Dawn of Detroit

by Tiya Miles

  In American Detroit governed by the Northwest Ordinance, long-standing resident slave-owners like the Campaus and the Abbotts had in their favor a more functional judicial system to which they appealed for intervention in controlling their human property. Now masters could use territorial courts to enlist police power in the correction and apprehension of unruly or runaway slaves. But at the same time, the Ordinance limited how enslaved people could be held and transferred in Detroit. Solomon Sibley’s handwritten notes on the Jones v. Abbott case, which he argued in court, open with the lines: “1 point—By the common law a negro is no[t] a slave or the subject of property. . . . The Statutes and laws of this Country, do not recognize slavery—But on the contrary expressly negative such a state in society—Vide the ordinance of Congress passed 1787. Article 6.” Based on this reasoning, Sibley contended that Abbott was unable to “establish his right in this property,” meaning Mary, and therefore the contract was null and void.21 While Sibley’s sense of clarity in interpreting the Ordinance was not shared by everyone, his trial notes hint at the raincloud the Ordinance represented over the heads of slaveholders, whose only umbrella was the Jay Treaty.22

  Enslaved people in Detroit also proved aware of the import and potential of Article 6, and they were learning to effectively use the courts just as slave-owners had. The case of the Smith family, though sketchily preserved, provides a glimpse into the first documented use of legal strategy by African Americans seeking freedom in Detroit. Antoine and Anna Smith, an African American couple with children, leveraged the law to put an end to their harrowing experience of varied forms of captivity dating back decades. The Smiths were attendees at Ste. Anne’s Catholic Church, where a priest recorded fragments of their story. Father Gabriel Richard described the pair as “free negroes ransomed in the past few years from the said Indians who had made them prisoners in their youth.” Antoine and Anna had been captured by Native people, probably during the Revolutionary War. They were freed from captivity at Fort Wayne in Indiana and “taken to be husband and wife.” For reasons left out by the priest, the couple came to Detroit where they seemed to have a brighter future ahead. In 1803, Anna gave birth to a baby girl, Therése, who was baptized at Ste. Anne’s. But by 1805, the Smiths were in dire straits yet again. Anna and the children had been snatched by a local slaveholder, or perhaps sold to him in violation of the Northwest Ordinance. In response, “Anthony Smith, a black man,” hired a lawyer to contact the offender who “h[e] ld them as slaves.” A.J. Hull, attorney for the plaintiff, wrote to the Frenchman Jacques Laselle that Smith demanded the “release” of “his wife and children, from slavery.” Hull’s letter continued with the lightly veiled threat: “As you must be sensible as well as myself, that slavery is prohibited, by the ordinance which forms this territory, you cannot hold them as such. By giving his wife and children to him now, you will save yourself much trouble and expense. If you refuse I shall immediately commence my suits, which will be expensive to you, and will surely recover them in August.”23

  Lasalle’s reaction to this letter demanding the release of the Smith family does not survive. He probably relented, given the absence of further court documents in the case and the blatant machinations of other local slaveholders to appear as though they were complying with the Ordinance. The Smith family’s legal strategy won the day, but their anguish lasted months. Anna and the children were in the hands of Lasalle at least as early as June 5, 1805, when Hull wrote his letter. Hull did not expect to recover them until August. Antoine, a husband and father, must have agonized each passing hour about the suffering of his loved ones during that extended wait.24 Following their ordeal, the family returned to the multiracial community of Ste. Anne’s Church, where a handful of other blacks also worshipped. In 1816 church records show that Anne Smith, “a free negress,” gave birth to another daughter named Angelique.25

  British captain Alexander Harrow, who had already lost a man named Sampson to an escape in the 1790s, encountered difficulties for the second time when Robert Taylor, a black man, absconded from him in June of 1802. Harrow had a warrant issued for Taylor’s arrest. But by the next month, an exasperated Harrow was offering Robert Taylor a contract of indenture, in which he attested: “I Alexander Harrow of River St Clair of Wayne & Territory North-West of the Ohio, being willing and desirous that Robert Taylor, a negro man of about Thirty years of age, and a slave servant of mine for life . . . should at a future day & within a reasonable time, obtain, possess & enjoy, full and entire freedom.” The term of indenture was set at four years, during which time Taylor was to “well and faithfully, work, labour and serve” Harrow and “at all times during said Term, behave himself, honestly, uprightly and faithfully.” If Taylor failed to meet these conditions, his status would revert back to slave for life. If he complied, he would receive at the end of four years “A suit of cloaths adapted to his Station in Life,” courtesy of his former master.26 Harrow, who was losing valuable property to escape, thought it wise to offer a promise of future freedom in exchange for the loyal service of his African American bondsman. Against his preference to simply hold humans as chattel outright, Harrow had been compelled to negotiate with Robert Taylor in a new legal environment that limited slavery.

