,'...'FA'..., der between slavery and freedom complicated N.,MATE])11·"11ISE!, ' F: the decisions of Afric· Americans Ohio an in the WkfTTN HV A FtEND. River valle. 1[he boundarr between slavery and freedom carried special significance fi,r African Aniericans because in crossinsr it they enjoyed S¥RACI' SE: 1/!1 Y INI) WEEKLYTAR ' OFFICK SMTIbhhi:, the possibility of escaping their enslaved status. IIt7 However, rather than defining a boundarr that slavery could not penetrate, the Ohic) River mar- ginalized freedom by weakening slavery. A T\t\e page,Narrative and Writings ofAndrew cen- Jackson,of Kentucky5yracus: ... Daily trtil inomaly of this borderland the and Weekly region w·as Star Office, 1847).THE FILSON similarity between the work regimes of racial HISTORICALSOCIETY slavery and black wage labor. The Ohio River thus represented a periph- ery of both slavery and freedom, and the resulting racial and labor ambi- guities both provoked violence and muddied distinctions between slave and free status. Consequently,enslaved blacks faced substantial barriers to free- dom that did not end at the Ohio River. 3]lic Fugitive Slave Laws of 1793 and 1850 enabled slaveholders to retrieve their escaped property throughout the country, meaning th,it fugitives' legal status did not change when they escaped to a free state. Even after fleeing from their owners, moreover, run- aways faced a largely hostile and suspicious white population north of the Ohio. Fear of pursuit, punishment, and death strongly discouraged slaves from esc·aping north. As the former Kentucky slave Andrew Jackson noted: If anyone wishes to know what were my feelings during this time, let them imagine themselves a slave, with the strong arm of the law extended over WINTER 2008 39 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY L- z_Li=A,..i@ Z.- ,»*.Z_ - ·.. CA- - --- P, A A e ,/r i ¢ I ...4 4 1 4' 1, / Ps* 2-4/E-L-#initi-=3:. xr 1 1 ' :* . .-1 44- i, r•*-ib-*r ,.0* 3» 10&<' er" I 1 4,1* t 4,U"t=« 4 «t' fuer r», 47« 2433, 1'.464=' * 1. 2>„' 4= 4-i B . e.* r h. -6 . 1 19*,751 --0 I. I. 1 5 1 I. Western States Map,J Hammond (1835) CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER their heads-doomed, lfretaken,to a severe punishment,and almost unen- durable torture 2" Racism, in short,made free blacks slaves" without masters"throughout the country, a situation that was no different in the Ohio Valley Indeed, sorne free blacks free saw little difference between slave and status Upon arriving in Cincinnati free black john Malvin recalled, I"thought upon coming to a free state like Ohio that I would find every door thrown open to receive me, but from the treatment I received by the people generally, I found it little better than Virginia The constant interaction between enslaved and free African Americans ultimately made white Americans sus- picious of all black laborers As African American minister Elisha Green explained,I "was more of a slave after I bought myself than before Before free- I could go many places without interruption,but when I became a I could the Ohio River Green' man not cross s statement illustrates the contradictions of black freedom In the Ohio Valley His freedom of mobil- ity declined when he became legally free because he could no longer enter the slaves states, as a slave, in contrast, he could enter fiee states 3 In addition, both free and enslaved African Americans enjoyed access the kinds ofwork to same and as a result most remained locked in the same meager economic web After 1830, Kentucky's economy grew increasingly 40 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA diverse, which in turn prompted many slaveholders to hire out their slaves. Hired bondspeople generally performed the same kind of labor as free workers. Tilley worked in fields and factories, on steamboats and in hos- pitals, and as barbers, musicians, draymen, and most commonly as domes- tic servants. A select few self-hired slaves chose their employers, rented houses, and maintained a certain measure of control over their lives. Such work facilitated movement across the river and created unique opportuni- ties for enslaved river workers. Some enslaved people who hired their own time resided in the same wards as free blacks. As Isa·ac Throgmorton,who worked as a barber in Louisville, later explained, I lived with free people, and it was just as though I was free."But, the freedoms ·associated with hiring out revealed the similarity of slave and free labor in the Ohio Valley. These hired sl:wes were well aware of what freedom along the border did and did not offer. As Kentucky slave John Davis noted, I"can't say that I suffered anything par- ticular down South; but they always kept St my 0*117.t. 4,f' ' « nose down to the grindstone, and never gave me 4' anything for my labor."When Davis set out in pursuit of freedom he did not settle in the free states immediately to the north. Instead, he Lewis Garrard Clarke (1812-1897), traveled to Canada, where after sixteen years he frontispiece,Narratives of the Sufferings of Lewis and Milton Clarke ... amassed 3,$ 500 worth of property, because he Boston: B. Marsh, 1846).THEFILSONHISTORICALSOCIETY believed that only there could he enjoy economic freedom.4 Indeed, black Americans on both sides of the river found their occupational opportunity and physical mobility limited by race regard- less of their legal status. For a small number of African Americans freedom offered the opportu- nity to work for oneself. Moreover, free blacks kept all of their wages and could better pro- vide for themselves and their families. A few free blacks even amassed considerable fortunes. 1" Washington Spradling, freed in 1814, worked as a barber in Louisville and by 1850 had amassed J. Milton Clarke (1817-1901),from over thirty thousand dollars, much of which he Narratives ofthe Sufferings of Lewis and Milton Clarke. used to purchase the freedom of thirty-three Boston: B. Marsh, 1846). THEFILSONHISTORICALSOCIETY slaves. However, Spradling was in the minor- ity, and many found little opportunity for advancement. After gaining his freedom, former slave J. C. Brown hoped to join the ranks of financially successful free blacks in the Ohio Valley Brown tried to conduct his mason WINTER 2008 41 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY business on both sides of the Ohio River,but whites threatened him with violence and conspired to kidnap and sell him soutli, which ultimately con- vinced him to head to Canada. Brown's experience suggests that the racial limitations established by sl·avery followed borderland African Americans throughout the Ohio River valley.5 Moreover, the racial boundary,if not always physically enforced, was always psychologically present. Although residence in a free state promised freedom, African Americans north of-the Ohio River recognized the uncertainty of their situa- tion. As John Chapman explained,I "was origi- nally from Kentucky, but removed into Indiana at fourteen. I did not feel safe in Indiana, and removed with my family into Canada at Gosfield. The precariousness of African American freedom north of the Ohio discouraged many slaves from taking flight. Runaway sl·ave narratives reveal fugitives' awareness of the r·acial boundaries pres- ent on both sides of the river. Milton Clarke, a· light-skinned fugitive from Kentucky, under- St()O d that though he had eros sed the geographic Salmon RChase (1808-1873). divide between CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER slavery and freedom the racial boundary remained after a confrontation with an Ohio farmer in whose haystack he had surreptitiously hidden. 7110 follow- ing day the farmer confronted Mr." Austin,"a local white at whose home Clarke was staying, to know if it was so. Clarke remembered that the farmer angrily announced that if" he had known that a nigger slept there, he would have burned the hay and him all up together."'He then turned to Clarke, unaw:ire that he was the runaway, and asked him if he had seen that nigger."I told" him I had,"replied Clarke. Austin then asked the farmer what" he would say if they slave[ c.itchers]should come,ind attempt to take"Clarke into" slavery."Why," " replied the farmer,I "'would shoot them:"For Clarke the lesson was clear: The farmer's philanthropy" was gr·aduated, like many others, upon nothing more substantial than color. He knew that his light skin carried the assumption of freedom, but his story also highlighted the tenuousness of assumed freedom. Clarke, like many other free blacks north of the Ohio River,realized that he could only pass as a free person.6 In the Ohio River valley, fugitives like Clarke never stopped pass- ing as free persons because African Americans needed proof of their freedom. Whites questioned and even jailed black Americans traveling without papers in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky on the suspicion that they were runaways. Madison Jefferson, a slave living along the Ohio River, 41 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA was jailed in Ohio on three separate occasions while trying to escape. In Kentucky, an appellate court ruled that color" and long possession are such presumptive evidences of slavery as to throw the burden of proof on a negro claiming freedom."The laws of the states on both sides of the Ohio River required free blacks to carrv written proof of their freedom. In Ohio and Indiana, free blacks had to post a bond and register with the local county court upon entering the state. Due largely to the efforts of anti- slavery lawyer Salmon P. Chase, by 1841 the Ohio Supreme Court deter- free. mined that slaves brought voltintarily bJ' their owners into Ohio were r ii Litives, however, remained technically ensl·,wed and, equally important, confronted a largely hostile white population in the state. The sheer num- ber of kidnapping and violent recl·amation incidents that appeared in Ohio newspapers attest to the dangers that black Americans faced in the region. Slavery w'as only an unvigil,int moment away because the law put the burden of proof on African Americans, and dark skin color undermiiied the secu- that freedoni supposedly 1[hough rity guaranteed. enslaved people livingL. close to the Ohio River had opportunities to run away from their owners, the tenuousness of freedom north of the river had important implications Lind sh,iped their decision-making process. Tlic border juxtaposed tlle lived experience of slavery and freedom in a war that gave ensleived Americans a" clear view of life outside of slav- erv."I From this vant · age ..'point, border slaves could see the opportunities that freedom offered as well is: those it limited. Consequently,in their pub- lished ilarratives and recollections former slaves tended to portray the Ohio River as a borderland in which a slave-like experience characterized life on both banks. Some fugitives even concluded that because of the constraints imposed by race north of the Ohio River freedom as a fugitive was not a desired state iii and of itself. All things being equal, of course, African Americans chose freedom over slavery; however, all things were not equal, and slaves understood better than anyone the nature of slavery and freedom in America. Former border slave Frederick Douglass said it best: We" knew of no spot this side of the ocean we could be safe. We had heard of C·anada, then the only real Canaan for the America bondman, simply as a country to which the wild goose and swan repaired at the end of winter...but not as the home of 8 man." In their narratives, Kentucky slaves often described a point when an opportunity to escape presented itself but they decided not to run. These moments of decision-or indecision-reveal that enslaved African Americans along the border constantly evaluated the costs and benefits of an escape attempt. Historians can easily explain why field hands toiling on cotton plantations in antebellum Mississippi did not run away in large numbers. The sheer power of the white community combined with the WINTER 2008 43 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY forbidding distance free to territory ensured a minimal likelihood of sue- while cess failure guaranteed severe physical punishment and perhaps s·ale. Proximity to the border, in contrast,offered enslaved people more opportu- flee, but nities to the barriers to successful escape remained high,as did the price of failure. African Americans understood that the stigma of slavery followed them across the border. Fleeing across the river did not end their second-class status or ensure their legal status as free people. So while they have had the may opportunity to flee across the river,they could not escape from slavery that easily. Thus many slaves along the border escaped only after ·a triggering event threatened to tear them away from their community or forced then to reevaluate their enslaved condition. The complicated motivations of slaves in the borderland suggest that while the desire for freedom always gave them a reason to escape, some enslaved people needed an additional rationale: In short, African Americans' expe- riences in the Ohio River Valley led them to view the region as a border- 1·and in which slavery and freedom lay on a continuum rather than represent- 31!1 heart i,abnost brolce„" ing antithetical conditions. While black 11 Americans recognized the marked dif- ferences between the status of enslaved people south of the river and free people Fugitive slave Henry Bibb (1815-1854),with wife and to the north, concluded that free- child,from Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry mally Bibb:An American Slave New York: The Author,1849). dom did not offer all the privileges that THEFILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY slavery denied, nor did slavery deny all the privileges of freedom. As a result, the decision to escape from bond- rarely simple because age was the choice between slavery and freedom was far from intuitive. Recognizing the complicated motives of fugitives also enhances our understanding of them as rebels. As historians John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger note, To examine the motives of those who challenged the system does injustice to the complexities of the human experience, but at the same time exploring the" conditions and factors that caused slaves to go on' the run' is one of the best ways to comprehend the attitudes of slaves."The present study, then, examines these human com- plexities, particularly how personal and geographic conditions became rea- sons to flee. But such factors were only part of the story,because often the same reasons that induced some slaves to escape convinced others to endure bondage. To understand this apparent contradiction requires considering 44 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEWSALAFIA borderland slaves' understanding of slavery, their initial decisions not to escape, and the factors that sparked their ultimate decision to run.10 Following his escape,former Kentucky slave Henry Blue explained that some" poor,ignorant fellows may be satisfied with their condition as slaves,but, as a general thing, they are not satisfied with being slaves. With this pithy com- ment, Blue made a careful distinction between the idea and practice of slav- ery. He articulated how slaves both rejected the legitimacy of bondage and toler·ated their conditions as slaves. Being well-fed or properly clothed did not convince slaves that slavery was prefer·able to freedom. As erstwhile Kentucky slave Henry Bibb wrote, Freedom" to act for oneself though poorly clad, and fed with a dry crust, is glorious when compared with American slavery. But earlier Bibb had offered different of his for some vears a account motivations escape when he wrote to his former owner,You " had it in your power to have kept me there much longer than you did. I think it is very probable th·at I would have been a toiling slave on your plantation today,if you h·ad treated me differently Historians have devoted thousands of pages to explic'ating the methods African Americans employed both to reject ·and endure their bondage. In the borderlind, where geography intermingled with slaves' per- sonal motivations, the reasons for-and methods of-tolerating slavery were both unique and profoundly ordinary.1 1 As a slave in Madison County, Kentucky, south of Lexington, Lewis Clarke hired his own time, provided for his own room and board, and enjoyed considerable geographic mobility. In order to retain his liberties as a hired slave, Clarke denied his desire for freedom. As he later explained, Now if some Yankee had come along and said 'Do you want to be free?' What do you suppose I'd have told him?Why, ...I'd tell him to be sure that I didn't w·ant to be free; that I was very well off as I was. If I didn't, jt's precious few contracts I should be allowed to make. Clarke certainly wished for freedom, but he also wanted to remain in Kentucky because his close proximity to the border made gaining freedom a tangible possibility. So he put on the mask of a happy slave in order to protect his current situ- ation. Only the threat of sale to the Deep South prompted Clarke to make his escape in 1841. During his flight, Clarke encountered a Baptist minister who suspected that he was a runaway and, according to Clarke, attempted to read" his][ thoughts."In order to alla.y the minister's suspicions, Clarke emphasized his favorable situation as ·a slave, noting,I "wondered what in the world slaues could run away for,especially if they had such a chance as I had had for the last few years:Ihis apparently satisfied the minister who believed that ·a slave who enjoyed so many privileges would not run away. Clarke closed this tensely comic conversation by adding,I "do very well, very well, sir. If you should ever hear that I had run away,be certtiin it must WINTER 2008 45 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY be beciuse thele is some great change in my treatment "With these words, Clarke actually explained to his ciedulous white interlocutor why he was fleeing Clarke had long entertained the idea of escape, but sale was the r *r e * 11•r * * * great change"that convinced 4 4 him to run away On a Deep Ut i : 4 South plantation Clarke 4 cotton would have few or no oppor- 4 tunities to hire out his time and live independently More 4 important, Sale away from the t. i, border extinguished his hope t. for eventual freedom Nearness f· to the North did not amelio- the conditions of bondage, 1 ; : 11 1 1 4 4 rate indeed, slaves like Clarke Eliza Pursued by Blood-hounds Poster for Uncle Tom's Cabin reg- CINCINNATIMUSEUMCENTER ularly detailed the in]Ustices of slavery m the borderlxnds However,they tolerated harsh treatment because they believed the relative proximity of the free states held out the possibility of eventual freedom 12 While the border provided hope for freedom, escape was still a risky endeavor precisely because the Ohio River was not a hard and fast division between slavcry and freedom Death and punishment represented signifi- cant deterrents and planters commonly punished unsuc- cessful runaways with sale south Indeed, selling slaves ial.al'lf/Alill'*r./* f{%14%% INA"'. 