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The Fugitive Slave Case of John Freeman and Its Influence on Indiana Politics

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The Fugitive Slave Case of John Freeman and Its Influence on Indiana Politics The Fugitive Slave Case of John Freeman and its Influence on Indiana Politics CHRIS WALKER ABSTRACT: In June 1853, Indianapolis resident John Freeman was arrested at the behest of a Missouri slaveholder under the terms of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Freeman enjoyed the support of many of his white neighbors as well as excellent legal representation, but was forced to remain in jail while his lawyers sought proof of his free status as well as the true identity of the fugitive slave in question. Although Freeman was finally legally identified and released, the case brought home to many Northerners how easily free black citizens could be arrested and borne away by claimants and how complicit Northern law enforcement could become in aiding Southern slaveholders. The case also influenced the formation of the abolitionist People’s Party in 1854. KEYWORDS: Fugitive slave laws, People’s Party, Indianapolis hortly after the election of Democrat Franklin Pierce as president in S1852, an Indianapolis fugitive slave case awakened Hoosiers to the dangers and injustices of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The arrest, incar- ceration, and subsequent trial of John Freeman, a well-respected free black Indianapolis resident, revealed how easily slave hunters could capture and send free black men, women, and children into bondage under the 1850 Chris Walker, Ph.D., is a graduate of Purdue University and an assistant professor of history, Indiana Wesleyan University. He specializes in the antebellum and Civil War periods of American history. The author would like to thank Dawn Bakken, Ph.D., associate editor of the Indiana Magazine of History, for her assistance. INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, 114 ( March 2018). © 2018, Trustees of Indiana University. doi: 10.2979/indimagahist.114.1.01 2 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY law. The case also showed how frequently Northern state and federal officials, as required by law, zealously assisted slave-catchers in the per- formance of their duties. Despite the law’s disadvantages placed on the accused, Freeman escaped bondage with the help of antislavery friends and honest and sympathetic Southern whites. The Freeman case received national publicity, and proved to be of immense propagandistic value to abolitionists, who fervently sought to discredit the fugitive slave law and energize the Free Soil movement in Indiana. The incident revived anti- slavery sentiment in the state and contributed to the formation of a new political party committed to the non-extension of slavery. As a result of the American victory in the Mexican-American War, which ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, the United States acquired a vast territory from Mexico. The acquisition of the Mexican Cession brought the long-standing sectional debate over slavery to a fever pitch, as Americans wrestled with the issue of slavery extension into the newly acquired territories. In response, Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, a series of bills intended to permanently resolve sectional differences. The Compromise package included a stron- ger fugitive slave bill, demanded by Southern slaveholders, but highly objectionable to many Northerners. President Millard Fillmore signed the controversial bill into law on September 18, 1850, and its enforcement proved to be a source of great agitation between the free and slave states in the decade leading up to the Civil War. During the antebellum period, Northern personal liberty laws and increasing antislavery sentiment had made it more difficult for Southern masters to reclaim fugitives. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was designed to more effectively and efficiently secure the right of slave owners to reclaim fugitives across state lines or territorial boundaries—a right guaranteed in Article Four, Section Two, of the Constitution, as well as in the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act. The 1850 act gave United States commissioners the responsibility of executing the provisions of the law, and their jurisdiction was concurrent with district and circuit judges. Commissioners were given the authority to grant certificates for the return of absconding slaves, and if necessary, appoint special officers and call out the posse comitatus to execute the law. The owner or his agent was authorized to pursue and reclaim his fugitive by procuring a warrant from a judge or commissioner, or by seizing and taking the fugitive before such judge or commissioner, who, having ascertained the identity of the alleged fugitive, would then grant a certificate authorizing the owner or his agent to take the fugitive JOHN FREEMAN AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 3 Calvin Fletcher’s diary entry for June 12, 1853. News of Freeman’s arrest spread quickly through Indianapolis, and Fletcher, an influential local citizen, recorded the events in his diary. Courtesy, Indiana Historical Society back to the state or territory from