Democracy and Slavery in Frontier Illinois: The Bottomland Republic

Abstract

During the late eighteenth century, southern immigrants introduced black bondage—un-der the pseudonym of indentured servitude— into Illinois Territory. They did this despite the Northwest Ordinance's exclusion of slavery from it and other territories in the region. In 1824, after Illinois had become a state, voters rejected, by a margin of 6,822 to 4,950, a call for a constitutional convention that in all likelihood would have allowed slavery to continue indefinitely. The relatively close vote suggests that Illinois could have become a slave state. Imagine the impact of such an outcome on the sectional conflict! James Simeone's Democracy and Slavery in Frontier Illinois is an admirable contribution to our evolving understanding of American political development. It is based on a thorough understanding of the interaction of class, culture, sectionalism, republicanism, and religion. Yet readers who on the basis of the book's title assume it centers on the issue of slavery in early Illinois will be disappointed. Instead the book analyzes an effort by poor white men to destroy elitist politics in that new state and establish for themselves an egalitarian democracy. According to Simeone, slavery in this context was a peripheral issue. It helped galvanize support for a state constitutional convention, but it was subsidiary to taking power away from the elite.