3 .. south became profitable business during the antebellum 4*]j» a Illi@*j' F - ' period The insatiable demand for bondspeople in the cot-" §] 4% 4 ' ton kingdom"of the Deep South, transformed the Border S:': I.EN A'':®42: South slave- The internal slave j . =t into a exporting region r'» trade moved close to one million slaves from the eastern 22»,4 , 4 ». * 4' .* 7 *. 1 seaboard and the Upper South to the cotton plantations ,*{»·*,1».44 44- :26* of the southwest Kentucky exported about 22 percent of 2 1*,* its male slaves between the ages of ten and nineteen in lr. the 1850s, whereas Mississippi imported 27 percent of its *< 4 ' ' male slaves of the same age Between 1830 and 1860,the jf« * 41 - ,S, 8** ,· percentage of African Americans in Kentucky's popula- pl'.7 »,-8 158 4«»,«-I . tion dropped from about 25 to 21 percent Most slaves 52 Lt*h**'4 Jl =e,14. « ,51' either experienced sale personizlly or witnessed the sale of I. - 1« family members,friends, and fellow slaves, often at public CINCINNATIHarriet BeecherMUSEUM StoweCENTER (1811-1896) auction Sale was the fullest expression of the brutal indi- viduating force of slavery because lt broke all ties of kinship, leaving slaves totally isolated 1 1 The slave trade represented a material link between the Ohio River borderlands and the Deep South, one that placed Kentucky slaves in a 46 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA fear precarious position. Sale generated the greatest among slaves in the Upper South and became the most common trigger for escape. Sale left borderland slaves with two options: take a chance at freedom by heading north or endure a lifetime ofservitude and die a slave in the Deep South. As Kentucky slave Harry Smith recalled, going to New Orle·ans was called the Nigger Hell, few ever return- ing who went there." When local enslaved people became aware of the presence of... 01 slave buyers,"he noted, a"num- ber of them would run away to the hills and remain often TO a vear before they returned. 1950 BOLLARS ! Some would reach Canada for fear of being sold."Likewise, ljOB NEERDER'l i when Louisville slave Henry il Morehead learned of his fam- THE Hldersigned wighes topurchaNe large lot of NEGROEN , 5*,r the Sew Orleans market I will Paya 12(* IO te 81254 for Ne.1 young men, and50 *;10 10(* De fer Ne.1 young women.j ily's potential sale to the Deep i#I fact [will pay more fer likely South, he decided it was time to act. I"knew,"he remembered, lcot@C€ it death victory."The * was or m ally ether trader il,Rentuck,·.11,office h adl 1Ining. i slave trade brought the oppres- Ase,lt eam always be fessad. sion of bondage in the Deep **raad,¥81,110¢el,onBroadway,WM.F.uxtngtom,TALBOTT.Hy.whereRorf LEXIILVGTON,JULY 2, 1855 South to the borderland, a fact that antislavery novelist Harriet 1853 broadside forthe purchase of slaves forthe New Orleans Beecher Stowe dramatized in market. CINCINNATI MUSEUMCENTER her of Eliza Harris' account s Uncle Tom' escape attempt across the Ohio River in the opening pages of s Cabin. Robert Nelson, another Kentucky slave, ran north after his master mortgaged him. The" sheriff got after me, Nelson recalled,and " I ran to Canada"without money or an apparent plan because I" was to have been taken to a cotton farm in Louisiana."14 Of course, slaves ran away for a variety of reasons. Historians Franklin and Schweninger provide a detailed survey of the many factors that prompted escape throughout the antebellum South, ranging from fear of punishment, to change in ownership, to simple opportunity or emotion.15 Many slaves required no specific trigger at all, finding enough motivation in their hatred of slavery and desire for freedom. In their published nar- ratives, in contrast, most former Kentucky slaves described their flight as a rational response to a specific event. In particular, m.any c.arefully evalu- ated how escape would impact their hopes for self-purchase, family unity, and self-improvement. Each of these triggers, however, functioned both as prompts to escape and deterrents against flight. In short, the very factors WINTER 2008 47 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY 5 T 3 t. 5'GS co.lgi,Kjl,ineontli * 06*2 ' - » »**« 9,1 I. 0« good ploughinau-*d wa*goner.r About a yeat.4**e10*1 <> 3- 4*...: .,I ' , William Bullitt's broadside for fugitive slave Hope,Jefferson County,Kentucky,October 7, 1822 THEFILSONHISTORICAL SOCIETY that enabled former slaves to endule their bondage eventually prompted them to escape This duality lies at the heart of understanding why and when Kentucky slaves decided to escape their bondage Though slave hiring enabled a small number of Kentucky slaves to earn enough both to pay their owners and save money to purchase their freedom, most hired slaves could only pay their owners and feed and clothe them- selves Lavina Bell, for example, hired herself as a washerwoman for eleven years and made Just enough money to cover food, shelter,doctor's bills, and clothing for her young children Her husband earned three hundred dol- lars a year working in a hotel, but was only able to keep five dollars a year for himself Theirowner hired their children out when they turned eleven For the Bell family, hiring out was hardly a step toward freedom and, as Lavinia lamented, it separated her from her children for long periods of time As census data reveal, moreover,the Bells' experience was common Between 1790 and 1860, the percentage of African American freemen in Kentucky remained low, rising from roughly 1 to 4 5 percent of the state's black population In the border slave state of Maryland, in contrast, the free black population grew from around 7 to nearly 50 percent of the state's African American population in the same years While some slaves who purchased their freedom moved to fee states and Canada,the slow growth of Kentucky's free black population indicates the limited opportunities for self-purchase in the state Even in Louisville where owners commonly 48 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA hired out their slaves as domestics and in the tourism and manufacturing sectors, free blacks made up only 3 percent of the city's African American population in 1850. Indeed, former slaves who escaped from the state com- monly cited a broken promise of self-purchase as their reason for fleeing. The frequency of this trigger reveals the bias of published narratives,which tended to be written by privileged bondpeople rather than by field hands, but it also suggests that those slaves who had the opportunity to purchase their freedom were more likely to escape.16 1[he causal relationship between self-purchase and escape was compli- cated, however, because the promise offuture freedom operated as a contract between slaveholder and slave. Self-purchase functioned like a free labor contract, putting a time limit on servitude and creating a mutual obligation between slave and slaveholder. African Americans' need for proof of free- dom allowed owners to extract labor from extremely mobile slaves while reducing the threat of escape. Once they had entered into an agreement, slaves strove to earn and expressed great pride in their ability to purchase their freedom. If" a slaveholder offers his servant freedom, on condition that he will earn and pay a certain sum, and the slave accepts freedom on that condition,"explained ex-slave Henry Blue; he" is bound in honor to pay the sum promised. Other slaves worked in Cincinnati to purchase their freedom from Kentucky owners. Richard Keys paid twenty dollars per month for twelve years and then paid an additional eight hundred and fifty dollars for his freedom, while another individual worked in the city and sent his master one hundred dollars every year for seven years before receiving his free papers.17 Not all slaves accepted this logic, but some f-ormer slaves stated quite plainly that the prospect of self-purchase kept them from running away. Most famously,Josiah Henson led fellow slaves from Virginia to his own- free er's brother in Kentucky via the Ohio River. Despite prodding from blacks in Cincinnati, Henson encouraged his fellow slaves not to run. Tile" idea of running away, Henson later explained,was " not one that I had ever indulged. I had a sentiment of honor on the subject, or what I thought such,which I would not have violated even for freedom."Henson's senti-" have embarrassed him later life when he dic- ment of honor seems to in tated his narrative, and he likely used the phrase pejoratively. Nonetheless, while enslaved he apparently accepted the appropriateness ofpurchasing his freedom. Owners used the future prospect of freedom to secure short-term loyalty and labor from their slaves. And because it functioned as a deter- rent to escape, owners allowed their most trusted and privileged bondpeo- ple considerable mobility and freedom to labor. Mobility was, however, a double-edged sword, convincing some slaves to make their escape.18 free- Slaveholders' willingness to break these contracts by refusing dom, raising the price of purchase, or selling the slave down the river also WINTER 2008 49 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY frequently triggered escape. Kentucky slave Alfred Jones explained that he made an arrangement to purchase his freedom for three hundred and fifty dollars, but before" the business was completed, I learned that my master was negotiating with another party to sell me for $400."Upon learning of this betrayal,Jones wrote himself a pass and left for Canada. Likewise, enslaved millwright Jonathan Thomas contracted with his owner to buy himself for one thousand dollars, and by the age of thirty-three had paid his master four hundred dollars. But the untimely death of the master left the estate to a son who promptly sold Ihomas' to a slave trader. An angry Thomas approached the son and informed him of the agreement with" old master for my freedom"and that he had" paid...four hundred dollars towards it." Ilhe son, however, denied knowledge of the agreement and I , cared nothing about it. In response, Thomas made arrangements for his free wife and children to travel to Canada and then made his escape.19 1[he contract of self-purchase functioned as a pathway to freedom fbr Blue, a reason not to run for Henson, and, once broken, a motivation for escape for Jones and Thomas. In each case, their participation in the mar- ket economy informed their understanding of freedom and slavery. Ihese ' former slaves recognized self-purchase as a morally just method of earn-" ing freedom, and its prospect made temporarily enduring bondage more honorable than escape,which broke the contract. Historians' discussions of self-hiring ·and self-purchase as a step toward freedom or as another form of exploitation are incomplete when they focus on the end result, because self-purchase began with slaves' understanding of freedom as a product of the market. For them, self-ownership was freedom, and this market con- ception of liberty enabled them to tolerate market slavery in the border- land. As Kentucky slave Israel Campbell explained after having to delay his self-purchase: Now that my hopes were deferred, I settled down to the conviction that things were not so bad, after all,-that I was well treated, had plenty to eat, allowed a fine riding horse, kept cattle, hogs, chick- ens,bees,had shoemakers' and carpenters' tools; and I settled down the that to conviction it would be better for me to remain as I was awhile longer. Campbell's grudging acceptance of his enslaved situation suggests that he believed freedom in the borderlands would effect only limited change in his work and physical conditions. Still, Campbell wanted to buy his liberty and the fact that he conceived of freedom as something he could purchase reveals his understanding of how the market shaped both slavery and free- dom. Freedom had a price.20 In the 18505, the price of freedom increased dramatically for Kentucky slaves, fueled by the growth of the interstate slave trade. Prime field hands, 50 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA valued at four hundred dollars in the 18305, sold for more than fifteen hun- dred dollars twenty years later. In 1849, Kentucky repealed a non-impor- tation law enabling whites to bring slaves into Kentucky for the purpose of sale. The repeal increased the volume of slave sales within the state, spur- ring the growth, increasing sophistication, and profitability of the domestic slave trade. By the 1850s, several large slave-trading firms based their operations in Kentucky and the state's white residents shipped 3,400 slaves annually to the Deep South. In order to regulate the rising trade, the city of Louisville passed an 1851 ordinance requiring slave vendors to purchase a three-hundred-dollar license. The sharp spike in slave prices put the pros- pect of self-purchase out of reach for many enslaved people, as the price of freedom from rose under a thousand dollars in the 1830s and 1840s into the thousands in the decade before the Civil War. Washerwomin Mrs. Lewis Bibb, for example, paid 323$ for her freedom in 1833, while in 1859 Lydia Reed and her husband used their lottery ticket winnings to purchase their freedom for $2,125. In short, the increasing difficulty of purchasing free- dom made escape the only option for many Kentucky slaves.21 Family ties influenced the lives of even more enslaved African Americans in Kentucky than did the prospect of self-purchase. Historians have dem- onstrated that family provided the first line of defense ·against the isolation ofbondage throughout the antebellum South. Familial affection both eased the suffering under bondage and created ties that made slaves think twice about escape. Group flight presented multiple challenges. making it more difficult f-or runaways to blend into the surroundings,find shelter, and· gather food, but individual escape required fugitives to abandon their family to the yoke of bondage. William Wells Brown's affection for his mother and sis- tied him slavery ter to more than the force of his master. Brown worked as a slave on steamboats that plied the Mississippi River and admitted that he had many opportunities to escape. When he thought ofescaping to Can·ada, however,his resolution" would soon be shaken by the remembrance that my dear mother was a slave in St. Louis, and I could not bear leaving her in that condition. Brown felt a tension between his desire for freedom and his affection for his kin,but he endured slavery to remain with his family.22 Family ties complicated slaves' decision to run everywhere in the South, but for borderland slaves the nearness of the free states emphasized the matter of choice in escape. Ihe ' proximity of the border both increased the chance of successful escape and highlighted the tension between family ties and the desire for freedom. Some slaves sacrificed freedom to save their family. Mrs. L. Strawthor, a free black woman from Kentucky, recalled that her husband earned enough to purchase his family before he was sold to the Deep South. Strawthor never s·aw her husband again and was unsure if he remained alive. In other cases, the loss of a family member convinced those remaining to make their break. Ihe' wife and children of enslaved Kentucky blacksmith George Ramsey belonged to another owner who WINTER 2008 51 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY sold them to the Arkansas Territory I" went after her once, and Lot her," Ramsey recalled,but " they took her away from me. Canada was not in my head till I lost her completely,and then I thought I would go."Similarly,I. D. Green explained: From I 18 to 27 was considered one of the most devout christians among the whole Black population, and under this impression I firmly believed to run away fom my master would be to sin against the Holy Ghost-for such we are taught to believe-but from the time of my wife's being sent away, I firmly made up my mind to take the first opportunity to run away."23 In each of these examples, distance interacted with family ties. Former slaves lamented that sale to the Deep South shattered the connection between husband and wife, but they also realized that those family mei-n- bers transported far from the border had little chance to gain freedom. While families remained together slaves endured their bondage because they hoped eventually to gain freedom as a group. When sale extinguished this hope-when 2. spouse or child was lost to slavery-those who remained in the Upper South saw no reason to