Slavery in the Platte Region

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Nebraska Anthropologist Anthropology, Department of 1999 Slavery in the Platte Region H. Jason Combs Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nebanthro Part of the Anthropology Commons Combs, H. Jason, "Slavery in the Platte Region" (1999). Nebraska Anthropologist. 117. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nebanthro/117 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Anthropology, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Nebraska Anthropologist by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Slavery in the Platte Region H. Jason Combs Missouri's bid for statehood reflected the struggle to extend the southern slave culture onto the western frontier of settlement. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise set specific geographic boundaries for the extension of slavery, which in turn created distinctive patterns of migration and settlement on the frontier. The Platte Purchase region of northwest Missouri is one of the areas that reflect slavery's influence on settlement. This paper will discuss slave ownership, the need for slavery, and explain the geographic distribution of slaves in the Platte region. In order to better comprehend the separation of slave and non-slave states slavery issue in the Platte region, a review of came about with the argument over the political compromises that allowed the Missouri's statehood (Moore 1953). institution of slavery to be establish in Missouri needs to be undertaken. Missouri's Missouri's appeal for statehood was bid for statehood reflected the struggle to primarily driven by political and economic extend the southern slave culture onto the concerns. Politically, this decision meant a western frontier of settlement. The disruption in the balance of power between Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the the "slave" states in the South and the "free" Missouri Compromise of 1820 set specific states of the North: "Southern leaders geographic boundaries for the extension of strongly supported the admission of slavery, which in tum created distinctive Missouri as a slave state, while northern patterns of migration and settlement on the political interests opposed it with equal frontier. The Platte Purchase region of vigor, fearing that the slave states would northwest Missouri (Figure 1) is one of the have a majority in Congress" (Wexler 1995). areas that reflect slavery's influence on The main issue surrounding slavery at this settlement. time was not a moral question of right or wrong, but a political concern. Both the Missouri's Statehood North and South wanted to extend their sphere of influence onto the western One of the fundamental causes of frontier; each "political culture" needed to Missouri's statehood controversy was the acquire additional territory to perpetuate desire of each section of the nation to spread their ideals. its own type of civilization over the western country and appropriate its resources for its The Missouri Compromise own use (Moore 1953). One salient objection to the admission of Missouri as a Missouri's bid for statehood, and its slave state was that it lay in the same associated political ramifications, was tied to latitude as Ohio, Indiana, and IIIinois-- a Maine's bid to break away from segment of the West which the North had Massachusetts and form an independent come to regard as its own. The idea of state. Those opposing slavery's restriction demarcating a line in the West for the saw this as an opportunity to ensure that 8 Missouri was admitted as a slave state. In the person claiming his or her labor 1819, a majority of the members of the service as aforesaid" (Moore 1953). House of Representatives came from free states, but after the admission of Alabama This proposition was to make Maine a on December 14, 1819, the Senate's free state, admit Missouri as a slave state, membership was evenly divided between the leave the present-day states of Arkansas and North and South-- eleven free and eleven Oklahoma open to future settlement by slave states. Southern leaders could slaveholders, and prohibit slavery in the additionally count on support from two remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north slaveholding Illinois Senators, Thomas and of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north Edwards, and pro-slavery senators Parrott latitude (Moore 1953). from New Hampshire, Lanman of Connecticut, and Taylor of Indiana. With President Monroe was in favor of the the support of these northern Senators the Missouri Compromise, stating that it was South had a clear majority in the Senate. Missouri's constitutional right to be admitted With this majority, the pro-slavery faction on an equal footing with the older states. announced their intention of blocking Furthermore, President Monroe, along with Maine's admission in the Senate until the many other southerners, felt that confining House of Representatives consented to slavery to a few states would ensure its Missouri's admission as a slave state (Moore perpetuation; whereas, if slavery were to be 1953). diffused throughout several states it would be more easily eliminated (Ammon 1997). The combination of the Maine and It was thought that confining slavery to a Missouri calls for statehood came to be specific geographic area would allow the known as the Missouri Compromise. The pro-slavery faction to remain the dominant amendment to Maine and Missouri's bills for force politically. The extension of slavery statehood was established to prohibit slavery over a large spatial area would relegate the in the unorganized Louisiana Purchase lands advocates of slavery into a minority role north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes politically. Summarizing the Missouri north latitude. The amendment read: Compromise, Horace Greeley wrote "it was, in effect, an offer from the milder opponents "That, in all that territory ceded of slavery restriction to the more moderate by France to the United States, and flexible advocates of that restriction." under the name of Louisiana, which Greeley continued: "Let us have slavery in lies north of thirty-six degrees and Missouri and we will unite with you in thirty minutes north latitude, excluding it from all the uninhabited excepting only such part thereof as territories north and west of that state" is included within the limits of the (Moore 1953). state contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servitude, The political significance of the otherwise than in the punishment of Missouri Compromise, at the time, was crimes whereof the party shall have apparent, involving the balance of power been duly convicted, shall be and is between state and federal governments and hereby forever prohibited: the three-fifths ratio. The amount of Provided, always, that any person representation a state received in the House escaping into the same, from whom of Representatives was, and still today, labor or service is lanfully claimed based on its total population. Each slave in any State or Territory of the counted as three-fifths of a person, therefore, United States, such fugitive may be states with a large slave popUlation lcmfully reclaimed and conveyed to potentially could hold additional seats of representation based on the three-fifths ratio. 9 The northern delegates feared that if slave thirty-six degrees thirty minutes-- the representation were extended into the vast southern boundary of the state of Missouri areas beyond the Mississippi River, the (Wexler 1995) (Figure 2). This controversy eastern states' political influence would be was the first occasion in which all of the drastically reduced. Senator John Sergeant strands in the fabric of North-South of Pennsylvania hyperbolically stated that sectionalism were brought together. The "for every five slaves there are three votes, westward expansion of slavery was an issue and the time may come when the voice of upon which a united North could stand the slaves, in the councils of the nation will against a united South. Moore (1953) calls be louder than that of the freeman" (Moore the Missouri Compromise the "title page to a 1953). Senator Jonathan Roberts, also of great tragic volume." Pennsylvania, added: "The further expansion of slavery would inure to the Moore (1953) acknowledges that the benefit of the slaveholding interest, shifting Missouri Compromise of 1820 was probably the balance of power in the favor of the the most satisfactory solution to a difficult slaveholding states" (Moore 1953). For the problem that was possible at this time and first time southerners defended slave'rights under those circumstances. It set definite in Congress. Arguing the value of slaves as legal boundaries for the extension of a productive part of the South's direct taxes slavery, while at the same time placed a paid to the federal government; slave reasonable amount of territory at the representation, southerners contended, was disposal of the slaveholding portion of the needed. population. Southern states feared the capability The Missouri Compromise of 1820 of the federal government to enact such had a powerful affect on migration and sweeping legislation. Dixon (1899) states: settlement. The slaveholding Kentucky Virginia population extended their domain "If Congress could by a mere north to the Iowa border and west to the line act deprive the citizens of Missouri of Kansas, creating the most pronounced of their property without any cultural divide in the Middle West (Hudson compensation, notwithstanding this 1988). Many incoming immigrants did property was guaranteed to them by indeed see Missouri as a "promised-land" both the Constitution and treaty, for slavery (Moore 1953). what could hinder this or another Congress from applying the same The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and power to other states?" the Missouri Compromise of 1820 excluded a significant portion of the settlement The southern states saw this as a frontier from slavery.

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