USA > Indiana > Pioneer history of Indiana : including stories, incidents, and customs of the early settlers > Part 12
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(SEAL.)
JOSEPH BARTON.
"I, Thomas Turner, do hereby accept the eman- cipation papers for which I sincerely thank my for- mer master and do cheerfully agree to indenture my- self to the said Joseph Barton as per the above agree- meni.
July 27, 1813.
THOMAS TURNER. X My own mark.
On the 30th day of August this generous hearted Joseph Barton sold this negro to a person for five hundred and thir- ty-five dollars who smuggled him across the Ohio river where he was sold into slavery in the south.
- "I, George Endicutt, have decided to emancipate
my slave. Job Boyce, and I hereby certify that I this day give him his freedom and it affords me the
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greatest pleasure to bear witness that he has always been an obedient, faithful and honest servant. By an agreement of the said Job Boyce he agrees to in- denture himself to me for twenty-three years, or until he is sixty years old. GEORGE ENDICUTT.
(SEAL) August 30th, 1813.
"I, Job Boyce, of, my own free will do hereby ac- cept my freedom papers from my former master, George Endicutt, and have agreed to indenture my- self to him for the time specified in the agreement, August 20, 1813.
JOB BOYCE, X My own mark.
(SEAL) Witness, JAMES BOSWELL."
"September 26th, 1813. I, Noah Freeman, of Indiana Territory, on this date, do hereby emanci- pate my slave, Mary Ann, to enjoy all the rights of freedom that a negro and an uneducated woman can. It affords me great satisfaction to testify that she has been a most faithful and obedient servant. This paper and her freedom to be in force and effect after the 26th day of September, 1833. Until that time she has indentured her service to me and my family. NOAH FREEMAN.
"I, Mary Ann, the former slave of my master, Noah Freeman, accept my emancipation papers and do agree to faithfully work for my former master and mistress until the 20th day of Soptember, one thousand, eight hundred and thirty-three.
MARY ANN. X My mark.
(SEAL)
Witness, JASON BROWN."
"This is to certify that I, James Hartwell, of my own free will and accord, do this day emancipate and give freedom to a negro slave. named Charles Hope, brought by me from North Carolina. In mak- ing these papers I want to bear testimony to the painstaking and careful way he has done his work, and that he is a quiet and most obedient servant and has always been very easily managed. For these good qualities it affords me great pleasure to be able to give him his rightly earned freedom. For some necessary expenses that has to be incurred before he
-
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can leave the home he has so long lived at and for the love he has for me and my family, he hereby agrees to indenture his services to me for twenty- nine years from the 18th of October, 1809, which is the date of this agreement. JAMES HARTWELL.
(SEAL)
"I, Charles Hope, do hereby acknowledge my thankfulness to my master for the kindness he has shown in setting me free and I cheerfully accept the conditions in my freedom papers and agree to serve the time specified, or until death.
CHARLES HOPE. X His mark."
Note the meanness of this hyprocrite who made the great show of giving this negro pretended freedom with such a good certificate of character, which would make the negro more saleable when he had an opportunity to sell him; and on the fifteenth day of the next November he did sell him to a neigh- bor for four head of horses, ten head of cattle and one hund- red acres of military donation land and a promissory note for three hundred dollars. The next year this negro went with his master down the Wabash river on a pretended trip to the saline country of Illinois, but was carried farther south and was sold into slavery for life.
In 1805 the Kukendal family, by their agent, Samuel Vannorsdell, had two negroes arrested and were attempting to carry them out of the territory when Governor Harrison issued a proclamation forbidding their removal, as Vannors- dell did not have the consent of the negroes to remove them. This brought on a spirited law-suit, Governor Harrison and others becoming bondsmen for the negroes. The case went over to the next term of court. At that term the two negroes were produced in court but in the meantime Governor Harri- son had indentured one of them for a period of eleven years.