suffer bondage further. Without fam- ily, only freedom mattered. But escape north also threatened family ties. Mary Younger fled to Canada without her children and sadly recalled, The" barbarity of slavery I never want to see again. I have children now who have got the yoke on them. It almost kills me to think that they are there, and that I can do them no good. There they are-I know how it is-it brings distress on my mind. William Brown, another former slave who escaped to Canada, expressed similar griefi It" is three years ago that I left my family, and I don't know whether they are dead or alive. I want to hear from them. In contrast, at least one slave used escape to Indiana to keep his family together. John Moore ran away from his owner in Kentuckv in 1850, hiring his time in Indiana. Two months later,he returned to Kentucky,gave his wages to his master,and announced that he" was sick of freedom, and the abolitionists. He also pretended that he wanted nothing to do with his wife and children, who lived on a neighboring farm. Moore hoped that his subterfuge would enable him to gain the confidence of local slaveholders and make it easier for him to free his family. His plan worked. Convinced that the family had no plans to escape, the neighboring owner gave Moore's wife permission to visit her husband on Saturday night and return on Sunday. Once together, the couple fted to Canada. In short, Moore's temporary foray into Indiana was a stepping stone in his effort to fee his family. When the Moores sought permanent freedom, they escaped to Canada beyond the reach of the Fugitive Slave Law.24 Former Kentucky slave Henry Bibb's escapes from slavery highlight how distance from the Ohio River borderland sharpened the distinction 52 0 H I O VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA between freedom and slavery. Bibb demonstrated incredible devotion to his family in his repeated attempts to rescue his wife and child from bond- age. He lived as a slave in Shelby County, Kentucky, near Louisville,and escaped north on three separate occ·asions, finally securing his freedom in 1841. Each time Bibb escaped, however, the duplicity of white and black Americans in southern Ohio made him vulnerable to recapture. He could escape the grasp of his master in Kentucky,but he could never become truly free in Ohio because of the constant risk of recapture. Nonetheless, Bibb placed himself iii danger and returned to Kentucky because he wanted to save the wife and child he had left behind. I"felt, he wrote, as" if love, duty, humanity, and justice, required that I should go back."For Bibb, freedom was not as sweet without his wife. Bibb made his final esc·ape after his owner sold him and his wife to the Deep South. With permanent slav- ery looming, Bibb's commitment to freedom became equally permanent. When sale separ,ited him from his wife in Louisian,2, Bibb decided to make his final escape and did not stop until he reached Detroit,far enough north freedom and for all. li to secure his once Even after Bibb reached Detroit, he did not give up hope of saving his wife. He returned to M·adison, Indiana, four years later in 1845 to inquire ·after her and learned that she was "living in a state of adultery"with her owner. Feeling betr·ayed, Bibb announced, she" has ever since been regarded as theoretically and practically dead to me as a wife. Before this discovery, however, Bibb remained committed to his family. In an 1844 letter to his former owner, Bibb explained that the master's constant whip- ping of his wife and child drove Inc from home and family, to seek a bet- ter home for them."Slavery left Bibb helpless to safeguard his family and he originally escaped in order to find a way to protect them. Ihe' fate of his wife demonstrated, however,that Bibb's vulnerability followed him into freedom. Bibb had wanted liberty to protect his family,but the tenuousness of that freedom prevented him from saving his family from slavery. The loss of his wife destroyed Bibb's hopes of having both family and liberty, leaving individual freedom as his only choice.26 Bibb demonstr·ates that family devotion could be a powerful motivation for escape. As mothers charged with the care of their children, enslaved women shared motivations for escape similar to those ofmale slaves. Indeed, more female than male slaves resided in Kentucky, especially in Louisville, and women were as likely to be sold and hired out as men, though they usually served as domestic workers and washerwomen. Nonetheless, men made 80 percent of the escape attempts from Kentucky before 1850 and 73 percent thereafter. Ihough' the percentage ofwomen runaways in Kentucky was higher than elsewhere in the South, they still fled in far fewer numbers than enslaved men. Historians Franklin and Schweninger argue that fewer women escaped because they had to care for children and most could not withstand the physical demands necessary to escape. More broadly,limited WINTER 2008 53 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY opportunity and a sense of responsibility for the welfare of their family sti- fled female escape attempts.27 Slave women in the borderland often lived apart from husbands, many ofwhom resided another farm hired work elsewhere. on or were out to As a result, the responsibilities of child care fell largely to women. Hired female slaves had to earn enough to pay their owner, and support themselves and their children. Kentucky slave Charlotte, for example, worked as a washer- woman to support her family. She took pride in her ability to fend for her family, even covering the difference when her employed children failed to make their contractual earnings. I" get along very well,"she stated,you " couldn't pay me to live at home, if I could help myself. My master doesn't supply me with ·anythingno ...more than if I didn't belong to him." Charlotte tolerated her bondage because she lived on her own and could provide for her children. If given the option, slave women like Charlotte undoubtedly would have purchased their freedom, but few had that choice. A number of factors worked against them. Multiple children placed the purchase price out of reach for many. Equally important, gender limited the occupational opportunities of female slaves. Most worked as domestic servants, washerwomen, and in other service professions, jobs that offered low wages and limited their mobility in comparison to the work performed by some enslaved men. For example, Cox worked as a steamboat stew- ard where he earned250 "$ a year for myself when I hired my time."Cox made enough money to pay his owner and purchase his freedom for $2,100, an amount beyond the reach of a washerwoman like Charlotte. In short, enslaved women's circumscribed opportunities limited the possibility that self-purchase could become a motivation for escape.28 Charlotte was relatively fortunate compared to other slave women because she did not witness the sale of her children. In the Upper South, approximately one of three slave children suffered separation fom their families through sale. Most cruelly, slaveholders made slave women care for their children until they reached an age when they could work and then tore them away by sale. Runaway advertisements indicate th·at the thre·at of such sales inspired some enslaved women to attempt escape with their chil- dren. However,female slaves' limited mobility and the difficulty of travel- ing with children reduced the number of women who ran away. Instead, women protected their children at home. Households depended on women for their survival, and many enslaved women viewed escape as an abandon- ment of their family responsibilities. Thus, enslaved women's resistance to slavery was more likely to take the form of temporary truancy than per- manent escape. In addition, sl·aveholders punished enslaved women more frequently than men for verbal and physical resistance. 1[he separation of husbands and wives, coupled with the constant threat of sale, likely height- ened enslaved women's protectiveness of their children. 1[hey best protected themselves and their family bv staying put.29 54 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA understood Enslaved women also sought to defend their bodies. They the difficulties of escape, the possibility that failure could result in sale, and that transfer to a new owner could increase their risk of sexual exploit- ation. Historians do not know how widespread rape w'as ar'nong slave women, but the rapid growth of-the mulatto population and its prevalence in slave narratives suggests that interr·acial sex was widespread. Women who were not sexu·ally exploited likely understood that they could protect their bodies by remaining in their current situ,ition. Stasis, then, could be R means for enslaved women to resist bondage and control their bodies within the unequal power dyn·amics of slavery Although Kentucky bondswomen faced difficult circumstances, m·any may have concluded that freedom w·,is not worth running the risk of sale.30 The actions of Margaret Garner, a· slave woman who lived eighteen miles from Cincinnati in Boone County, Kentucky, highlight how the thre·at of rape and attempts to protect family shaped the perspective of slave child and women. Garner served as a nurse for her owner's even ·accomp·a- nied the family to Cincinnati in 1840. In 1849, her owner sold his slaves, including the pregnant Garner to his brother. She soon gave birth to two I " daughters, Mary and Cilla,who contemporaries described as nearly white and bright" mulatto, respectively. Though no conclusive evidence exists, Garner s new owner may have fathered these children. Wh·,it is certain is that after the birth of her two girls, Garner determined th·at escape was the only means to protect her family and herself. The opportunity to flee came during the harsh winter of 1856. When the Ohio River froze, the Garner family crossed the river on foot and hid in the Cincinnati home of Elijah Kite. Alerted to the presence of the fugitives, federal marsh·als descended hold- on the G.arners. When they burst into Kite's cabin, they saw Garner ing a knife dripping with blood,screaming that she had killed one child and would murder the rest rather th·an see them reduced to slavery. Garner's actions constituted an extreme manifestation of enslaved women's protec- tive instinct. But the same protectiveness motivated female slaves who lived with their children and did not suffer sexual exploitation to forgo freedom and endure their bondage. In short, the experience of women highlights how and why family influenced slaves' decisions to flee.11 For slaves who lacked a nuclear family or whose families had been torn apart by sale, the African American community provided emotional, psy- chic, and sometimes physical support. In response to the isolation, preju- dice, and instability that was part of life in the Ohio River valley mobile slaves mingled with free African Americans and built communities that emphasized racial solidarity ·and muted the distinctions between slav- ery and freedom. This process took place more often in urban places that afforded greater opportunities for interaction between free and enslaved African Americans, but it embraced the entire black community. Slaves urb· who worked on small farms and plantations often ran errands into an WINTER 2008 55 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY centers and interacted with African American residents. The church formed the center of the black community on both sides of the river, and within it African Americans,enslaved and free, developed racial solidarity. Black ministers traveled throughout the Ohio Valley and preached sermons of deliverance and liberation in the black churches. For rural slaves who had limited interaction beyond the plantation, the division between black and white mirrored the division between enslaved and free. However, the correlation between race and status muted the distinction between slavery and freedom because in the experience of plantation-bound slaves the divi- sion between black and white superseded the division between enslaved and free. Thus even among less mobile rural slaves race reinforced status.32 Whether blacks were enslaved on isolated hemp plantations in the Kentucky interior, hired out in Louisville, or lived as free people in Cincinnati, the African American community provided better protection against the hazards ofwhite racism than the law. When whites kidnapped Frank Cranshaw,a Louisville slave active in the black religious community, and held him on a docked steamboat, crowds of local African Americans, mostly fellow members of his church, marched to the river. The protest prompted the sheriff to check the boat, where he discovered Cranshaw. Learning that Cranshaw had been illegally seized, the sheriff released him. In Cincinnati, the African Methodist Episcopal Church served as a safe- house for fugitives, and church members often harbored and aided fugi- And tives. despite repeated attacks by white mobs, Cincinnati's African American community grew and matured through the antebellum years.33 In contrast,blacks found that isolation increased their vulnerability. As free Mrs. Colman Freeman,a black woman explained:I "lived in Ohio ten I years, as was married there,-but I would about as lief live m the slave States as in Ohio. In the slave States I had protection sometimes, from people that knew me-none in Ohio. Freeman believed she was vulner- able to white racism regardless of which side of the river she lived. Personal contacts had a greater impact on her safety than geographic location. For African Americans like Freeman who found solace in the protection and solidarity afforded by the black community, the river did not constitute a. clear border. Indeed, for many slaves escape meant leaving behind friends and the protection of the black community for an uncertain and potentially dangerous future.34 Still, many borderland slaves found the known future of slavery more distressing than the uncertainties of freedom. As Henry Bibb noted, the idea of utter helplessness, in perpetual bondage,"was distressing"" because there was no period even with the remotest generation when it shall ter- minate."Slaves like Bibb and Margaret Garner strained against the bonds of slavery in part because their helplessness undermined notions ofpersonal improvement. Nothing highlighted how slavery destroyed the possibility 56 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA of future improvement more than raising enslaved children. African Americans in the Ohio Valley believed education was the key to their chil- dren's future, and once out of bondage they set to work educating their children. After purchasing his wife and children, former slave Andrew Fredhew sent two of his daughters to Oberlin College. Likewise, Cox, the steamboat steward, sent his children and his nephews to school after he purchased his freedom. In contrast,ensl·aved parents had few opportun- ities to improve their children's situations. Both Bibb and Garner fled from bondage in hopes of salvaging their children's future. But crossing the river did not ensure greater ·access to schools. In fact, Ohio blacks complained bitterly about the unequal educational opportunities in the state. As Henry Johnson explained: I left the St·ates for Canada, for rights, freedom, liberty. I came to Buxton Ontario][ to educate my children. I lived twenty-three years in M·assillon, Ohio, and was doing well at draying ·and cart- ing-w·anted for nothing-had money when I wanted it, and prov- isions plenty. But my children were thrust out of the schools, as all were the colored children-one must know how I would feel about it.35 When enslaved people viewed bondage as the ultimate impediment to personal improvement, freedom became the only viable alternative. Notions of improvement depended on individual identity and varied from slave to slave. For some, it rested in their children's future. In contrast, after his religious conversion Kentucky slave Francis Fedric equated freedom with spiritual development. Work," work, work, one day like another,"wrote Fedric, only" I had now been to several prayer-meetings, and had got a knowledge of religion, which comforted me. I thought about the future, when I should be free from my master."Fedric decided to run away after his master flogged him for attending a prayer-meeting,which Fedric viewed as an impediment to spiritual growth. For Fedric, religion marked the dis- tinction between slavery and freedom; only as a free man could he over- come the barriers to spiritual progress created by slavery. Fugitive slaves who shared Fedric's belief in individual progress distinguished between the physical conditions and personal limitations of slavery. Lewis Clarke, for example, admitted that he did not suffer much as a slave in Kentucky, free African Americans. He and that he had as much autonomy as most lamented, however, that a" slave can't be a man! Slavery makes a brute of a man. It was not my enslavement,at ' the then present time, that most affected me,"explained Frederick Douglass;the " being a slave for l#,was the saddest thought."Many fugitive slaves suffered the physical cruelties of slavery,but their concern for individual improvement convinced them of the unbearable personal limitations ofbondage.36 WINTER 2008 57 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY Historians link Americans' fascination with self-improvement to the nineteenth-century rise and maturation of the market economy. 