where he came. This proceeding was to be conducted in a summary manner, without a jury trial. The alleged fugitive was not allowed to testify or offer evidence in his own defense. Interference in the removal of a fugitive by any judge, magistrate, or court, as well as any other persons, was prohibited. Any person who obstructed the arrest of a fugitive, or attempted to rescue, aid, harbor or conceal a fugitive, knowing him to be such, would be liable to a fine of up to $1,000 and imprisonment for up to six months. United States marshals or deputy marshals who refused to act under the law were liable to a fine of up to $1,000, to be granted to the claimant; should a fugitive escape from his custody, the marshal was liable for the full value of the fugitive. Finally, the law allowed ten dollars to the commissioner when the fugitive was delivered to the claimant, but only five dollars in cases where he was 4 INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY set free. The stated reason given for the difference in payment was that the paperwork required for remanding the fugitive was greater than that required for freeing him. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, then, established court-appointed United States commissioners to enforce the law, created a summary legal process that would make it much easier for owners to transport fugitives back to the state or territory from where they had escaped, and finally stiffened the penalties (over the 1793 act) for any interference in the rendition process.1 Northern abolitionists and antislavery men and women vehemently opposed the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. They claimed that since alleged fugitives were not allowed a jury trial, the law was essentially a license for kidnapping. The law made no allowance for legal representation, nor the gathering of evidence in support of an accused fugitive’s claim of freedom. Southern slave owners demanded a summary hearing held only to verify the fugitive’s identity. They did not trust Northern juries, and they feared that court costs might exceed the slave’s value, resulting in financial loss. Northerners were particularly angry over the provision of the law autho- rizing marshals to require citizens’ assistance (the posse comitatus) in the apprehension of runaways. Even many of those who accepted the law as a necessity for preserving sectional peace had no intention of being complicit in its execution. Finally, antislavery Northerners claimed that the higher fee offered commissioners for remanding the fugitive amounted to a bribe and offered a financial incentive to side with the slave owner. After the initial angry protests of many Northerners, however, the majority of Americans accepted the law’s necessity as a condition for pre- serving the Union. This was especially true in Indiana, which had strong cultural and commercial ties to the South. Indiana’s general hostility to blacks was epitomized in its 1851 Constitution, which prohibited the immigration of African Americans into the state in the “Negro Exclusion Act,” a provision submitted separately to the people and overwhelmingly supported. The delegates to the constitutional convention also passed a resolution endorsing the Compromise of 1850 measures, including the Fugitive Slave Act. Indiana’s abolitionist congressman George W. Julian perhaps overstated his case when he described the state as “an outlying province of the empire of slavery,” but the antislavery movement in Indiana 1 David R. Potter, The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War, 1848–1861 (New York, 1976), 131; Michael F. Holt, The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War (New York, 2004), 86. JOHN FREEMAN AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 5 did develop slowly, lagging significantly behind that of other states in the antebellum period. 2 John Freeman’s fugitive case is so significant because it gave impetus to the state’s antislavery movement at a time when most Hoosiers stood solidly behind the Compromise of 1850, and opposed any agitation over the issue of slavery. John Freeman was born about 1815 in Virginia. Born into slavery, he was emancipated by Langley Jennings, his master, in 1831. Shortly afterwards, he left Brunswick County, Virginia, and settled in Monroe, Walton County, Georgia, under the guardianship of Creed M. Jennings, Langley Jennings’s son. He came to Indianapolis from Monroe in 1844 and shortly thereafter married Letitia, a house servant of the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. Beecher was then pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, and would later earn notoriety during his pastorate at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York, as an impassioned opponent of slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law. The Freemans lived in a small cabin on North Meridian Street in the heart of fledgling Indianapolis.3 Freeman was the wealthiest black man in Indianapolis; he and his family, which included three children, were described as “honest, industrious, clean, good tempered and much respected.”4 Indiana census records and Indianapolis directories describe John Freeman as a laborer, painter, restaurateur, and owner of an oyster saloon.
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