In 1854 the author was visiting a family in an old set- tled portion of southern Indiana. During that visit it be- came known to a young lady of that fanily that he was gathering data of incidents concerning the early settlers and of anything that would be of interest about "Ye Olden
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Tymes." This young lady informed him that they had the emancipation and indenture papers of "Old Tome," who was their slave and friend, which papers she thought would be of real worth to one gathering such data. She said she would show the papers and he might copy them provided he would not use their names. This was readily agreed to.
"May 26, 1815.
"To All Whom it May Concern:
This is to certify that this day I have set free and by these presents do give emancipation papers to my faithful servant Thomas Agnew, and from this date he shall be known as a free man. Given under my hand and seal. THOMAS TRUMAN.
(SEAL) Witness, JOSEPH FORTH.
"This is to certify that I have this day received my emancipation papers from my former master. As I don't know any other home but the one I have al- ways lived at, I do hereby indenture myself to my mas- ter, John Trueman, for thirty years from this date, he agreeing to feed and clothe me during that time. THOMAS AGNEW. X His mark.
May 26th, 1815.
After the papers were copied this intelligent young lady related this interesting story of Tom's life:
"Just before the state of Indiana was admitted into the Union my father moved here from a slave state and brought with him, Tom. whom he had owned from his infancy. He had no thought that there would be any trouble about it as Tom was a fixture in the family. A friend one day told my father that parties were preparing to bring habeas corpus proceedings and emancipate Tom. The only thing my father could do was to emancipate him and have him indenture his time after he was a freeman. This was done as shown above and Tom went on faithfully with his work as before. This was nearly twenty years before I was born.
"The good old faithful slave worked on the farm with my father for nearly twenty-seven years after the indenture was made, when my father sickened and died. Tom then kept on working with my brother the same as before.
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"On settling up the estate, it was found that my father was more in debt than had been supposed and there would be but little left.
"A cousin of my father who lived in a slave state where he had moved from, held a mortgage on our farm. This cousin was a 'Shylock' and demanded the last cent which would take everything, farm and all at a forced sale. He, however, made this proposition to my mother: that if Tom would go home with him and work for him as long as he lived, he would release the mortgage. This, my mother would not consent to as Tom had less than two years of his indenture term to put in and he was so faithful to the family that she would not listen to such a transaction.
"Tom had learned the condition of things as nothing was kept from him and he had planned with this cousin to give his life service for the family's comfort. He would not consent to anything but that he must go to save the farm and the family from want. The agreement was made, the mortgage was cancelled and Tom went to the home of his new master, now a slave in fact.
"Some time after this an uncle of my mother died and left her several thousand dollars. This made us independent and my mother's first thoughts were of Tom. She went to hunt for him and found him faithfully working away. She went to his master, told him that she wanted to take Tom back with her and that she was prepared to pay him in full for his mortgage, interest and trouble. This he refused, say- ing that Tom was priceless and that no money could buy him. She tried in every way to have him agree to let Tom go with her but he was obdurate. Tom told her not to mind him, that there would be but a few more years for him to serve as age was creeping on and he would soon be in another country where no trouble could come.
"My mother was a nervy woman and she determined to liberate Tom if it could be done. She was advised to go to Evansville and see a lawyer by the name of Conrad Baker. My mother explained to Mr. Baker Tom's situation and gave him a statement of the evidence that could be obtained. She
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also gave him the emancipation and indenture papers. Mr. Baker told her there was no doubt about Tom being legally free and if he could be gotten into a free state there would be no further need of legal proceedings. It was found that this could not be done so proceedings were brought in the county where Tom was held in slavery, to liberate him. The facts with affidavits to back them up were filed with the case. The court, after hearing all the evidence, decided that since Tom had been given emancipation papers which made him free and since he had indentured himself for thirty years and had put in over time on that agreement, he was now free.
"Tom came back to Indiana with my mother and lived with our family during the rest of his life and when he died we gave him a royal funeral, feeling that we had lost our best friend and one of nature's noblemen."
After Colonel Baker was elected governor of Indiana, the author wrote him about this case and sent him a copy of the emancipation and indenture papers with a pretty full history of the case. His reply is here given in full:
EXECUTIVE OFFICE.
