Date

3-22-2024

Department

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)

Chair

Thomas Adams Upchurch

Keywords

Antislavery, white supremacists, Indiana, African American, Black History, slavery, indentured servitude, old Northwest, Indiana Territory

Disciplines

History | Political Science

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that Indiana was always predominantly antislavery because it had begun as a territory of the United States under the Northwest Territory Act of 1787, which prohibited slavery; however, this is incorrect. This northern state had about as much proslavery sentiment as most states in the South. The state wrestled with the issue in the legislative session after the legislative session and court case after court case for decades during the antebellum period. Prominent settlers and state organizers petitioned Congress to allow the Indiana Territory to become a slave region. After statehood, proslavery forces continued to push for Indiana to become a slave state, stopped only by the antislavery white supremacist faction. The study of the antislavery white supremacist faction is an overlooked and insufficiently discussed part of American historiography despite having been widespread and instrumental throughout the United States, especially in the old Northwest. Antislavery white supremacists were a political group that opposed slavery on moral or religious grounds but still pursued the separation of the races and resisted legal equality. This dissertation focuses on one of the white supremacists’ major strongholds, Indiana, to show that their opposition to slavery stemmed from a desire to have the region be entirely white, defeating the proslavery element early in Indiana’s history and the antislavery equality element that emerged in the 1830s, avoiding racially neutral laws until the federal government forced change after the Civil War. Examining constitutional racism in Indiana, including the territory before statehood and efforts to change these laws, affords a basis for understanding race relations within the state. Slavery sentiments were mixed throughout Indiana, and there was a divide between the state founders. Even though both sides were white supremacists, one side supported slavery and the other supported exclusion.

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