In a State of Slavery: Black Servitude in Illinois, 1800–1830

Between 1800 and 1830, slavery occupied an uncertain place in Illinois’s economy, law, and society. Although nominally a free state, masters in Illinois continued to hold in slavery African Americans brought to the state during the eighteenth century. Additionally masters relied on a system of indentured servitude to try and hold African Americans as defacto slaves. Yet turning a slave into a lifelong servant proved to be more difficult than it first seemed. Enslaved people seized on the negotiations inherent to signing a servitude contract to inch closer to freedom. Once masters put their servants and slaves to work in the state’s economy, unfree African Americans found tiny openings in the system of contract bondage. Relying on mobility, petty earnings, and relationships they forged with the state’s free residents, African Americans continued to struggle against their unfree condition even after they were held as servants. In time these conflicts over slavery and servitude played out in the state’s courts. Jurists in Illinois carefully balanced the laws with existing practices in Illinois and carved out a legal justification for the system of unfree labor.