Indianapolis, Ind., Sept. 20, 1870.
COLONEL W. M. COCKRUM,
Oakland City, Indiana.
I am in receipt of your letter together with the enclosure of the 15th inst. It affords me great pleas- ure to say that no case in my whole practice as a lawyer was so gratifying to me as the liberation from bondage of that true-hearted old Nubian, Tom Ag- new.
I well recollect the lady, Mrs. Trueman, who was my client in the case. She was so well pleased with the good deed she had been instrumental in bringing about that she wanted to pay me three or four times my rightful fee.
Allow me, my dear Colonel, to congratulate you on the loving task that you have assigned yourself of perpetuating the history of the Pioneer and the thrill- ing events that occurred during that early period. There will never be another time in this country's history when such noble, self-sacrificing men and
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women will live as those who cleared the way for the great civilization that will come to our state. . Very Truly,
CONRAD BAKER."
The author has access to much more data of indentures made by those having negroes in control at an early day in Indiana. That which has already been given is evidence to the readers of the way the pro-slavery people of Indiana in- tended to perpetuate slavery and that the head of the terri- torial government was in sympathy with the slavery parti- sans. When the coustitution for our state was being framed in 1816 the slavery clause was defeated by only two votes.
CHAPTER VII.
SETTLEMENT OF SOUTHERN INDIANA-THE CRUELTY OF THE FRENCH.
During all the time from 1790 except the last part of the year 1794 and 1795 up to several years after the formation of Indiana Territory in 1800, the country now known as south- ern Indiana was completely at the mercy of the Indians, ex- cept a mile or so outside the fort of Vincennes, not much be- yond the range of the guns of the few regulars stationed at that post. The great victory won by General Wayne over the Indians in 1794 on the waters of the Maumee had a very pacific effect on all the Indians of the Northwest Territory for a year or so, as nearly every section of that vast country had bands of young hunters in that battle; but there were bands of roving Indians who were always watching for the white people coming to settle in this part of the country. The Indians were on or near the lines leading from their towns on White river to the Ohio river most of the time in spring, summer and fall months.
It is frequently asked why all southern Indiana was so completely under the control of the savage bands of Indians at the close of the eighteenth century when there had been a post at Vincennes for sixty-five years and a fort with French regular's was there as early as 1702. It seems that the French people at that time who were as jealous of the settlement of the country by other people than their own, as were the In- dians and that they were either trappers or buyers of furs and did not want this country settled as it would do away with their vocation.
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There was no part of Indiana that was not owned by the Indians until 1803 except the strip ceded at Greenville in 1795 when General Wayne held a treaty with many tribes of Indians. The land ceded by that treaty commenced at Ft. Recovery on the west line of what afterward became the state of Ohio running thence in a southerly direction to the Ohio river opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river. This line was made thinking that the Ohio state line would come to that point instead of the mouth of the Miami river. The treaty made in 1803 was a part of the Vincennes tract includ- ing quite a section of territory in the Illinois country, west of the Wabash river.
The territory obtained by the treaty of 1804 commenced on the Wabash river at the south line of the Vincennes tract, running thence down that river to its mouth, thence up the Ohio river to Louisville; west from that point until that line intersected the line of the Vincennes tract, thence around that line on the south side to the place of starting. This last treatv gave to the United States all of southwestern Indiana and at once settlers commenced to come into that territory. Before that period they had been warned to keep off the In- dians' land both by the Indians and the commanders govern- ing the Northwest and Indiana Territories. Many persons who had started from Virginia, Tennessee and the Carolinas, intending to settle in the Northwest. Territory, had stopped in Kentucky all along the southern bank of the Ohio near the river and were only wating for an opportunity, when the United States had possession of the property to emigrate into that country. During the years 1805 and 1806 there was a large emigration settled in many parts of southern Indiana.