1[he new middle class embraced personal growth, they argue, in response to the mar- ket economy's disruption of the traditional social order. Slaves at the bor- der who lived and worked among white :ind black free persons may have imbibed this desire for improvement from their free neighbors. But the narratives and recollections of former slaves suggest that something else was at work-namely, that bondage itself contributed to their interest in self-improvement. For Upper South slaves, proximity to the border offered hope for liberty,hope for the future, and hope that their aspirations for self- improvement might be achieved.37 Over the course of the antebellum period, sectional animosity and the rise erased the of the free labor ideology in the northern states connections between slavery and freedom so that by 1860 white Americans understood the commodification of labor power and the commodification of laborers as two entirely opposite things: freedom and slavery. The division took physical form when the country split during the Civil War. However, for- merly enslaved African Americans reached a different conclusion. In their narratives, borderl·,ind fugitives recognized how the limitations imposed by race on both sides of the river often overshadowed the differences between the border slave and free states. For African Americans in the Ohio Valley,slavery was national. As former Kentucky slave Lewis Clarke wrote after he escaped his bondage: I" am yet accounted a slave, and no spot in the United States affords an asylum for the wanderer. True, I feel protected in the hearts of the many warm friends of the slave by whom I am surrounded;but this protection does not come fom the LAWS of any one of the United States. Despite his successful flight across the Ohio River, Clarke could not escape from slavery entirely. The fugitive was never entirely free.38 1 John W. Blassingame, Slave 7?'stimony:Two Centuries and Writings ofAndrew Jackson of Kentucky . Syracuse.. . ( ofLetters,Speeches,Interviews,and Autobiographies Daily and Weekly Star Office, 1847),12 http:// Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), docsouth.und.edu/neh/jacksona/jacksona.html. On 519-21. the 1793 fugitive slave law,see Paul Finkelman, Slauery and tbe Founders:Race and Liberty in tbe Age ofJe{Fe150 n 2 Darrel E. Bigham, On Jordan's Banks:Emancipation Armonk,NY.:M. E. Sharpe, 1996),81-104. On Ohio River Valley Lexington: and Its Aftermath in tbe fugitive slaves as a national issue, see Don Edward University Press of Kentucky,2006),5-55;Joe William Fehrenbacher, 7be Slavebolding Republic:An Accotint Trotter, River Jordan:African American Urban Life in the oftbe United States Government's Relations to Slavery Ohio Valley Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001),205-51. 1998),3-51; Marion B. Lucas,A History of Blacks in On fugitive slaves in the Upper South, see Ira Berlin, Kentucky,vol. 1: From Slavery to Segregation,1760-1861 Generations of Captivity:A History ofAfrican American Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society, 1992),101-17; Slaves Cambridge, Ma.:Harvard University Press, Hanford Dozier Stafford,Slavery " in a Border City: 2003),204-41. On the ways in which the legal systems Louisville, 1790-1860"Ph. ( D. dissertation, University of Kentucky,Ohio, and Indiana deprived African Narrative of Kentucky,1982),112-28;Andrew Jackson, Americans of their rights, see Juliet E. K. Walker, The" 58 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA Legal Status of Free Blacks in Early Kentucky, 1792- Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), 1825,"7be Filson History Quarterly 57 Oct. 1983), 63;John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, Black Laws:Race and 382-95;Stephen Middleton, 7be Runaway Slaves. Rebels on tbe Plantation New York: tbe Legal Process in Early Obio Athens: Ohio University Oxford University Press,1999),124-48; 1. Blaine Press, 2005),157-200; Emma Lou Thornbrough, 7be Hudson, Crossing" the 'Dark Line':Fugitive Slaves Negro in Indiana:A Study ofa Minority Indianapolis: and the Underground Railroad in Louisville and Indiana Historical Bureau, 1957),119-50. North-Central Kentucky,"7be Filson History Quarterly 75 (Winter 2001),33-83. Historians argue that hired 3 John Malvin, North into Freedom:Ube Autobiograpby of slaves forced to pay their wages back to their owners John Malvin,Free Negro,1795-1880 1879; Cleveland, desired their freedom that much more; see Franklin Oh.:Press of the Western Reserve University, 1966), and Schweninger, Runaway Slaves,33-35; and Lucas, 39; Elisha Winfield Green, Life of tbe Rev. Elisha History Blacks in Kentucky,105. However, hired slaves' W.Green,One of tbe Founders of tbe Kentucky Normal experience in the market also raised their awareness and Beological Institute-Now tbe State University of the way race limited their economic opportunities. at Louisuilleand ...Oquer Tbirty Years Pastor oftbe Hired slaves, especially along the border, were well Colored Baptist Cburches of Mays=uille and Paris, ofthe limits of freedom and remained aware some at Written by Hims«(Maysville, Ky: The Republican the same job even after emancipation; see Blassingame, Printing Office, 1888),14-15. The historiography well Slave Testimony,387.-The 1842 Cincinnati directory documents the circumscribed lives of free African reveals that the occupations of free blacks included Americans; Leonard R Curry, 7be Free Black in see barber, laborer, cook, river workers, domestics, and Urban America 1800-1850:Ibe Shadow ofthe Dream washerwomen-that is, the type ofjobs held by Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981),249-51; same enslaved people in Kentucky; Cincinnati Directory Joanne Pope Melish, The" 'Condition' Debate and see for the Year 1842,Charles Cist, Cincinnati: E. Racial Discourse in the Antebellum North,"and comp. ( Morgan and Co.,1842). James Brewer Stewart, Modernizing" 'Difference': The Political Meaning of Color in the Free States, 5 Benjamin Drew, 7be Refugee:A North-Side View 1776-1840,"in Race and the Early Republic: Racial of Slavery,in Four Fugitive Slave Narratives1856, ( Consciousness and Nation Building in the Early Republic, Reading,Ma.:Addison-Wesley,1969),241; Michael A. Morrison and Stewart, eds.,Lanham, ( Blassingame, Slave Testimony,385-86. In New Albanv. Md.:Rowman and Littlefield, 2002),75-94, 113-34; Indiana, directly across the river from Louisville, two Leon E Litwack, North of Slavery:Ube Negro in tbe Free free African Americans, Joshua and Jessie Wilson, States,1790-1860 Chkago: University of Chicago fleet of and conirnanded their own steamers were Press, 1961),30-186; Ira Berlin, Slaues without= Masters: the wealthiest in Indiana; Pamela Ibe Free Negro in tbe Antebelltim South (New York: among men see Peters, 732 Underground Railroad in Floyd County, Pantheon Books, 1975),182-249; Berlin, Generations of Indiana Jefferson, N. C.:Mcfarland and Co.,2001), Captivity,230-44;Melish, Disowning Sla=very:Gradual 61. Some works that revise the view of wholly Emancipation and Race"" in New Englatid,1780-1860 recent a racist North include, Keith R Grifiler, Front Line Ithaca,NY.:Cornell University Press, 1998),261-74; of Freedom:African Americans and the Forging of tbe Eugene W. Berwanger, 7be Frontier Against Slavery Underground Railroad in tbe Ohio Valley Lexington: Western Anti-Negro Prejudice and the Slavery Extension Press of Kentucky, Nikki M. Taylor, Controversy Urbana: University of Illinois Press, University 2004); ofFreedom:Cincinnati' Black Community, 1967),7-59; Middleton, Black Laws, 42-73; Bigham, Frontiers s 1802-1868 Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005);Paul On Jordan's Banks,15;Thornbrough, Negro in Indiana, 92-150. Finkelman, Ohio'« s Struggle for Equality Before the Civil War,"Timeline 23 Jan.-Mar. 2006),28-43. 4 Blassingame, Slave Testimony,432-33, 444; Bigham, 6 Drew, 7be Refugee,266; Lewis Garrard Clarke and On Jordan's Banks,16-18; Account Book 1830-1860, James Rudd Papers, The Filson Historical Society, Milton Clarke, Narratives of the Sufferings of Lewis Louisville, Ky.;Lucas, History of Blacks in Kentucky, and Milton Clarke, Sons ofa Soldier ofthe Revolution, 101-17;Trotter, River Jordan,3-51;Jonathan D. During a Captivity of More than Ttuenty Years Among tbe Martin, Divided Mastery:Slave Hiring in tbe American Slavebolders of Kentucky,One ofthe So-Called Christian South Cambridge, Ma.:Harvard University Press, States of North America Boston: Beta Marsh, 1846),98 2004),39; Clement Eaton, Slave-« Hiring in the Upper http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/clarkes/clarkes. html. In South: A Step toward Freedom,"Mississippi Valley the 19505,journalist John Howard Griffin traveled to Historical Review 46 Mar. 1960),663-78; Keith C. the South disguised as a black man to highlight the Barton, Good" Cooks and Washers: Slave-Hiring, psychological barrier posed by race. Griffin stated Domestic Labor, and the Market in Bourbon County, that as a black man he was always aware of racial Kentucky,"Journal 4 American History 84 Sept. 1997), boundaries even when they were not explicitly stated. 436-60; Bigham, Towns and Villages ofthe Lower Obio 1[he looks he received from whites constantly reinforced WINTER 2008 59 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY Black the racial boundary between them. See Griffin, conditions and resistance draws on Walter Johnson, Like Me Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961). On Ageng,"Journal of Social History 37 Fall 2003), 113-24. For studies of the borderland, see Gloria 7 Blassingame, Slave Testimony,218-24; Davisa (man Anzatdua, Borderiands/La FronteTa:Ibe Neiu Mestiza Bibb of color)9. Curry,1 238, Fall 1818, in Helen San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987);David E. Catterall, ed.,Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery Johnson and Scott Michaelsen,Border " Secrets: An and tle Negro,5 vols. Washington( D.C.:Carnegie Introduction,"and Russ Castronovo,Compromised ' Institution, 1926-1937),1:286. On Chase's legal Narratives Along the Border: The Mason-Dixon Line, efforts, see Middleton, Black Laws,195-200; Paul Resistance, and Hegemony,"in Border 7beory:Ibe ' Finkelman,An Imperfect Union:Slavery,Federalism, Limits ofCultural Politics,Michaelsen and Johnson, eds. and Comity Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), Press, 1981),157-78. Examples ofkidnapping 1-39, 195-220; Jeremy Adelinan and Stephen Aron, and fugitive reclamation regularly appeared in the From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation- 18305 and antislavery 732 Philantbropist in the late States, and the Peoples in Between in North American the e·arly 1840s. Although the paper publicized these History,"American Historical Review 104 Junc 1999), incidents to gain public support for the repeal of Ohio's 814-41; Responses:" Borders and Borderlands," black laws, the many examples reveal how common American Historical Review 104 Oct.( 1999),1221-39; kidnapping and fugitive reclamation were. See 7be James Brooks, Captives and Cousins:Slavery, Kinship, Pbilantbropist Cincinnati),Oct. 8, 1838,Mar.24,Nov. and Community in the Souti}west Borderlands Chapel 11, 1840,Mar. 24, May 12, 1841. The most thorough Hill:The University of North Carolina Press, 2002); examination of kidnapping is Carol Wilson, Freedom Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan, Nation," at Risk:Ibe ' Kidnapping of Free Blacks in America,1780- State, and Identity at International Borders,"in Border 1865 Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,1994). Identities:Nation and State at International Frontiers, Wilson and Donnan, eds. New( York: Cambridge Berlin, 8 Generations ofCaptivity,223; Frederick University Press, 1998),1-30;Joel S. Migdal, Mental" Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass,in Maps and Virtual Checkpoints: Struggles to Construct Douglass:Autobiographies 1881;( New York: Library of and Maintain State and Social Boundaries,"in America, 1994),609-10. Boundaries and Belonging:State and Societies in tbe Struggle to Shape Identities and Local Practices,Migdal, 9 Historians have placed much emphasis too on ed. New( York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), their discussions of fugitive slaves; opportunity in 3-26,Mark Simpson,Traficking Subjects:Ibe ' Politics of while opportunity played vital role, it interacted a Mobility in Nineteentb-Century America Minneapolis: with the personal beliefs and situations of slaves. Ihe' University of Minnesota Press, 2005) substantial literature on fugitive slaves has greatly influenced the interpretation offered herein. See 11 Drew, 732 R#gee,189; Blassingame, Slave Testimony, Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul:Life Inside tbe Antebellum 48, 53. Since Genovese's seminal work,historians have Slave Market Cambridge, Ma.:Harvard University generally characterized the master/slave relationship Press, 1999),31-32;James Oakes, Slavery and Freedom: as a negotiation, though they disagree whether An Interpretation ofthe Old South New York: Knopf, paternalism or the chattel principle more strongly 1990);John W. Blassingame, 7be Slave Community: influenced the relationship. The most influential Plantation Life in tbe Antebellum South 1972; New studies include, Genovese, Roll,Jordan,Roll·,Johnson, York: Oxford University Press, 1979),192-222; Eugene Soul by Soul,James Oakes,e Ruling * Race:A History D.Genovese,Roll,Jordan,Roll:Ybe World tbe Slaves ofAmerican Slavebolders New York: Knopf, 1982); Made New York: Pantheon Books, 1974),657;J. Oakes, Sitruery and Freedom;Christopher Morris, Blaine Hudson, Fugitives Slaves and the Underground The Articulation of Two Worlds: 7he Master-Slave Railroad in the Kentucky Borderland Jefferson, N.C. Relationship Reconsidered,"Journal offlmeyican Mcfarland and Co., Griffier, Front 2002),156; and History 85 Dec. 1998),982-1007. The now clichd Line ofFreedom,1-29. Two works that argue that understanding that slavery changed over time and a desire for freedom, while always present, was not space comes from the work of Ira Berlin; see his Many necessarily enough to prompt escape are, Larry Gara, lbousands Gone: Ibe ' First Two Centuries of Slauery in Tbe Liberty Line:lbe ' Legend oftbe Underground Railroad North America Cambridge,Ma.:Harvard University 1961; Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967), Press, 1998);and Generations ofCaptivity 19; and Steven Hahn,A Nation Under Our Feet:Black 12 Blassingame, Slave Testimony,152-53; Clarke and Political Struggles in tbe Rural South,from Sla'very to the On Great Migration Cambridge, Ma.:Harvard University Clarke, Narratives oftie Sufferings, 33-34. Press,2003),19,485. slaves' deceptions of masters, sce Gilbert Osofsky, The Introduction to Puttin' on Ole Massa: Puttin Ole 10 Franklin and Schweninger, Runaway Slaves,19. Significance of Slave Narratives, in on The present consideration of the interplay of human Massa:Tbe Slave Narratives ofHenry Bibb,William Wells 60 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA Brown,and Solomon Nortbup,Osofsky,ed. New( York: 248 ofApril,1835 Cincinnati: Beaumont and Wallace, Harper and Row,1969),9-44. For broader discussions 1835),30, 43. Such practices closely follow what of slave culture in the Deep South, including Whitman and Phillips have called term" slavery"; Whitman, and Phillips, slaves'understanding of and desire for freedom, see see Price ofFreedom,98-101; Michael Gomez, Exchanging our Country Marks:Tbe Freedom's Port, 30-31, 42-46. Transformation of.African Identities in tbe Colonial and Antebellum South Chapel Hill: University of North 18 Josiah Henson 732 Life oflosiab Henson,Formerly a Carolina Press, 1998);Sterling Stuckey,Slaue CultuTe: Slave,Now an Inbabitant of Canada,as Narrated by Nationalist Ibeory' and tbe Foundations of Black America Himself(Boston: Arthur D. Phelps, 1849),22-25 New York: Oxford University Press, 1987),3-97; http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/henson49/henson49. Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: html. While self-purchase was a contract, slaves and viewed it in different For similar Afro-American Folklboughtfrom Slavery to Freedom owners wavs. a New York: Oxford University Press, 1977),3-135; interpretation of the master/slave relationship, see Blassingame, 7be Slave Community;Genovese, Roll, Morris,Articulation " ofTwo Worlds,"982-1007. Jordan,Roll,· and Hahn, Nation Under Our Feet,14-61. 19 Drew, 732 R(fugee, 106; Blassingame, Slave Testimony, 251-52. 13 Mkhael Tadman, Speculators and Slaves:Masters, Traders.and Slaves in tbe Old South Madison: The 20 Israel Campbell,An Autobiograpby. Bond Free:Or University ofWisconsin Press, 1989),301-02; Hudson, or Yearningsfor Freedom,from My Green Brier House. Fugitive Slaves,14·,Williani W.Frechling, 732 Road to Being tbe Story ofMy Life in Bondage, and My Life in Disunion,vol.1:Secessionists at Bay,1776-1854 New( Freedom Philadelphia: The Author, 1861),121-22 York: Oxford University Press, 1990),23-24; Berlin, http://docsouth. edu/neh/campbell/campbell. Generations of Captivity,161,Oakes, Slavery and unc. html. Hired slaves' desire for market freedom Freedom,151. suggests that the shift in values associated with the market revolution influenced them, and that those 14 Harry Smith, Fifty Years ofSla'very in tie United States of America Grand Rapids: West Michigan Printing market values held more sway than the precapitalist moral explicated by Genovese and others. Co.,1891),15 http://docsouth.unc. edu/neh/smithhar/ economy Harriet See Charles Sellers, Capitalism" and Democracy smithhar.html; Drew, 732 Re/i,gee, 126, 260; in American Historical Mythology, 732 Mwket Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin or Life Among tbe ill Revolution in America: Lou)ly 1853; New York: Signet Classic, 1998),56-60, Social,Political,and Religious Expressions,1800-1880,Melvin Stokes and Stephen 67-68. Historians have long understood that sale was Conway,eds. Charlottesville:( University Press of a defining feature of life for Border South slaves; see Virginia, Genovese, Roll,Jordan, Roll, Berlin, Generations of Captivity,167-75; and Johnson, 1996),311-29; 44-49,587-98; Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution: Soul by Soul,19-44. Afro-American Slave Revolts in tbe Making of tbe Modern 15 Franklin and Schweninger, Runaway Slages, 17-74. World Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979);and James C. Scott, 7be Moral Economy 16 Blassingame, Slave Testimony,390-91; Lucas, History of oftbe Peasant:Rebellion and Subsistence in Soutbeast Blacks in Kentucky,105-08;Eaton, Slave-" Hiring,"663- Asia (New Haven,Ct.:Yale University Press, 1976). 