This settlement had become attractive to fugitive slaves and freedmen
because the Quakers settled there welcomed them on their way to freedom
and in some cases encouraged them to remain among them. When the increase
of fugitives was rendered impossible during the fifties when the Fugitive
Slave Law was being enforced, there was still a steady growth due to the
manumission of slaves by sympathetic and benevolent masters in the
South.[26] Most of these Negroes settled in Calvin Township, in that
county, so that of the 1,376 residing there in 1860, 795 were established
in this district, there being only 580 whites dispersed among them. The
Negro settlers did not then obtain control of the government but they
early purchased land to the extent of several thousand acres and developed
into successful small farmers. Being a little more prosperous than the
average Negro community in the North, the Cass County settlement not only
attracted Negroes fleeing from hardships in the South but also those who
had for some years unsuccessfully endeavored to establish themselves in
other communities on free soil.[27]
These settlements were duplicated a little farther west in Illinois.
Edward Coles, a Virginian, who in 1818 emigrated to Illinois, of which he
later served as Governor and as liberator from slavery, settled his slaves
in that commonwealth.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43