The French were as relentless in their cruelty to the peo- ple of the colonies before they were defeated by the colonial and British troops as were the Indians. It is true that when General George Rogers Clark captured Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes in 1779 the French in these places were the Americans' friends but the reason for this was that the French had been badly beaten by the colonial and English troops while the colonies were controlled by the English, los-
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ing their princely possession, Canada, and the Northwest Territory and they were ready to befriend and help anyone who was against the British.
The former history of the French when they were the rul- ing power in all the country west of the Allegheny mountains and north of the Ohio river was full of bloody massacres in connection with their Indian allies, in some cases the French being more brutal and cruel in their treatment of the helpless people on the border settlements who fell into their hands than the Indians.
In the massacre at Fort William Henry in 1757. by the French and their Indian allies, under Montcalm, the French outnumbered the Indians five to one. The Indians indiscrim- inately murdered the men and carried the women and children into captivity, not one of them ever returning to their homes.
When Captain Beaujeau at Fort Duquesne with four hun- dred Indians and thirty Canadians won a complete victory over Braddock, these savages with their tomahawks killed the wounded and scalped them without protest. When they returned to the fort at night they were all loaded down with plunder and scalps and had fifteen prisoners with them who they stripped of their clothing and burned to death on the parade ground of the fort where their brutality was wit- nessed by one thousand regular French soldiers without a protest by any Frenchman. (Narrated by Colonel John Smith who was a prisoner at the fort at that time.)
Again the French and Indians went from Montreal, Can- ada, in the depths of winter to Schenectady, New York, cap- tured the town, killing all the men and carrying the women into captivity to a fate worse than death. This was very early in our country's history and is reproduced here to show that the savage acts of the French were not confined to a later period when the English had given them provocation.
Lafayette was a brave, generous Frenchman who, of his own volition, espoused the cause of the United States against Great Britain. He was actuated by no hope of reward except the glory that would accrue to him if successful and though a very young man he had foreknowledge that was valuable
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to him. This country gave him princely presents and loaded him with all the honors due to his heroic actions.
The alliance with France during our war for independ- ence was brought about by our commissioners, mostly through the influence that Dr. Franklin had with the men of letters: in France and through his great influence with the good- natured king, Louis XVI. To the United States it was a great blessing in time of need and to France it was a great blessing to transfer her maritime war with England into the waters of her ally. The loans negotiated by Colonel John Laurans. and others were all paid with a good premium and no doubt the French people expected that the United States would stand by her in any quarrel she might have with other na- tions. In 1793 when she was at war with Spain, M. Genet, the French minister to this country, tried to enlist men in Kentucky and elsewhere to capture Louisiana and after he had been recalled and Mr. Fauchit was sent as minister the French tried to involve us in her many wars with European nations and when she found that she could not do that, cap- tured and confiscated some of our best merchant vessels. When our commissioners attempted to adjust the matter, France demanded tribute money for some trumped up claim and only released our ships when Commodore Truxton had captured two of her best war vessels.
The United States owes nothing to England or France for when either of them had a chance with their Indian allies in front, they committed deeds of cruelty that will ever blacken the pages of history.
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CHAPTER VIII.
THE PIONEER-CHARACTER-HARDSHIPS-ROUTES FOLLOW- ED -SETTLEMENTS- FOOD -EDUCATION - CUSTOMS - THRILLING AND AMUSING INCIDENTS-WEDDINGS-WORK -DRESS-CRUDE MANUFACTURES.
The close of the Revolutionary War in 1783 was an epoch in this country's onward march to the great destiny laid out for it by the Maker and Ruler of the Universe. The old he- roic soldiers came out of that protracted struggle, buoyant and hopeful. exultingly proud of the achievements that they had been instrumental in bringing about. They were rich in deeds of valor and patriotism but very poor in stores of wealth. The country for seven long years had been over-run by con- tending armies almost from end to end and had been devas- tated by fire and sword of a ruthless and cruel enemy. Neither age nor sect was exempt from their merciless brutal- ity. The gloating and boasting English were cruel and their two allies, the detested Tories and the barbarous, savage In- dians, committed every atrocious act of cruelty that a brutal foe could invent. In many cases the families, homes, towns. and neighborhoods were broken up, the property destroyed and the people murdered or scattered to the four winds.