78. There are several examples of slaves who purchased Conimodification strongly influenced both slavery and their freedom and moved Canada Drew, 7be to in freedom; see Stephanie Smallwood,Commodified " R#}gee, 131, 174, 189, 199. Still, the slaves who Freedom: Interrogating the Limits of Anti-Slavery purchased their freedom and moved north represented Ideology in the Early Republic,"Journal of tbe Early only a small fraction ofthe more than two hundred Republic 24 Summer 2004),292; Edward E. Baptist, thousand who remained enslaved in Kentucky. For the Cuffy,'Fancy ' Maids;and 'One-Eyed Men':Rape, contrasting story ofMaryland,see Christopher Phillips, Commodification, and the Domestic Slave Trade in American Historical Review 106 Freedom's Port:Ibe ' African American Community of the United States," Baltimore, 1790-1860 Urbana: University of Illinois Dec. 2001),1619-50;Johnson, Soul by Soul,117- Press, 1997);T. Stephen Whitman, 7be Price of 34. The idea of"stealing"versus earning"" freedom Freedom:Sla'very and Manumission in Baltimore and is loosely drawn from Baptist,Stol "' and Fetched Early National Maryland Lexington: University Press Here':Enslaved Migration, Ex-slave Narratives, and of Kentucky, 1997);and Barbara Jeanne Fields, Slavery Vernacular History,"in New Studies in the History of and Freedom on tbe Middle Ground:Maryland During tbe American Slavery,Baptist and Stephanie M. H. Camp, Nineteentb CentuTy New Haven, Ct.:Yale University eds. Athens:( University of Georgia Press, 2006), Press, 1985). 243-74. 17 Drew, 7be Refugee,189; Proceedings of the Ohio Anti- 21 Lucas, History ofBlacks in Kentucky,84-86, 92, 99; Held Putnam tbe and Sla'very Convention d on 22,23, Harold D. Tallant, E'oil Necessity: Slavery and Political WINTER 2008 61 SEARCHING FOR SLAVERY Culture in Antebellum Kentucky Lexington: University Ibe African American Fa,izily iii Slavery and Press of Kentucky, 2003),141-43; Henson, Life q/' Emancipation New York: Cambridge University Press, Josiah Henson,40-41; Blassingame, Sta'very Testimony, 2003),51-114. 386, 89; Hudson, Fugitive Slaves,32-33. Josiah 29 Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love,Labor of Sorrow: Henson planned to purchase his freedom in the 1830s, Black Women,Work.and tbe Faniily from Slavery tbe negotiating a price of four hundred and fifty dollars to with his Present owner. When his master backed out and New York: Vintage Books, 1995);Wilma A. Dunaway, SlageTy in tbe American Mountain South raised the price to an unreachable and unreasonable New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003),193- one thousand dollars, Henson despaired of ever raising enough 97. On the impact of gender on truancy and escape, money. 33-47. see Camp, Closer to Freedom, 22 William Wells Brown, Narrative of William W.Brown, 30 Baptist,Cuffy,' "' Fancy ' Maids,'and 'One-Eyed Men,"' an American Slave,Written by HimsLondon,«( 1619-50. Slaveholders and enslaved people recognized Eng.:C. Gilpin, 1849),30 http://docsouth.unc. edu/nch/brownw/brown.html. On the that control of the movement of enslaved bodies lay at ways family the center of the slave regime and slave resistance; see shaped slaves' motives for flight,see Franklin and Camp, Closer Freedom,12-34. Schweninger, Runaway Slaves,50-53, 66; Hudson, to Fugitive Slaves,55-58; Berlin, Generations of Captivity, 31 Hudson, Fugitive Elaves,143-47;Middleton, Black 190-95;Hahn,Nation Under Our Feet,19. Laws,229-31. 23 Blassingame, Slave Testimony,389,440;J. D. Green, 32 Blassingame, Slave Testimony,432-33; Lucas, History Narrative oftbe Life ofJ·D.Green, Runaway Slave, a of Blacks in Kentucky,121; Middleton, Black Laws, 31; from Kentucky,Containing Account ofHis libree an Berlin, Generations of Captivity,215; Hahn, Nation Escapes, and Huddersfield, Eng.: in 1839,1846, 1848 Under Our Feet,35,42·,Taylor,Frontiers ofFreedom, Henry Fielding, 1864),22 http://docsouth. edu/ unc. 44,Gomez,Exchanging our Country Marks,186- neh/greenjd/greenjd.html. 243;Lyle Koehler,Cincin,inati's Black Peoples:A Chronology and Bibliography, 1787-1982 Cincinnati: 24 Drew, 7be Refugee 182, 197;Blassingame, S/ave University of Cincinnati, 1986),4;Xenia Cord, Testimony,275-76. Free Black Communities in Indiana: A Selected Annotated Bibliography,"mss.,Indiana Historical 25 Henry Bibb, Narrative of tie Life and Adventures oj Society,Indianapolis, iii-vi. Examples ofenslaved Henry Bibb,an American Slave,Written by HimselfNew ( black ministers who traveled extensively include Elisha York: The Author, 1849),83 http://docsouth. edu/ unc. Winfield Green, Lge oftbe Rev.Elisha W.Green,5-9; nch/bibb/bibb.html. and Josi·ah Henson, Life ofjosiab Henson,26-27. Slave 26 Bibb, Narrati*ve of tbe Life, 189; Blassingame, 33 Lucas,History ofBlacks in Kentucky,92-93·,Taylor, Testimony,49 Bibb standing wrote: Dometimes on Frontiers ofFreedom,138-60. the Ohio River bluff,looking over on a free State, and far north could I have eagerly gazed as as my eyes see, 34 Drew, 7be Refugee, 233. Historians agree about the the blue sky of the free North, which times upon at importance of racial solidarky among the African constrained mc to cry out from the depths ofmy soul. American community in the Ohio River valley. These words that he viewed the Ohio River suggest as They argue that fugitive slaves turned to the black border between slavery and freedom. However,he a community for protection but fail to note how this added, Oh!" Canada, land of rest-Oh! when sweet relative security could reduce slaves' desire to escape shall I there?Oh, that I had the of dove, get wings a north. See Hudson, Lrossing the 'Dark Line, 33-83; that I might soar away to where there is no slavery"- Hahn, Nation Unde,Our Feet,35,42;Taylor, Frontiers language that indicates he viewed freedom in Canada ofFreedom,29;Berlin, Generations of Captivity,43, differently than freedom southern Ohio; Bibb, in see 215·,Griff\er,Front Line ofFreedom,30-57. Narrative ofthe Life,29. 35 Bibb, Narrative oftbe Life,19,Drew, 7be Refugee,214; 27 Barton, Good" Cooks and Washers,"447-48; Bigham, Blassingame, Slave Testimony,391,390;Philip S On Jordan's Banks,16;Hudson, Fugitive Slaves,36, Foner and George E. Walker,eds.,Proceedings oftbe 60-63; Franklin and Schweninger, Runaway Slaves, Black State Conventi.ons, 1840-1865,vol.1. Necto York, and Camp, Closer to Freedom:Enslaved Women and Pennsylvania,Iiidiana, Micbigan, Ohio Philadelphia: Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South, Chapel Temple University Press, 1979),214-315. Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). 36 Francis Fedric, Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky,or, 28 Blassingame, Slave Testimony,388-901 Berlin, Fifty Years of Slavery in the Southern States ofAmerica London: Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt, 1863), Generations q/Captivity,215; Wilma A. Dunaway, 62 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY MATTHEW SALAFIA 75-76 http://docsouth. edu/neh/fedric/ unc. fedric.html; 38 Clarke and Clarke, Narratives ofthe Serings, « Blassingame, Slave stimony, 152; Frederick Douglass, 33, Walter Johnson,Tlie " Pedest:11 and tlie Veil: My Bondage and My Freedom1855·, ( New York:Arno Rethinking the Capitalism/Slavery Question,"Journal Press, 1969),170. of tbe Early Republk 14 Summer 2004),299-308; Morris,Articulation " 37 Charles Sellers, 7bc Afn,ket· R, ohition: New( York: of Two TVorlds,"984. Johnson Oxford University Press, 1991),364-95; Daniel Feller, and Morris ofTer new ways to move beyond the hoary 7be Jacksonian Promise:America. 1815-1840 01·altimore, questk)n of-whether 01 not slaver'was capitalist by Md.:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995),14-32; examining how slavery,freedom, and capitalism related. Andrew R. L. Cayton,Obio:711e History ofa People were For the older debate, see Genovese, loe Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002),45- Politica l Economy ofSlavery:Stlidies in tbe Economy and Frontier Indiana 72; Caytc,n, Bloomington: Indiana Society oftbe Slave Solitb New York: Pantheon Books, University Press, 1996),261-300. 1965);and Oakes, Ruling Race. WINTER 2008 63 Medical History at The Filson Historical Society Collections Essay n March 5-6, 2010, the Southern Association for the History of 0 Medicine and Science (SAHMS)will visit Louisville, Kentucky, for its twelfth annual meeting (see the organization's call for papers elsewhere in this issue). The organization's decision to meet in Louisville provides an opportunity to highlight The Filson's strong medical history collections. Over its almost 125 years, The Filson has pursued its mission to collect books, manuscripts, photo- graphs, and artifacts relating to the his- tory of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley in all its variety. Best known for its pioneer, antebellum, and Civil War collections, 1[he Filson also has excellent material in the field of medical history. As the first pioneers pushed west through the passes of the Appalachians and sailed down the Ohio River, they brought their medical maladies and treat- Photo of four Union Army medical staff(I.to r.:E.G. Staples,G.D. ments with them. Already in 1779, Dr. McBride,G. C. Hires,and Thomas R. Morton) sent to their friend Dr. Gait W.Booth. BEALL-BOOTH FAMILY PAPERS. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY William Fleming recognized the poten- tial for ·a doctor to establish a practice on the frontier. After a November visit the Falls of the Ohio the( recently established Louisville),he related to OPPOSITE: the dreadful condition of many of the settlers there, and observed to his Phrenological character profile wife that no place is better calculated for a][ surgeon to thrive."1 Fleming by Orson S. Fowler medical did Louisville, Kentucky, and did not stay,but other men come to 1809-1887) of the Ohio Valley. Their numbers and levels of success-both in number of Rogers Clark Ballard Thruston (1858- patients and fluctuated the but the region' treatment- over years, as s pop- 1946),February 24, ulation grew the medic·al arts established a firm and respected presence. 1866.ROGERSCLARK Transylvania University' medical school the first established of BALLARDTHRUSTON s was west MISCELLANEOUSPAPERS. the Appalachians. Residents of Cincinnati also established a respected THEFILSONHISTORICAL SOCIETY medical school in the early nineteenth century. 64 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY 0 0 OF GIVEN BY Phr€nological Atithor, Elitor aitd Lecturer. 18 6 6 tfi- A e O 0 FOWLER. MEDICAL HISTORY AT THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY A survey of the Filson's medical collections identifies certain subject categories into which they can be divided. Printed material primarily con- sists of medical treatises, lectures, catalogs,journals, memoirs, and histories. Photographs and prints include images of doctors, medical schools, and class photos for the most part. Ephemera such as broad- sides, circular letters, and lecture tickets can be visually interesting as well as informative. The real foundation of theof letters,collections,diaries,however,drawings,is thenotes,manuscripts.lectures, caseConsistingstudies, accounting records, and more, researchers can gain insight into the region's medical history by reading and study- ing the papers and records of doctors and laypeople who documented illness, injury, treatment, and death. People were no different in past centuries than they are today in discussing their health and noting death. Perusing sub- ject and personal headings both in The Filson' Ambrotype of Dr.Mandeville name s Thum (1820-ca. 1861) of online catalog for( all collections)and the still maintained Louisville, 1855. card ca. THEFILSON onsite catalog dedicated solely to manuscripts reveals HISTORICAL SOCIETY numerous collections. Checking for information under headings such as medicine,"" medical," " nurses " and nursing,"hospitals," " health,"dentistry," " hygiene," " surgery," " and death,"will lead research- ers to more than seventy collections. Some are small, perhaps consisting of only a few items, but others are quite large. The Filson has collections of papers for early doctors such as William C. Galt, Samuel Brown, Lunsford P. Yandell, Anderson Doniphan, and Charles Wilkins Short. The papers of three prominent and respected doc- torsBrown, - Yandell, and Short-are particularly informative because they contain correspondence from fellow medical men discussing theories, practices, activities, and news. 1[heir correspondents read like a Who's Who of antebellum medicine and include Benjamin Rush, Charles Caldwell, Nathaniel Chapman, 7homas Cooper, Daniel Drake, Benjamin Dudley, Samuel Gross, Richard Harlan, Benjamin Silliman, and others. Short actually gained greater fame as a botanist,and corresponded with Asa Gray, William J. Hooker, Constantine S. Rafinesque, Thomas Nuttall, Thomas Say,and other scientists. To these can be added papers of later nineteenth and twentieth century doctors Mandeville Thum, Norvin Green, Charles H. Todd, William H. Galt, Curran Pope, and Jesse Bell. The important contribution to health and healing m·ade by nurses should not be forgotten. Kentuckian Elizabeth Hansbrough served for many years as an army nurse stateside and abroad. In letters home she relates not only her adventures but also the details of her work. The Filson collection also contains material from doctors, soldiers, and civilians from all of America's major conflicts, from the American 66 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY JAMES J HOLMBERG Revolution through the Korean War. The Civil War is especially well represented. Researchers studying Civil War medicine can learn much from the letters and diaries of A-1 5.7,- John Tilford, Milton Careb·, P 4AL&1511 10 9.\D,4 4-7'P - 41-C 1 1*/ST' C.1... 40* 5,>'. 1' 10 Lunsford R Yandell, Jr.,David » ra-*64 97 11* Yandell, and Robert Vin\ r n , 4 101815 11'Tbo 510 5 a6- / 3%5 2*6 44& + regarding the of fr»' experiences A- 614 t¢*e-rs 6 / 1- 8/ 5%10 3$,6 medical men during the con- p,44•r /,--„,ir C 1-r ., 7.,51-15'1.94 tii*3 i4L 2 flict. In addition, stud- 1.41 4/ t».*/ case 6.AZ· 1-•=,7- r' tc c. 2< - 1 ' 4*/2 411/0 3$4 3#1*6 ths* tlis 97* r* 1'6-3-' ics and records kept by doctorsi, * 9-27.-1 * of Union and Confederatei- »*4/*Rit IG 1 911*54 ls'*'/ zi=L d,".12__r>, Ol-_*"1- curd hospitals in Louisville and » »*li-L A· 354CG,· 4*3 4 iII,» hy.84 U, 7114 * U Lolumbus, Kentucky, provide f:i : Dosage chart possibly used by Dr.Ed Maupin of Louisville. specific medical data regarding BEALL- BOOTHFAM LY PAPERS. THEFILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY the treatment of wounds and Add disease. to this the letters and diaries of the common soldier in which health is routinelv discussed and researchers can learn a great deal. Dentistry was not the purview of trained prc,fession,ils until well into the nineteenth century. Alany people suiTered from dental problems befbre and after the rise of medic·ally trained practitioners. I[hat suffering and experience zv·,is sonictimes recorded in letters and diaries. Caroline Carter's 1857 report of having twenty-eight teeth pulled-twenty-one in one ses- sion!-and her subsequent we·aring of "false charms"makes one cringe still today.2 Fairly and unfairly, many dentists and doctors were considered quacks, and their prescriptions and treatments sometimes were more harm- ful than the maladv itself. Phrenology was an area of stuch'in the nineteenth century considered by some legitimate, and by others as foolishness. Ihe' idea that the topography of one's skull yielded a personality profile seems laughable today, but many medical men, scien- tists, and laypeople swore by its accuracy. Charles Caldwell of Transylvania and later Louisville Medical College was a supporter of phrenology and touted its usefulness. Ihe' Filson's longtime president and benefactor,R. C. Ballard Ihruston, had his skull read, and thus his personality and 16 J'' , U,.845J-P.615 potential revealed, as a young boy by none other than the famous phrenologist Orson S. Fowler.3 Lecture and library ticket forTransylvania Medical School,1840. Edward Polk Miscellaneous Papers. Given the fi nality and inevitability of death, THEFILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY it stands to reason that it is often a topic included in the correspondence and records of doctors, certain businesses, and the general public. Death and dying and attitudes toward them are recurring subjects, be it an academic discussion by a doctor to his medical students WINTER 2008 67 MEDICAL HISTORY AT THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY 911'312.CY·*3 IF TIIL MEDICAL 7,r, n, GAZE ly 9 To 1;E Pl -BLIS]IED AT 3}33 33336193, 333(Dg 1' 1{1. Under.igned propose l„ publish a montlily periodical under the above tiup, to be wliolly deoted t. Professor in the Scionce of Medicitic. 1'' hey have engaged, as editor, N. TYOR<·ESTER, 3I. D., the lic,lien i lege of Cleveland. former]\·1'1·ofssor il, the Medicalolleg: (' of Ohio. Pi:w'i·:ssolt I,xwsox havints alinouneed ]}is intention to reitiove the 1."ancet 'to Lexington, titis c '111 and Stqe ill„· be without medical journal. n To stipply this doliciency is the object of the Mi:" Dic·.11 GAzi:' ' Reports of interesting r'ri:. cases,accounts of epidemic or endemic diseases,new and successful motles f treatment. r.tc.,nre ve,y respectfully solicited from phj·sicittils iii the City and country. 