  Captain Alexander Harrow slowly grasped the reality that it had become harder to keep slaves in Detroit, a town where New Englanders were gaining more influence. As enslaved people grew aware of the opening that the Northwest Ordinance created and the changing demographics on the ground, they ran more frequently and refused to return unless they could negotiate better circumstances. Harrow therefore resorted to the practice of indentured servitude, which other slaveholders in Detroit adopted as a method of holding de facto slaves at the same moment. Correspondence regarding John Reed, a black runaway from Kentucky, points to indenture as a tactic used by Detroiters, like others in the Northwest, to take advantage of the language in Article 6 of the Ordinance, which did not prohibit voluntary servitude. After being advertised as a runaway by his master, Reed was “taken up and confined” by Detroit slaveholder James May, now a U.S. marshal, “in the Common Prison of said County of Wayne.” Daniel Ransom, an agent of Reed’s owner, owed May $200, a price that included the reward money for Reed’s capture and the cost of his incarceration. The agent, Ransom, worried about whether the enslaved man could be kept captive in Detroit and therefore included a contingency in the contract for Reed’s return. Ransom would not pay May, the contract stated, “should the negro escape.”27

  Reed’s plot thickened. Deputy Attorney General Solomon Sibley wrote to John Reed’s former owner, Colonel Grant of Licking, Kentucky, detailing the situation and commenting that the bounty hunter, Ransom, wanted to purchase John Reed for himself. This, however, would be difficult in Detroit, as new slaves were not supposed to be bought and sold in the territory. It would likewise be tricky in Canada, where the importation of slaves had been prohibited since 1793. Sibley explained to the Kentucky colonel: “The Negro if he purchase cannot by him be held as a slave on either side. Mr Ransom’s only method will be to get the fellow to endent [sic] himself for a term of years. It will rest with you to determine whether it is not better for you to sell him for a much reduced price to what he would command in Kentucky rather than risk taking him thither thro’ the Indian Country.” Sibley’s frank assessment confirmed a further complication in this case: there was a great chance of losing Reed altogether if Colonel Grant sought to transport the bondsman southward. In order to reach Kentucky, Reed would have to be brought through Indian territory, and Reed was “an arch lad” who had “acquired a knowledge of the Indian language.”28 Since Reed could not be sold in Detroit and was a flight risk due to his linguistic skills and Detroit’s location in Indian country, Sibley suggested that Reed be pressured into indenture while he languished in jail awaiting an uncertain fate.

  Under the Northwest Ordinance and American authority in Detroit, enslaved people had attained a status ambiguous enough that slave-owners now
had to think twice about how to transport, retain, and claim them. In addition, the formation of a newly defined international border along the Detroit River highlighted pathways for escape that made calculated risk-taking more possible for bondspeople. Enslaved men and women could run south to Ohio, they could go east and cross the river into Canada, and they could hide out in adjacent indigenous territories that lay between the town of Detroit and both of these routes. Tensions between the U.S. and British governments, as well as between various Native groups and the Americans, meant that enslaved people had now gained an advantage that indigenous tribes had long employed in the region: playing imperial powers off of one another.29 Slaveholders, wary of both Indian hostilities and the unknown wilds of lake-country nature, were hesitant to track enslaved people into the swamps and Native villages surrounding Detroit. And back inside the wooden pickets of the town, a novel legal environment was leading would-be slaveholders to pursue indentured servitude instead of clear-cut slave ownership.

  A record from 1799 further indicates Detroit slaveholder strategies in this altered political context. In order to avoid legal complications for selling a slave, Charles St. Bernard, a merchant of Hamtramck Township, contracted an “indenture” with Henry Berthelet, a merchant of Detroit. In actuality, the document entails the sale of a small child, the “young negro girl, Named Veronique, about five years of age,” rather than a time-limited labor agreement. According to the contract, Berthelet is: “TO HAVE & TO HOLD the said young negro girl above bargained & sold, for and during her natural life” for the “Sum of SIXTY POUNDS New York Currency.” Bernard and Berthelet take pains to explain that Veronique was “born within this County, when under the Dominion of his Brittanick Majesty, and has never been out of it since the United States have taken possession of same.” Carefully spelling out the child’s place of birth and permanent residence in British Detroit allows the men to demonstrate that she can be held under the rules of the Northwest Ordinance. Further, to hedge their bets, the merchants introduce their bill of sale by describing it as “this INDENTURE made at Detroit.” Their contract was signed, sealed, delivered, and recorded by the Wayne County court.30

  Too young to fend for herself or broach an escape, Veronique became the property of Berthelet. But John Reed, a grown man who had already shown that he would run, may have been offered a more forthright contract of indenture, as this was the best means for the would-be buyer/bounty hunter to hold on to him, as well as for his Kentucky owner to redeem some value from the loss of him. While being an indentured servant in Detroit could not have been Reed’s desired outcome when he first fled, it was a status that offered greater potential for the future than lifelong slavery in the American South.

