The Filson’s African American–Related Collection

78 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY T he history of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley cannot be separated from African American history. African Americans accompanied the earliest Euro-Americans into the First American West in the eighteenth century and they remained an important presence in the region throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, helping shape the region’s political, social, and culture life. The Filson Historical Society’s collection provide rich documentation of this integral part of the region’s history, across time periods and in various mediums. The collection includes manuscripts, books, photographs, sheet music, and other mediums dating from the 1780s to the 1980s that chronicle the tragedies and triumphs of African Americans, both enslaved and free. The Filson’s African American–Related Collection Aunt Courtney and Uncle Armistead Lewis, former slaves living in Glasgow, Kentucky, c. 1900. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY SUMMER 2009 79  Illustration of escaped slaves chased by dogs. Henry B. Bibb, Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave (New York: The Author, 1849). THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY  John Clark account book recording money given to the enslaved York, who traveled to Kentucky in 1783 in advance of the Clark family to prepare their homesite. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY  Bill of sale for a slave girl Jenny, August 31, 1833. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY THE FILSON’S AFRICAN AMERICAN–RELATED COLLECTION 80 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY The changing conditions of African American life have shaped the nature of the material available. As a result, the collection can basically be divided into two parts—slavery and post-emancipation. Collections from the pioneer , antebellum, and Civil War periods relate primarily to enslaved African Americans. The vast majority of African Americans in Kentucky and the South were enslaved and unable to read or write. As a result, their literate white contemporaries provide most of the primary source information about black culture and life. Both slaveholders and non-slaveholders documented the lives of African Americans in various ways in their correspondence, diaries, official documents, and other sources. These include letters written from frontier Federal order impressing two slaves owned by Isaac Clark to work on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, November 13, 1863. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY JAMES J. HOLMBERG SUMMER 2009 81 Kentucky that note the reluctance of settlers to bring slaves into the country because Indians tried to lure them away; estate inventories listing the names, ages, and work specialties of slaves; exchanges of family letters reporting the health and activities of both the white and black members of the household; and religious commentaries on slavery. The Filson’s African American collections also include a broadside announcing a “Ladies Fair” held by the “colored ladies” of Frankfort’s Baptist church, and a letter that an escaped slave in Canada wrote to his former master explaining why he ran away. Letters of the famous—including Cassius Clay and John Fee—and the obscure document the ethical and emotional dilemmas experienced by many whites as a result of the “peculiar institution.” The Filson’s manuscript sources are supplemented Broadside advertising the December 2, 1847, charitable “fair” held by the “colored ladies” of the Frankfort, Kentucky, Baptist Church. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY THE FILSON’S AFRICAN AMERICAN–RELATED COLLECTION 82 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Letter of escaped slave James Johnson written from Canada to his former master in Louisville explaining why he ran away, January 13, 1854. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY JAMES J. HOLMBERG SUMMER 2009 83 by a growing body of printed literature—including antebellum pamphlets and books—that argued for and against slavery. These include African Americanpenned narratives of slave life that began appearing before the Civil War and that helped fuel the abolitionist campaign to end human bondage. Other narratives appeared after the war, but together they form an important body of material documenting slave life. Memoirists such as Lewis Clarke, Henry Bibb, Elijah Marrs, Harry Smith, Solomon Northup, and others left informative and emotionally moving accounts. White Americans, particularly those in the border states, wrestled with what Thomas Jefferson called the “wolf” of slavery through the end of the Civil War and the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment. Many Union soldiers declared that they fought to...