79©- 4 The GAzy:'• TTE "shall not be ilevoted to 11, exclusive interest of college, 7. 0 any society. or clique: Ilid al gentlemen belonging eve: to differelit institutions have promised their support and active co-olieration. Regul„r contrit„itions inay be expected f'rom flie professors of the Northern and Southern schools of tiM: State. Reports of rare cure: occurring in }Iospita] and in pi·ivate practice will be givet, in carli 11.1,""' 13,sides the origin:,1 contributions, :( pious extracts will be made 1:1 each numbei· fm. 1:reig.and oniestic medical journals: for this purpose a large number of Eure!,ean journals heve been ordered. T]te first number will appeal· as boon as the rcqi}isite arrangements can be inade, and will not be delayed longest beyond nt October, 1844. Each number shall contait, forty-eight large octavo pages, printed m the best inantier upon superior paper, and [hrwarded by mail or otherwise, according to order. 1'' lie tast of each 1, wil] be prilited in close twenty pages mii, er Illit ,li.linCE type and will 1,e mled wit}t extract. from foreignirnals. » TI,e price will be A·(Il) per annut„.1,:„al,le 14,01, the delivery of the see„,1,1 nuinber : thi. rule be complied with. Remittances always be through Illust can 111*de post-master..who al'e mthorized 1,1 Broadside law lo d frank "letters containing subscriptions to piriodicals. Names of suiyscrihers pectfully solicitrd shotild for the arce re: and be handed in as :som as convenienl prospectus All rommunications relating to the i·Mi·m' ., Gizi"r·ri: "should be addressed t„ Medical Gazette, Cincinnati,June 28, DESILVER &BURR, 1844. CINCINN<'rt. JUNE t)R. IS-tl. Buuk,ellers lid P.blisher. REUBEN MUSSEY MISCELLANEOUSPAPERS. THEFILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY I.*.. Engraving of Louisville Medical School in 1846 from Harper's Illustrated Magazine,no date. THEFILSONHISTORICAL SOCIETY 68 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY or the heartrending lament of someone sharing the news of the passing of a loved one. One feels the grief of Robert Latham almost two hun- dred years after he wrote family of the passing of his mother in September 1813:As more towns and then cities populated the Ohio Valley,under- taking businesses and later funeral homes as well as formal cemeteries were established. All three were potential sources of cadavers for medical study. One of Louisville' oldest funeral homes Pearson' and s is s one of its oldest cemeteries is Cave Hill. 1[he records ofboth,as well as several other funeral homes, are at I[he Filson. Ihis is just a rudimentary overview of Ihe Filson's large and signifi- medicine-related collections. Researchers should Ihe cant consult ' Filson's online catalog, the demo of its virtual card catalog available( through a link on the website),and the card catalog during a personal visit, or they can send a query to special collections staff. Just as those practicing the medical arts sought to preserve life, Ihe' Filson seeks to preserve the documentary and visual legacy of that field as an important part of its mission. James J. Holmberg Curator, Special Collections 1 William Fleming to Nancy Fleming, Dec. 3, 1779, 4 Robert Latham to Dear Relations, Oct. 5, 1813, Fleming Family Papers, The Filson Historical Society, Slaughter Family Papers, FHS. Latham wrote in Louisville, Kv. hereafter( FHS). part: the" loss, Oh! merciful God, the loss, of my afTectioiiate my tender my idolized Mother. The night 2 Caroline Carter Alartha Adams,July 13, 1857, to on which I arrived, that fatal, awful night, was the Martha Adams Papers, FHS. time in which she left us. Sad departure, Solemn, mournful absence, an absence ofwoe, grief and 3 Rogers Clark Ballard Thruston Miscellaneous Papers, lamentation. FHS. WINTER 2008 69 Records of the Cincinnati Union Terminal Company Collections Essay mong the Cincinnati Historical Society Library's recently-opened collections related to the Union Terminal building, one of the most important is the Records of the Cincinnati Union Terminal Company. Especially useful are the papers relating to the company's Land Purchasing Department Mss.( 1027)and the records of its Board of Directors (Mss. 1031).Ihese ' records, property agreements, purchase contracts, and meeting minutes offer an interesting account of the West End and Mill Creek neighborhoods and businesses once located here. The affected area ran roughly west along Gest Avenue from Evans Street to Linn Avenue from Gest Avenue Buck Street. Street and north on Dalton to The push to replace residential with industrial areas in the neighbor- hood that existed prior to the Union Terminal's construction reflects larger developments occurring throughout Cincinnati's Mill Creek basin. The property agreements and purchase contracts also listed who owned the large properties and buildings in the West End of Cincinnati from the late 1920s through the early 1930s. A single person or their heirs owned large tracts of land and plats in some cases. Often the owner of the land rented out the buildings. 1[he records also include descriptions of their condition, the majority of the residential properties listed as tenements in need of demoli- tion. Either Cincinnati Union Terminal Company or the landowner would be responsible for evicting the tenants, whose names are sometimes listed in the agreements and contracts. In some rare cases, a single person or a couple owned a residence. Because none of these domiciles now exist and little photographic evidence remains of this area, these records offer an important resource to urban historians. This collection also includes the land purchases made for what became the Western Hills Viaduct. Because construction of the terminal was going to disrupt and alter the path of Harrison Avenue, a major vein to down- Terminal town fom the west side of Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Union Company,the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the City of Cincinnati together built the viaduct in 1930-1932. This double-decker bridge pass- Art Deco ing over the Mill Creek and rail yards was also built in the same 70 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY CHRISTINE ENGELS Nothing takes tbe place of Leather THE American Oak Leather Company Established 1881 1 3 13 Z Tannery-Kenner, Dalton and MeLean Avenues CINCINNATI, OHIO The American Oakand Leather Company wasone factory sold to make room for Cincinnati Union Terminal. CINCINNATIMUSEUMCENTER style of the terminal building and has some matching elements, such ·as the outdoor lighting at the terminal and the original lighting on the top deck of the viaduct. The business appraisals rendered for the Cincinnati Union Terminal Company provide a detailed look into a number of the city's businesses, such as Boye and Emmes Machine Tool Company,American Ice Company, Felss Flour Milling Company, and American Oak Leather Company. Each assessment contains a floor plan of the original building,a description of the equipment and tools, and an estimate of the moving costs. There are also large plat maps of the entire area, businesses, and proposed rail lines. The property agreements provide the names of landowners and the exact street addresses. WINTER 2008 71 RECORDS OF THE CINCINNATI UNION TERMINAL COMPANY 4• E Cl INNATI UNION TERMINAL COMPANY 4 ..S' 1ns'{1101§*4%, **Elt¢ND t r fi, 1! 1("/*V fei****I' 4'1 f ® 46, 4 3- C-* 1 IN'10 fy. 1 .i N j: :' ft' 8 t 1. 1 attiamil,= - 14 05** 1,*4 1@ 41*1 0/0 11,0%,ma,A.1*,11*11 at U 42 * , 3 1*30, 1%1 f* $**5*tem, 84%6% L* i.- 84 ¢*0#*14 20 00¢*0 tl ***1*dr 1* 17 6_t It * 01**** U*1* hutk - A* f***140fr' .* F ." T 4 14**t»U '*@» t f .-f -:b'*deed *t» *: * t **= 0 * thu*0 * .0*.al r it«' I.u,_4*04-».UN '11*:'40'f. 6/42/I . Of,f ' 1- S I 85==/ Option sell 2188 Western to Avenue for$10,500 CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER The plat maps included with the property agreements and purchase con- tracts provide visual examples of how construction of the terminal altered the city and its streets Some streets ceased to exist once new buildings were assembled,while others merely altered their paths The railroad tracks also had order direct new routes in to all rail traffic to the new central loca- tion Perhaps one of the starkest changes was the disappearance of some residential streets Most of these streets, located mainly in the Mill Creek area, were lined with decrepit homes and apartments that housed a con- tingent of residents who worked at the local factories, slaughterhouses, or other industrial shops The minutes of the Board of the Cincinnati Union Terminal Company complement these agreements and contracts by providing a detailed look at 72 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY CHRISTINE ENGELS 4 . PHILADELPHIA ESTABLISHED 1899 CLEVELAND 4.2.ALNUY ST.KET 203622. .-STREer NEW YORK CHICAGO 303 SINGERBUILDiNG 903 Fll?ST MATIONAL S,UK0, . SPRINGFIELD DETROIT 496 ffi. DGE STREET 1 PITTSBURGH 08 DE.0'SCOTLDNO ., ST LOUIS 624 OAR SLLD.0 75 PRCEC SUILDMO CHATTANOOGA dojaj* 04**ATLANTA 512 JAMES SULOING 11 502 GLENN BUILDING r Cleveland, August 25, 1928. S APPRAISAL CERTIFICATE THE MANUFACTURERS' APPRAISAL COKPANY, a corporation duly incorporated under the laws of Pennsylvania, hereby CERTIFIES that it has made an appraisal of the plant of The American Oak Leather Co.,Cincinnpti, Ohio, as of June 30, 1928, and find the values to be as follows: Cost of Sound Reproduction Valuation e Buildings - f© 2,853,658.97 $2,061,114.89 4 Machinery and Equipment - - 697,956.29 479'240.13 / » Grand Totals------3,551,615.26 $2, 540, 355·$02 These values are the result of a thorough inspection and appraisal of the property, and are based upon the cost of new reproduction, accord- ing to present market conditions for materials and labor, less de- duction for depreciation due to mechanical deterioration, and are in accordance with the actual physical condition of the property at the _ i, A " date of the appraisal. We do not assume responsibility as to the ownership of any of the prop- worKerty beingshown confinedin this appraisal,to the appraisal»not havingof the physicalInto thevalues.title of THEANUFACTURERS' *gone APPRAISAL COMPANY-lt, our i t, 4 SS-jy '»,« i'**' Vice-Presides, , 415*5»%. 14, 9 3 I 4,I 42, BA.i , " ' 0 '.. 41 1 «,ft 1 « t 1%4 I - S..9 4/ 01% ./ fy*St ... 46;8 ' Appraisal forthe American Oak and Leather Company factory CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER WINTER 2008 73 MEDICINE RESOURCES IN THE CINCINNATI HISTORICAL SOCIETY how the company made its decisions regarding the construction and opera- tion of the building. The financial aspects of running a railroad terminal come into clearest focus, including information on the physical aspects of the building such as renovations, repairs, and improvements of the infra- and structure out buildings. Ihis' collection contains much information on how the company was able to afford such a colossal architectural endeavor during the Great Depression and how it was able to maintain the build- ing through the twentieth century. Also contained in these minute books are documents detailing the disbanding of the Cincinnati Union Terminal Company in 1981. These collections are open for use by the public at the Cincinnati Historical Society Library at the Cincinnati Museum Center. Christine Engels Assistant Archivist Cincinnati Historical Society Library, Cincinnati Museum Center 74 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Book Reviews Carolyn Murray-Wooley. Early Stone residences, they do account for the most Houses ofKentucky. Photogr·aphs by prestigious. Starting her meticulous Matt Wooley. Lexington: University research in the 1980s, Murray-Wooley Press of Kentucky,2008. 227 pp. ISBN: documented 455 of Kentucky's early stone 9780813124797,50. $ 00 cloth. buildings and included in this study the 169 buildings that are still standing or Carolyn Murray-Wooley is a preemi- have full documentation. She closely architectural historian and lead- nent a examined fifty buildings and their fam- ing scholar in dry stone construction, with ilies in an alphabetized portfolio she includes. She discovered that Ulstermen a scholarly focus on Kentucky's built envi- the term Murray-Wooley uses for all ronment. In this deeply families, Scots-Irish and not, descended researched book, she from the various nationalities originating brings all of her exper- in northern Ireland)preferred stone build- tise and experience to ings for two primary reasons. First, stone notable built bear on a buildings represented their national tra- landscape feature of Kentucky: the pio- dition; and second, they represented the neer stone house 1780-( 1830).Markedly, high social standing that the Ulstermen she focuses on the houses-that is, the themselves commanded in e·arly Kentucky residences-rather than the commercial or society. Ihe' stone houses stood as' testa- other of that stone structures early period. ments to the Ulstermen's origins and to What may surprise many readers is her their status as leading landowners, survey- focus: the houses she docu- more acute ors,speculators,and community leaders of ments derive from families with an Ulster, the Bluegrass region. often Scots-Irish, provenance. She discov- The story ofthe Ulstermen in Kentucky ered during her decades of research that is a complicated one, which Murray- Ulster-descended households preferred to Wooley explicates clearly. Through deep, build stone residences far more than any broad, and long-term research into gene- other descendant group; in fact, more than alogies, family papers, state and local archives, websites, and documenta- twice as often as the nearest group, those onsite of English descent. Of ( the houses in her tion and( by determining Ulster ancestry study, Ulster immigrants built seventy- through this research rather than through surmisal)she determined that eight as compared with thirty-four built surname by English people).Fascinated, she pur- the Ulstermen tended to be an upper-class sued this study. segment in Virginia and Pennsylvania who While stone houses account for only had the political ties and the economic budding a small percentage of early Kentucky wherewithal to come into the WINTER 2008 75 BOOK REVIEWS Kentucky frontier and buy up the choicest artisans is difficult to come by. She might properties in the Bluegrass region. Her have found answers by delving into the documentation of this particular history literature on folk architecture, the design and of is extensive one the true contribu- and construction knowledge of which is tions of this work. One of the main points common to the people. Ihe' artisan's iden- she make that the wants to is Ulstermen's tity is thus less important than the cultural perpetuation of their native tradition, as manifestation, which appears to coincide exemplified by their architectural heri- with her point about the Ulster tradi- Unless Ulster traditions dif- tage,represents one of the last examples of tion. were a community's transplantation of an intact ferent than elsewhere in Europe, it seems cultural heritage on the colonial frontier the craftsmen, even formally apprenticed prior to the influence of popular architec- in the tradition, would have been part of tural styles. a folk culture whose artisans are rarely This amazing and beautiful book known. includes thorough scholarship, extensive These two criticisms notwithstanding, line-drawn floor plans, 186 photographs, this is an impressive, scholarly,profoundly and six maps. 1[he appendices, bibliog- researched, and fully illustrated book. raphy, and notes all are both useful and Her writing is clear, making it accessi- informative. Her decades-long research ble to a general public, and enhanced by and the depth of her knowledge are unas- a glossary of architectural terms. But it sailable. But one apparent lacuna is obvi- is likewise an immedi·ately essential vol- ous: Murray-Wooley neglects explicitly to ume on any architectural historian's book- detail precisely what the Ulster tradition shelf. Further, scholars in Kentucky in stone houses entails. Her descriptions history, early American cultural history, of the Kentucky Ulster houses often pro- colonial expansion and settlement in the vide examples of architectural detail that pre-Revolutionary period, all will benefit is typical or atypical of Ulster work no( from reading and learning from this stel- lar work. windows on the gable end, for example), and readers piec. together the tradi- can e John Wolford tional Ulster stone house features from University of Missouri-St. Louis these occasional references: stone, single pile, hall and parlor,internal gable chim- Dickson D. Bruce,Jr. 7be Kentucky neys, ells added at gable end rather than Tragedy:A Story of Conjlict and Change But there The at rear. is more? author in Antebellum America. Baton Rouge: might have properly oriented her readers Louisiana State University Press,2006. by simply laying out, at the beginning, the 200 ISBN: 0807131733 cloth),( traditional Ulster architectural traits and pp. 40. 