The history of slavery in Nebraska is generally seen as short and limited. The issue was contentious for the legislature between the creation of the Nebraska Territory in 1854 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. However, there was apparently a particular acceptance of African Americans in the Nebraska Territory when they first arrived en masse. According to a publication by the Federal Writers Project,
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York, an enslaved African American held by William Clark, traveled and worked with him in 1804 and 1806 as part of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition's exploration of the Missouri River lands. He was the first black person recorded in what would become Nebraska.
In 1820, the United States Congress passed the Missouri Compromise. It prohibited slavery in the unorganized lands that would become the Nebraska Territory. The topic of slavery in Nebraska would not be revisited by Congress until 1854.
In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act created the Nebraska Territory. The act overturned the Missouri Compromise by allowing legislatures of the Nebraska and Kansas territories to determine whether to permit or abolish slavery. From 1855 on, what to do about slavery was a recurring topic of debate in the Territorial Legislature.[2]
Meanwhile, some migrant farmers from southern states brought a small number of slaves with them into the territory. "In Nebraska the people never voted for slavery, but people coming here from the South brought slaves with them. In 1855 there were thirteen slaves in Nebraska and in 1860 there were ten. Most of these were held at Nebraska City."[3]
On November 25, 1858 two slaves owned by S.F. Nuckolls of Nebraska City escaped, and on June 30, 1860 six slaves owned by Alexander Majors of Nebraska City did the same thing. Two slaves were sold at public auction in Nebraska City on December 5, 1860.[4]
In 1859, the Daily Nebraskian newspaper reported its favoring of slavery, writing,
During that period, several local newspapers openly editorialized against the presence of blacks in Omaha, for the Confederacy and against the election and re-election of Abraham Lincoln.[6] Nebraska Territory Governor Samuel W. Black vetoed two antislavery bills during these years, arguing that popular sovereignty, as defined by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, made it the responsibility of the drafters of the state constitution to outlaw slavery, as opposed to the Territorial Legislature. There were many legislators who argued that Nebraska simply did not need a law because slavery did not exist "in any practical form" in the state.[7]
The 1860 census showed that of the 81 Negroes in Nebraska, only 10 were enslaved.[8]
Answering the criticism of legislators who opposed an anti-slavery law, Mr. Little, a legislator, remarked in session that,
In 1861 the territorial legislature passed a bill prohibiting slavery in Nebraska, but the governor vetoed it. A vote of ten to three in the Territory Council, and thirty-three to three in the Territorial House overrode his veto and slavery was forbidden. Thus the Territorial Legislature voted a future in which all men would be free.[10]
Although the Territory prohibited slavery, at first the legislators limited suffrage to "free white males", as was typical of many states. Following the Civil War, having this clause in the proposed 1866 Nebraska State Constitution delayed Nebraska's entrance to the Union for nearly a year, until the legislature changed it.
Located just outside of Nebraska City, Nebraska, is the Mayhew Cabin. Built in 1854, it was owned by Allen and Barbara (Kagi) Mayhew. John Henri Kagi, Barbara's brother, met and was deeply influenced by abolitionist John Brown in 1856. Kagi became the secretary of war in Brown’s army. Kagi made his sister’s farm a stop on the Underground Railroad to house slaves escaping from the South.[11] In 2005 the Mayhew Cabin & Historic Village was rehabilitated. Today it houses the Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the first black churches established west of the Missouri River.[12]
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