When the excitement attending the momentous events had, in a measure, subsided, there were hundreds of the old heroes who had fought with Washington, Lafayette, Putnam, Green, Sumpter, Servier and Marion who found themselves. without any property or occupation and no prospect of better- ing their conditions. There was no money but the worthless
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continental script. The gold and silver had all been sent to France and Spain for arms and munitions of war. Many of these old heroes were maimed by wounds, still more of them broken down by diseases that came to them by the severe trials and privations of the long struggle for liberty.
Most of the above two classes were unable to do anything and could but remain in the section of their former homes; but the strong and hardy veterans, by hundreds determined to better their condition if possible. The fame of Daniel Boone was known to them and glowing descriptions of the rich country west of the mountains on both sides of the Ohio river were told them by hunters and trappers and by the re- turning soldiers who had been in the campaign of General George Rogers Clark when he saved, to the then enfeebled American republic, the princely heritage of the Northwest Territory.
There was a great uprising of the people on the borders of the colonies nearest the much-talked-of country west of the mountains, preparing to emigrate to new homes. They started in every conceivable manner; some on horseback; others in two-wheeled carts and still others in wooden-wheeled wagons drawn by oxen, probably one-half of them with their rifles and axes, a small bundle of clothing and with their young wives, on foot. These emigrants settled and made their homes in Tennessee and Kentucky, many of them around the Ohio Falls and up the Ohio from there.
The Indians were at war with any who attempted to in- vade what they termed their country which meant all the region west of the Alleghany Mountains. From the time of Daniel Boone's first advent into the wilds of Kentucky in 1769 the Indians waged a relentless war to drive him and his fol- lowers back from their favorite hunting grounds. During the next fifteen years many of these adventurers were killed but the Indians suffered as well.
About 1785 the old heroes of the Revolution commenced to arrive in large numbers and made extensive settlements in many sections of the country south of the Ohio and north of the Tennessee rivers. The Indians became still more deter-
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mined to stop this advance and during the next twenty years many of the old pioneers were killed, but the Indians suffered more and finally were driven north of the Ohio river. After that raiding bands of Indians occasionally crossed the Ohio and murdered people in the outlying settlements of Kentucky. The whites would organize counter raids and invade the wil- derness of the Northwest Territory and punish the Indians, at times killing large numbers of them and destroying their towns and cornfields.
As the Kentuckians settled up near the south bank of the Ohio river, the Indians moved back farther north, the White river becoming the southern line of their principal settle- ments, leaving a territory from thirty to forty miles between the Indians and the whites from the Wabash on the west to the Miami on the east. There were a few small scattering Indian towns in the wilderness between the two main lines. The men who had fought at King's Mountain and all over the thirteen colonies to wrest this country from the tyrannical yoke of England were not made out of the sort of material that would tamely sit down and let a race of half-naked In- dians say that they might come thus far and no farther. Boldly they crossed the Ohio or floated down its waters in boats to locate in the fertile wilderness of Indiana.
The pioneers met with a determined opposition from the dusky denizens of the forest in their attempts to locate in new homes. This was about one or two years before Harri- son had succeeded in making treaties with the Indians where- by he secured all southern Indiana as far as Louisville and many of these emigrants were killed and others had to re- cross the river. Those that remained were besieged almost every day by the Indians that were lying in ambush, watch- ing for an opportunity to shoot the trespassers as they con- sidered the emigrants. They had to build strong forts in every section where they attempted to form settlements and were compelled most of the time to remain within the walls of these stockades that surrounded the blockhouses, "all the time keeping a lookout for their sly enemy. In many cases they suffered for the want of food, not daring to go into the
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forest for game when there was such an abundance on every hand. In some sections the only respite the people had from their forced imprisonment was when cold weather came in early winter. The Indians dreaded the cold and the snow and during such seasons they were mostly in their towns and in their wigwams.
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