00. even more significantly, how and why the Kentucky Ulstermen changed that tra- Dickson J. Bruce's 7be Kentucky Tragedy dition. Another question deals with her joins Patricia Cline Cohen's Murder of background work on the artisans and Helen Jewett 1998) and Amy Gilman architects. She provides some specific Srerbnick's Mysterious Death of Mary examples oflead architects,but claims that Rogers 1995)as works that look into sen- finding information about the architects or sational murder cases to explore cultural 76 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS changes in the early-nineteenth cen- years, novelists, poets, playwrights, and tury United States. The Kentucky trag- other creative minds mined Sharp's mur- edy of the title was certainly sensational. der to address issues ofhonor,partisanship, Although the facts are not altogether clear gender relations, personal responsibility, even now, it seems that hum·an psychologv, sexuality, violence, one night in the sum- self-restraint, imposture, and America's mer of 1825, Solomon cultural relationship with Europe. P. Sharp, a prominent Does that seem like a long list? It is- leader of Kentucky's too long for these issues to receive their due book that reach hundred New Court" faction, in a strains to one found himself pierced and fifty pages of text. Because writers through the heart by a exploited the story of Sharp's murder in so knife wielded by one many ways, many of them contradictory, Jereboam Beauchamp. Bruce thinks that these accounts provide window the heart of the Young Beauchamp was a into tensions at the much vounger hus- social and cultural changes of the period. And doubt he But Tbe band of Ann Cooke, who some sixteen no is correct. years befi,re h,id accused Sharp of-seduc- Kentucky Tragedy lacks the sophistication of books like Xlichael Zakim' ing her and fathering her stillborn infant. s Ready-Made Sharp's political opponents resuscitated Denlocracy 2003),which used the history the rumor amidst the hothouse camp.zign of men's clothing in the early republic to of Ihe Southwest' code of 1825. ' s violent explore similar cultural tensions, especially honor iii»pelled Beauchamp to avenge his those pertaining to market transforma- sweetheart. On remarkably flimsy evi- tions. On the other hand, Bruce explores dence the state arrested, tried, convicted, these issues in a manner accessible to non- and condemned him. Melodrama worthv specialists and professional historians who of a Spanish-language soap opera ensued, have little patience for works that privilege including a botched double-suicide, and cleverness over clarity. the whole sordid episode ended with Most obviously, Sharp's murder Beauchamp's execution and Cooke's death focused attention on to changing concep- from self-inflicted knif- wounds. e tions of honor and violence in the early But of course it did not end there, or republic. Remark·ably, the works inspired this would have been a very short book. by the tragedy agreed that Beauchamp The events received attention in the press was justified iii murdering Sharp. lhis far beyond Kentucky, and in the interim unanimity suggests that the honor ethic, between his and conviction execution, or at least the notion that a respectable Beauchamp wrote a widely read version of woman's violation demanded the spill- the affair. 1[hese accounts varied widely ing of blood, enjoyed considerable legiti- in fact and interpretation, so writers min- macy well beyond the South. Certainly ing the tr'agedy for their own ends had no the judgments of Bruce, the author of trouble finding material to suit myriad an important book on southern violence, purposes. And borrow they did, because need to be taken seriously on this score. the story apparently struck a chord with But if we know that honor had deep the American public. Over the next fifty roots in the early republic, we ·also know WINTER 2008 77 Il. I.. BOOK REVIEWS that opposition to honorific violence was surface of antebellum middle-class cul- powerful force- the South, a even in as ture lurked many impulses-some trend- Jonathan D. Wells shows in 7be Origins of ing backward, some forward, and many tbe Southern Middle Class2004) ( Because quite dark and antisocial. 7be Kentucky the works it explores do not reflect this Tragedy is another in a long list of books movement, The Kentucky Tragedy pres- and articles showing that the early-nine- ents a somewhat distorted picture of early teenth century United States was a much American culture. more interesting place than it seemed just Other aspects of the controversy a little while ago. provoked diverse how- more responses, Daniel Kilbride ever. Bruce's exploration of the meaning John Carroll University of the tragedy for changing conceptions of sexuality and women' roles is partic- s Charles P.Roland. History Teaches Us ularly interesting. The overwhelmingly to Hope:Reflections tbe Civil War and negative portrayal of Sharp, the seducer, on Southern History. Lexington: University owed much to widespread notions of Press of Kentucky,2007. 368 ISBN: female passionlessness. By ruining Anne pp. 9780813124568 cloth),( 45. $00. Cooke, and then spreading rumors about her to advance his political prospects, This collection of essays from Charles R Sharp violated conventional standards of Roland, Alumni Professor Emeritus of gentlemanly behavior. Yet many works History at the University of Kentucky, Anne invested Cooke with strong sex- highlights some of the ual desires, often combined with violent themes in his long and Charles R Roland impulses. Such interpretations challenged productive career. An views of human nature that emphasized influential historian of HISTORY the potential for the South and the Civil and desirability of self- rEACHES115'4101 especially for restraint, women. In addi- War, Roland is per- tion, Bruce thinks that representations of haps best known for his HOPE the partisan roots of the tragedy illumi- acclaimed biography of nate a deep streak of antiparty sentiment General Albert Sidney in antebellum America. In a period in Johnston and two widely which the parties commanded profound read Civil War histo- ries: * loyalties and generated massive turnouts, e Confederacy,an many Americans maintained fears about entry in the University of Chicago History and the distorting efFects of partisan loyalty. of Americ·an Civilization series; An Sharp' American Iliad, s murder and its aftermath provided a history of the war years read- a powerful exhibit of the evils of partisan designed for surveys and general identific·ation. ers. A student of Francis Butler Simkins, acces- Roland also revised Simkins' Tbe Kentucky Tragedy offers an s A History of sible and broad exploration of the cultural tbe South, one of the most popular histo- implications of a widely publicized sensa- ries of the region. Ihroughout' his career, tional crime. Ifit sometimes fails Roland' work has earned well-deserved to assess s a these implications with much depth or reputation for its smooth and accessi- flair,it demonstrates that beyond the placid ble prose, something which has helped 78 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS him reach ·a wide audience, and a sense to A" Slaveowner's Defense of Slavery, work of " nonfiction"that of which is conveyed in this collection. a creative uses Unfortunately what is missing is an appre- a fictional Louisiana planter to summa- the southern for ciation for Roland's prodigious research rize reasons secession. Written the form of letter north- since nearly all of the essays are published in a to a lectures or abridged or edited versions of ern relative, Roland's southerner empha- previously published work. Hopefully sizes the Republicans' sectional agenda readers not familiar with his scholarship and refusal to compromise. The collection will explore further the work of this care- also includes ·a spirited defense of Lee's ful and accomplished historian. generalship and character in no less th·,iii While southern historians most are four separate essays. Finally,in Part Four familiar with least of Roland' at some s vast the fbcus turns more generally to southern scholarship, many may not be aware of his identity. These chapters are all previously other"careers as citizen-soldier and public published, including Roland's 1981 presi- dential address the Southern Historical historian. Roland has served as principal" to lecturer" the McCormick Civil War at Association. Ihis' is an eloquent, some- Institute Shenandoah at University since times nostalgic case for southern distinct- the early 19905, relating his passion for the iveness, mixing history and literature in Civil War era to the public. He has also typicallv elegant prose. spoken frequently of his own military ser- This collection will give readers a good World War II, ibr which vice iii he won a sense ofwhy Roland is considered such an Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Roland has evocative writer and speaker and, perhaps delivered this lecture-known the GI" as most of-all, whv he seems to believe, as Charlie talk-many times since the mid- Robert E. Lee said, that history teaches us 1970s, including at West Point and the to hope. Army War College. The ability to blend Christopher J. Olsen his work academic as an historian with Indiana State University autobiography has established a unique place for Roland in the field of public his- John C. Inscoe. Race,War,and tory and even historical" tourism." Remembrance in tbe Appalacbian South. 11ie essays collected here include ver- Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, sions of,or excerpts from some of Roland's 2008. 412 pp. ISBN: 9780813124995 early work-a chapter, for instance, from cloth),50. $00. Ibe Improbable Era,his history of the post- World War II South, and selections from Race, War, and Remembrance in tbe his autobiography, My Oayssey Through Appalacbian South gathers some of John History. Happily, though, many of the Inscoe's best essays from the last twenty essays are in print for the first time, and years, all of which were previously pub- reflect elaborate themes that Roland has lished. The author his or reiterates com- previously addressed. Roland's own life is mitment to documenting Appalachia's the subject of Part One, which includes a complexity on issues of race and war. version of his «GI Charlie"speech. Parts Race and Racism in Nineteenth-Century Two and Three examine secession and Appalachia, provided here as chapter one, the Civil War. Roland the reader treats remains the best brief survey of highland WINTER 2008 79 BOOK REVIEWS relations. race Inscoe's essays on the little in practical terms. In fact, Inscoe Civil War highlight female agency and finds that many highlanders in western class conflict North Carolina. in western North Carolina still aspired to slave own- Students of literature,drama,and film will ership as late as 1864,proving the institu- benefit from the book' charitable evalua- s tion's durability in the region. tion of Appal·achia's contemporary repre- In his essays on the Civil War, sentitions. Inscoe uses his knowledge of Inscoe explores the many ways residents the region to appraise works by William of Appalachia tried to mitigate the local Faulkner and Charles Frazier, as well as effects of the national conflict. Highland films like Deliverance, Sergeant York,and kin typically coalesced in their wartime Foxfire. loyalties, but some resorted to deception Inscoe' s essays on race and slav- when their own homes were divided by ery complicate misperceptions about the the tentativeness" and fluidity"of partisan region popular for over a century. He finds sentiment 135).( Escaping Union prison- diverse and often contradictory evidence ers of war frequently sought out sympa- thetic and blacks them of highland racial attitudes and actions. women to assist in Slaves amounted to less than 5 percent their trek north through the mountains. of the population in places, but Inscoe On other occasions, women proved just underscores the institution's pervasiveness as willing as men to express and defend in Appalachia and contends that slavery their convictions. They often did so at there could be as cruel as anywhere else. their own peril, especially when class con- Historian Wilma Dunaway has et»npha- flict and political commitment intersected sized the unique brutality of highland in guerrilla activity and army raids. Some slavery,partly as a function of slaves' rela- women prioritized limited' and localized" tive isolation in Appalachia. Inscoe avoids objectives, struggling merely to maintain this generalization. He instead highlights the family estate in the absence of their diverse labor conditions and the agency of husbands 165).( both and slaves masters Nine of Inscoe's essays illuminate the and contends that conflicting popular images of Appalachia RACE, WAR, per- a,zoi sonal decisions and dis- Remembrance generated by diverse commentators. In parate circumstances Ihe Secession Crisis and Regional Self- determined the degree Image, Inscoe argues that east Tennessee's of the institution's cru- antebellum leaders promoted an identity elty. Inscoe argues, for their region as an autonomous politi- however, that moun- cal unit increasingly victimized by the whites harbored of the Ihis rhetorical tradi- tain a rest state. ' hatred for blacks that, tion explains above all why east Tennessee when pushed, trumped differed markedly from western North their general frustration Carolina on the question of secession. Inscoe' thesis hearkens back earlier with the authority oflowland slaveholders. s to an Indeed, nonslaveholding white highland- explanation for east Tennessee Unionism with few blacks could be ers in areas as rac- that focused on regional leadership, yet simplistically that ist as residents of the North. Opposition he does not assume too to slavery may have been considerable in public opinion merely conformed to the pockets, but after the 1820s it meant very wishes of important personalities. In two 80 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS of his essays on memory, Inscoe suggests The race riot that erupted in East St. that southern arbiters of Appalachia's Louis, Illinois, in early July 1917 her- Civil War legacy left local residents lit- alded a series of urban racial conflagra- tle room to perpetuate their recollec- tions that swept the tions of guerrilla conflict. One suspects, nation during the First World War. Since the however, that personal efforts to rec- oncile with neighbors-a phenomenon 1964 publication of Elliott Rudwick' Ro deserving more research-bears as much s ce responsibility for sanitized local histories Riot at East St. Louis, of highland loyalty as any larger myth Jitly 2, 1917, scholars about Appalachian allegiances. After all, have attributed the vio- lence East St. Louis widely shared remembrances of the war's iii mountain legacy were often contradictory, to competition between black southern labor especially on the question of whether most mountaineers were Unionist defenders of migrants and white liberty, devout heroes of a Lost Cause, or industrial workers for jobs and housing. poor mountaineers duped by slaveholders. Historian Charles L. Lumpkins is part Inscoe affirms that residents of of vibrant of includ- a wave revisionists- Appalachia were southerners in nearly ing Malcolm McLaughlin and Harper Barnes-who have reconsidered the every sense, sometimes" foremost, some- riot's times more secondarily"6- (7).The com- causes, participants, and impact. In plexity he finds in the mountains ultimately American Pogroni:Ube East St. Louis Race what he the of the refocuses mirrors sees in rest Riot and Black Politics, he the South, even if it was more or less extreme narrative on the long-term efforts by the Most of Inscoe' local at times. s sources black community to gain independence originated in western North Carolina, so from white political patronage and con- wonders if the and behaviors of one views trol. De-centering the white workers, highlanders elsewhere might be divergent police, National Guardsmen, and saloon" enough to make sectional distinctions bums" who carried out the assaults, somewhat meaningless in the mountains. Lumpkins argues, The" July mas sacre Nevertheless, this book will be a boon to had less to do with social tensions revolv- readers interested in easily accessing some ing around such issues as employment of'the region's most important scholarship, and housing and more to do with black especially since Inscoe has updated many East St. Louisans arriving at the thresh- of the footnotes since the first publication old of creating their own independent ofthese essays. political organization capable of holding the balance of in city W. Brent Jones power governance 110).Orchestrated primarily by promi- University of Virginia nent white businessmen-politicians, the I . riot amounted to an ethnic cleansing Charles L. Lumpkins. American directed at transforming East St. Louis Pogrom:lbe East St.Louis Race Riot and into an all-white town. Although urban Black Politics. Athens: Ohio University machine politicians were unsuccessful in Press, 2008. 312 pp. ISBN: 0821418033, achieving this end, progressive reformers 24.95. seized the chance to end black political WINTER 2008 81 BOOK REVIEWS influence by adopting a commission form pass communities that were only par- of government and citywide elections. tially successful in ridding themselves of Black townspeople did not regain their the threat of black power. Moreover, the pre-riot level of power, and studiously author's community-centered approach, avoided the appearance of political inde- foregrounding the pursuit of black political pendence. Yet, by crafting a politics of self-determination, echoes central themes black accommodation within the precinct in Sundiata Cha-Jua's work on Brooklyn, system, the local National Association Illinois. Lumpkins adds to what will for the Advancement of Colored People, hopefully be continuing research on black and even Black Nationalist organizations urban villages and midsized communi- ties in Illinois and the industrial Midwest such as the Universal Negro Improvement Association, black East St. Louisans con- more generally. Attuned to the particular- tinued their Not to act in own interests. ities of place, Lumpkins likewise situates until the Great Depression and the Second East St. Louis within an imagined border World War brought Communist Party region, including southern Illinois and the organizing, interracial industrial union- Ohio River valley,where northern" indus- trial and southern folk cultures"combined ism, a national New Deal Democratic coalition, and the March on Washington to create a distinctive urban typology 16).