“Aggregate Amount of Each Description of Persons within District of Indiana,” 1: 346. Decatur, Ind.: Adams County Historical Society, 1980. “Blacks in Adams County” in 1979 History of Adams County. Adams County has had a reputation as a “sundown location,” and Heller reports that the county newspapers were “violently anti-Negro.” As Adams County adjoins Ohio, perhaps African Americans made the choice to cross the state line to escape what was becoming an inhospitable environment. The 1860 census reports a total of seven African Americans and by 1870 there are zero persons of color listed in Adams County. An adult son, William Hill, Jr., born in Virginia, was living nearby with his Ohio-born wife and four children. (Dick Heller lists eleven individuals by name in a history of the county.) Of the three children living with William and Anna, at least two were born in Ohio. By 1850 Blue Creek Township’s African American population increased by two for a total of eight persons. Hill and his wife, Anna, were born in Virginia. William Hill’s household included six people. The other family enumerated in the 1840 census resided in Blue Creek Township. His holdings were sold and his surviving family was escorted to “Dallas,” a location that has not been identified. Records indicate that Lewis made the first of several land purchases on February 6, 1837. His family accounted for 9 of 10 African Americans recorded in Root Township in the 1840 census. William Lewis owned a mill near Monmouth in the 1830s–early 1840s. There were no African Americans in the county recorded in the United States Census prior to 1840 when 17 persons of color were enumerated. The black population of Adams County was minimal in the nineteenth century. These organizations include Southern Indiana Minority Enterprise Initiative, Indiana Landmarks, Indiana Historical Bureau, Indiana Tourism, Indiana Humanities, Indiana State Library, Indiana State Archives and the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites.Īfrican American rural settlements documented: 0 allowed IHS to convene interested organizations to guide a team of researchers to gather available research on early black settlements. Over the past 30 years, various research projects related to early black settlements have been completed by independent researchers, college professors and students, IHS, Indiana Humanities, Ball State University, Conner Prairie and Indiana Landmarks.Ī planning grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. With the exception of a handful of monographs, graduate papers and journal articles, few publications have been written that focus on this history. With a mounting interest in history related to Indiana’s Bicentennial, now is an opportune time to uncover and share untold parts of Indiana’s history.ĭespite a rich history, little is known about the African-American experience from the state’s founding to the Civil War era. These untold stories have the potential to evoke pride and add a level of complexity to our understanding of black heritage and Hoosier history. This generalized thinking situates Indiana’s African-Americans as part of a national story, but fails to reveal the stories of free blacks and formerly enslaved people who settled the state much earlier. Popular understanding of Indiana black history focuses on post-Civil War African-American migration to cities in the north, such as Evansville, Fort Wayne, Gary, Indianapolis and South Bend.
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