  Elsewhere in the Northwest Territory, indenture was also being employed as a secondary form of confinement. The practice was common in Illinois and Indiana, where a “terrain of unfreedom” developed on the shadow side of the Ordinance. Often, enslaved people were pressed into servitude contracts with only a veneer of consent. In Marietta, Ohio, in 1802, “a negro boy under the age of twenty-one” named Bob signed a contract of indenture with Dudley Woodbridge, using an X as his mark. Stephen Wilson, a man from Virginia, had previously owned Bob but attested: “I have this day received of said Woodbridge the sum of two hundred dollars for a relinquishment of my claim to the said negro boy.” Woodbridge paid Stephen for Bob, who then agreed to serve Woodbridge as his master until he reached the age of twenty-one. In Wilson’s words, a “bill of sale” was made granting Bob “his freedom, to enable him to bind himself by indenture to Dudley Woodbridge.” Bob was sold to “free” him up to sign an unpaid labor contract. Bob did manage, however, to extract something of value for himself in these negotiations. According to the agreement, Woodbridge would: “At the age of twenty-one years . . . provide and furnish the said Bob with good, comfortable and sufficient apparel, meat, drink, washing, & lodging; and will learn him the said Bob to read.” If Woodbridge kept this promise, Bob would be literate by the time he attained his actual freedom. The documents describing Bob’s sale and indenture found their way into the archives of Detroit when the Woodbridge family moved to town in 1814.31

  While enslaved blacks like John Reed were able to slightly improve their status through indenture, several individuals held as slaves in Detroit found other ways to inch toward autonomy. They began to collect wages for their work as a trickle of American migrants moved into town in need of labor. Eager American lawyers, merchants, and doctors kept farms in addition to practicing their professions and sought skilled agricultural and domestic workers. This included compensating enslaved people who were hired out by their owners and allowed to retain some of the income, or who were permitted to hire themselves out. David Maney paid Eli[z] abeth Burnutt “for her washing” in September of 1802; she attested to the receipt of this sum by signing with her mark. Evidently a practiced washerwoman, Elizabeth was also a seamstress. The man who owned her, William Burnett, had been owed “Cash to your woman to pay for mending” two years earlier. Merchant James May recorded that William Robertson owed “half pay of Pomps wages for attending cattle [in company] with John Askin” and that Charles La Leavre was owed “By 1 days work of his Man helping to kill pigs By work for self.” A woman called Black Betty owed in May’s ledger for five pounds of beef, which she may have planned to pay off through the exchange of her labor. This was probably the same Bet sold with her two sons by Sarah Macomb after William Macomb’s death in 1796. In the Macomb family account book several individuals received pay for services: Charity for washing, Suana for washing, Sisco for masonry, and Will for chopping wood. A woman called Black Patty, who may have attained her freedom, was earning enough to accrue livestock and pay her debts in cash. In 1801 Patty conducted business with or through James May, had an “account” on file with him, and had paid “10 dollars + Cash 3 dollars” toward “a cow + calf 17 Dollars + 50 Cents.”32

  Beyond creating a market for finite indenture contracts as well as paid work, American jurisdiction in Detroit had a third unexpected benefit for the enslaved: an enlarged geographical community. Raiding during the Revolutionary War had increased the black population in town, which meant more available free labor for slaveholders. But higher numbers also meant the black community as a whole was bigger, potentially more robust and resilient. Having a greater number of African Americans in the area—most of them enslaved, a few of them free—increased the chances for social alliance, communal collaboration, and organized rebellion among blacks as well as among unfree people of indigenous ancestry. One truncated but telling example points to a growing black community in the southern Great Lakes that may have channeled its collective energies toward a radical challenge of slavery in the area. In 1803, a fatigued British captain outlined the “cares” of his French wife in a letter to John Askin, his relative by marriage. The unruly behavior of her slaves had driven his wife to distraction, groused Captain Alexander Grant. Mrs. Grant’s bondspeople were “very ungrateful and turbulent,” and her “Cursed negroe wench” along with a black man lately purchased from Matthew Elliott, were both in jail for theft. Grant complained that the jailed pair were suspected of carrying “information of a great number of vagarents hovering about here to bring off as many negros as they can And as I am told forming a Town on the other side of Sandusky. at present there is forty Black men there.”33

  Grant’s grumbling letter reveals that African Americans clustered on the south side of Lake Erie were rumored to be easing into Detroit River settlements, stealing items, sharing strategic intelligence, and encouraging enslaved people to escape. The specific community described by Captain Grant in 1803 was undoubtedly the same one encountered by Moravian missionaries who followed the Miami River to Lake Erie in 1808 and were the first to document the settlement by name. “After we had passed through a place where twenty years ago an old Wyandotte town had stood, we came to Negro town where about six or seven Negro families live. They have been among the Indians for
a long time, and have taken over their way of life,” penned one of the fascinated Moravian brothers. After entering the Wyandot-African village just outside of Upper Sandusky near the mouth of the Sandusky River, the traveling missionaries were served by a black woman host, who “spoke English very well,” and gave them “cornbread and coffee,” the latter being a preferred drink among the villagers. The Moravians took care, while in the home of their host, to follow “Indian custom” and accept the victuals she offered. A Methodist minister called Benjamin Larkin passed through two years later, and remarked upon the same settlement where “some Negroes and Indians dwelled.”34