( A curious weaknesses is the book' Movement, were African Americans able s to wage full-scale campaigns against local vague description of the land-" interest white bosses and real estate interests. politicians and businessmen"Lumpkins However, Lumpkins concludes, by the posits as the pogrom's instigators. Despite East St. Louis became all-black time an their identification as pivotal actors in the municipality,the city had been weakened East St. Louis drama, they do not emerge by decades of industrial decline,fiscal mis- as a fully developed group. This is likely a management, and an entrenched culture result ofthe author's legitimate focus on his of machine politics perpetuated by black black protagonists. Further,his discussion elected officials. of an 211-black political machine formed in Ihe author's most significant contri- the 1920s seems at odds with his argu- bution is his attention to black community ment that African Americans acquiesced building in East St. Louis before the Great to white paternalism following the riot. Migration. Entering the city's industrial Ihis begs the question of whether black accommodationism hegemonic economy earlier and in greater numbers was as as it than African Americans elsewhere, black appears. Perhaps the organization's exis- oriented the East St. Louisans parlayed their wages tence is not contradictory,as it and their numbers into increased political black community toward supporting the local white-dominated Democratic Party; clout at a time when many black commu- nities experienced legal disfranchisement. in any case, this point may have benefited Their institution building, similarly, sus- from greater clarification. Lumpkins also tained them long after the carnage of 1917. says relatively little about the black armed Lumpkins also expands the narrative on self-defense-detailed by McLaughlin in white sundown" towns"-a phenomenon Power,Community, and Racial Killing in widespread in Illinois, and explored by East St. Louis (2005)-which would have reinforced his thesis about East St. Louis' the scholar James Loewen-to encom- s 82 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY BOOK REVIEWS longstanding tr·adition of black commu- 1931, Harlan miners staged a spontaneous nity building and agency. These observa- w'alkout in response to a proposed wage tions notwithstanding,American Pogrom is cut; the coal operators responded by firing impressively researched, carefulh· an orga- all striking miners. By late 1931, one in nized, compellingly argued, and elegantly three miners iii Harlan was out of work, rendered work that will resonate among and a virtually bankrupt United AIine scholars of mass racial violence, specialists Vorkers (UMW)was iinable w provide in black urban studies, and enthusiasts of the needed strike relief. Feeling betrayed Illinois and Midwest history. by the UAIW, the unemployed miners Clarence Lang turned for help to the National AIiners Universitv of Illinois at Union (NAIU),an organization affiliated Urbana-Champaign with the American Communist Parti: NMU organizers entered the Harlan National Committee for the Defense fields in earh·July 1931, signed of ofPolitical Prisoners. Harlan Aliners up many the unemployed mitiers and quickly estab- Speak:Report on Terrorism in tbe lished kitchens, effective Kentitcky Coal Fields. John C. Hennen, seven soup an recruititig 1 the starvillg ed. Lexineton: The Universitv Press toc, among popu- lation. The miners who joined NMU did of-Kentucky,2008. 386 pp. ISBN: so out of hunger, not ideology. In a region 9780813191874 paper),( 524.95. dominated by powerful coal interests that reissue of the 1932 Harlan Miners Speak is a iii earlier years had barelv tolerated the by of report a committee eleven left-lean- presence of the U:\I»\V, many deemed the ing writers headed by novelist llieodore' NAIU illegal and dangerous. Local law Dreiser that visited east- entbrcenient tzirned Ivith rengeance on ern Kentucky to investi- NAIU organizers aiid members. Ihe' soup gate alleged civil rights kitchens were dynamited and all those violations against strik- who had helped to run them were charged ing 111111el S. In addi- with criminal" syndicalism." tion to docuinenting Seventeen miners and their wives, the miners' testimonies, all NMU members, were interviewed by the book contains essavs the Dreiser Committee in Pineville and by the visiting writers Harlan counties on November 6, 1931; Pti,ARED 81 Mit,!11 Oi 111[ liATIONAL COMMImt describing the grim con- their testimonies reveal rganized reign iON IH[0[iNIEOi POll!16ll PittONIt an c, ditions in Harlan mines of terror at the hands of law enforcement. THF000.DREMER •i'SlEH CCHCN .MELVIN ... CHAR.S .WALKERAIDE • * J'...... SSIE WAKEFIELD • HER*009 ANDERSON •ANNA ROC.EsrER .ARNOLD JOHNSON CE C...... SRAEL • ....and , raising larger ques- Two union organizers were abducted, about the failings tions taken to a mountaintop where they were of capitalism that caused such depriva- beaten, shot at, and left for dead. Soup tic, The 2008 edition also with kitchen volunteers became of n. comes an victims a introduction by John Hennen that places drive-by shooting. Other miners had the Harlan incidents 1931 in a broader their homes illegally ransacked for radical historical context. literature or were falsely arrested and held In the e,irly I)epression crl, the without formal charges. demand for coal collapsed and coal com- The Dreiser report briefly drew the pailies cut wages ruthlessly. In February nation's attention to the plight of Harlan WINTER 2008 83 BOOK REVIEWS miners but otherwise accomplished blatant labor repression of the non- little. In early 1932,NMU organizers union era has been replaced by social abandoned Kentucky and the union conflicts of another kind-environ- disbanded mental debates the adverse effects in 1935. The re-issue ofthe over Harlan Dreiser report recaptures this period of newer mining methods. Miners Speak reminds that must in Harlan's labor history when desper- us we look out for the interests of the vulner- ate miners turned to the radical orga- nization for survival. Since the Harlan able-today,environmentally affected the powerful strikes of 1931-32, the coal industry communities-against coal and has undergone major structural and energy companies. technological changes. In Kentucky Kazuko Uchimura and other coal mining states, the Georgetown University 84 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Announcements Cincinnati Museum Center Announcements Cincinnati is Talking About RACE RACE: Are We So Different?The Exhibition PHOTO COURTESY OF AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION AND SCIENCE MUSEUM OF MINNESOTA I . Now that America has elected first its words like race" and ethnicity"mean African American president, should we be different things to different people and talking more or less about race? spark different kinds of conversations. Is it science?Can DNA and tell the Ihis January,Cincinnati Museum Center you test of the who is being tested? is offering the Greater Cincinnati region race person Is it culture?Are people of different the chance to answer that question for ethnicities groomed think differently, themselves.RACE:Are We So Di#erent? to to differently,and to like different is a groundbreaking exhibition that move foods?Or is it all in past? challenges, encourages, cocoons, and our dialogues our perceptions of race. It is RACE:Are We So Different?doesn't interactive, engaging, and approachable choose just one question to answer. for all and this nationally touring ages, Instead, multiple aspects of these exhibit will have Cincinnati talking. questions are woven seamlessly into a The most remarkable aspect of the RACE complete, open-ended investigation of the exhibition is its depiction of the idea that American concept ofrace. WINTER 2008 85 ANNOUNCEMENTS In the opening spaces of the exhibit, neighborhood, health and medicine, and visitors investigate The" Science of education ·and schools. Human Variation."This section focuses In the History" of the Idea of Race"space on what current science knows about visitors are introduced to the concept that human variation and our species' history. racial and ethnic categories are neither Scientifically,no one gene, or any set of universal, nor static. These categories genes, can support the idea of race and we are fairly new and have changed over now know that human beings are more time. In America, these experiences are alike genetically than any other living generational and seem historical, but species. race"has not always existed. Picture yourself looking mirror with at a RACE:Aye We So Dgerentp will have the five friends of different ethnicities. How Greater Cincinnati region talking! The is it possible that you can see what a exhibition not only aligns with Tri-State's Check the geneticist can't? out companion educational standards and benchmarks website understandingrace. www. org in social studies for elementary and high and take the online quiz Who is game " school students, but also aligns with White?"and you'll be surprised at how the region's new global vision. Museum complicated assigning race can get!You Center is partnering with sister museums may be even more surprised at how many and civic organizations across the region fellow gamers disagree. to present multiple dialogue opportunities Both the exhibition and website full are and conversation series. of interactive games for adults, teens, and For more information, visit www. young children that will take you on a cincymuseum.org or call 513)( 287-7000. riveting,dialogue-sparking journey that you and your family will be raving about. Dates While our daily experience with race J anuary 17 through April 26,2009 struggles to be similarly open-minded and light-hearted, RACE:Aye We So Diferent? Cost offers a safe, engaging space to explore Members: FREE the more difficult questions about race. In the Everyday" Experience of Race" Non-members: 8$adult, 7$seniors, 6$ space in the exhibit,visitors explore children 3-( 12),included with admission social and personal experiences of race to Cincinnati History Museum in familiar settings such as home and 1[he Filson Fellowships and Internships lhe Filson Historical Society invites experience in collections management applications for fellowships and and research for graduate students. internships. The Filson fellowships and Fellows as well as interns are expected to be in residence The Filson. internships encourage the scholarly use continuous at of our nationally significant collections Application deadlines for all fellowships by providing support for travel and and internships are October 15th and lodging. Internships provide practical February 15th each year or( the Monday 86 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY ANNOUNCEMENTS following the 15th if it falls on a Saturday The Filson anticipates that fellows will publicize the results of their research or Sunday).Applications are reviewed in twice a vear. Ohio Valley History,the peer-reviewed journal published jointly by The Filson, Ihe Society' collections especially s are the Cincinnati Museum Center,and the for the frontier, antebellum, and strong University of Cincinnati. Civil War eras of Kentucky history. The For more information, contact A. Glenn fellowships are designed to encourage Crothers, Director of Research for The research in all aspects of the history of Filson Institute, The Filson Historical Kentucky and the regions of the Ohio Society, 1310 S. Ihird' Street, Louisville, Valley and the Upper South. Applicants KY 40208 or at crothers@filsonhistorical. should indicate how'Ihe Filson' s org. Application procedures can be collections relevant their research are to found Ihe Filson' web on s site at www. topics and will have the opportunity filsonhistorical.org/fellowships.htm. Information The Filson' to present the results of their research about s research collections be found the online to scholars and the general public ;is can on appropriate. catalog. WINTER 2008 87 In Memoriam: Richard C. Wade Obio As many readers of Valley History For southern historians,Wade's Slavery in the Cities already know,one of the great historians of 1964)stands yet as a seminal work of this region died this past summer. Richard both slavery and southern urban history. In C. Wade' Harvard dissertation became s a it,Wade examined the" peculiar institution" foundational text in urban history upon its in Lexington,Louisville, and St. Louis, as Urban Frontier: well in other cities in the slave states. publication in 1959 as 7be as Wade' Ube Rise of Western Cities,1790-1830. s Ihese books remain in print,and 7be Urban Frontier stands today eighth contributions were so important to the study in its of this region that the Obio Valley History edition, issued by the University of Illinois editorial staff decided to name its biennial Press with an introduction by Zane L. award for best article in his honor. Ihe - first Miller, one ofWade's Chicago students. Richard C. Wade Award will be announced The appearance of this most recent edition in the fall of2009. makes it possible to honor award winners only with cash prize but also with We have named our prize after Richard not a a literary embellishment, of the Illinois C. Wade because of his standing as both a copy Frontier. We think reprint of 7be Urban our a pioneer in and now the dean of regional urban history. American historians, Wade honorees, like three generations ofgeneral readers and college and university students, once observed, arrived at the study of the city will find 7be Urban Frontier as compelling by slow freight,but he did more than any for its graceful for its impressive other scholar to put it on the fast track. He prose as scholarship and dlan. earned his Ph.D. in 1954 at Harvard, where interpretive readers he studied with Arthur Schlesinger,Sr., We thought our might like to read Wade' the editors' after which he taught at several universities, s response to including the Graduate Center of the query concerning naming the award in his honor. His letter undated, but he City University of New York,where he is wrote it Professor Emeritus. At was these various in early 2007. institutions, but especially during his ten- Dear David, year stint at the University of Chicago,Wade Ihanks for your note with the most attracted more students and inspired more flattering news. Of course I endorse the work in urban history than any figure before statement. or since. Ohio His high reputation as an author The launching of Valley History is a chiefly contributions rests on two major signal event in the development of our regional urban history the Ohio to in craft. It opens immense possibilities Urban Frontier Valley. His first book, 7be for our practitioners, professionals,and 1959),explored pioneer life in Pittsburgh, interested citizens alike. Put me down Lexington, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. for a contribution. Louis, and undercut the conventional wisdom Dick by arguing that settlers in these young cities s. Great lead article. It is neatly written, turned them into spearheads of the frontier, p. but I suppose I have lost my fight to have beacons of urbane culture in a raw country, the notes the bottom of the page. and the dynamic factors in regional growth. on It remains perhaps the most important single David Stradling book concerning Ohio Valley history. University of Cincinnati 88 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY EARLY STONE HOUSES RARE WILDFLOWERS OF KENTUCKY OF KENTUCKY Carolyn Murray-Wooley Thomas G. Barnes roots iii northern Ireland who built and 1 photographs by naturalist and award EARLY| STONEHOUSES 01 KENTUCKY ,«.- lived iii them. winning photographer l'homas G. Barnes. 50. 00 cloth 39.95 cloth TAKING THE TOWN Collegiate and Community Culture TALES FROM KENTUCKY in the Bluegrass,1880-1917 DOCTORS Kolan Thomas Morelock William Lynwood Montell Focuses on the interplay between town Heartwarming and sometimes tragic and paint fascinating picture of gown to a accounts that won't be found iiI fbrinal the development of southern cultural life medical history books." from the Gilded Age to Progressive Era.' Kentucky - Monthly Louise L.Stevenson Rare Wildflowers of Kentucky 24.95 cloth 55. 00 cloth THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY at bookstores •800-839-6855 •www.kentuckvoress.com Submission Information for Contributors to ObiO Valley History methodology.The practitioners via their submissions determine what we publish. Authors must guarantee in writing that the work is Four paper copies of a manuscript should be sent by postal mail to: original,I that it has not been previously published, and that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere in Li?lv form. Christopher Phillips, A. Glenn Crothers, or Should a manuscript be accepted for publication, the ·autlior will be Editor Editor asked to provide a computer disk,clearly 1·abeled with the name of the author,file,and saved iii Microsoft Word. We do not have the Obio Valley History Obio Vall:y History capacity to translate alternative Department of Histon Department of Historv programs. RO. Box 210373 Universitv of Louisville Accepted manuscripts undergo a reasonable vet rigorous editing University of Cincinnati Louisville, KY 40292-0001 process. We will read the manuscript vcry closely as to style, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0373 grainmar, and argument. Tlic edited manuscript will be submitted to the author for consideration before publication. 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