Slaves might be the last people you’d expect in Iowa. Confederates might be a close second.
After all, Iowa has always been free. However, 17 slaves appear on the 1840 Federal Census for Dubuque County. They lived in 11 households.[i]
Sketch of the population in 1840
Dubuque County had 3,056 residents. There were at least five African-American families, all freedmen. Four of the slave-owning families had whites, slaves, and free blacks at the same residence. (The other seven slave-owning families had whites and slaves.) [ii]
The slaves seemingly labored in agriculture, commerce, or manufacturing and trade, or they worked as house servants. There is no evidence that they worked in the local lead mines. (See postscript below.)
Early Dubuque Society
Historian Timothy R. Mahoney analyzes how Dubuque was transformed from lead-mining camps into an urban society. He documents “a downtown business culture” that “more or less ran Dubuque’s city government in the 1840s and early 1850s.” [iii]
Two future mayors owned slaves
Slave owners included early Dubuque mayors Francis K. O’Ferrall and Peter A. Lorimier, prominent businessman and land receiver Thomas McKnight, and early Iowa U.S. Senator George Wallace Jones. A third mayor, Warner Lewis, didn’t own slaves, but he grew up in a slave-holding family.[iv]
Future Senator Jones held the most slaves (three). He had owned even more slaves when he lived in Sinsinawa Mound, Wisconsin Territory.[v]
McKnight and future Confederate President Jefferson Davis sometimes visited Jones in Sinsinawa Mound. They enjoyed eating cornbread served by two slaves (who Jones later brought to Dubuque). Jones reportedly freed his slaves in Dubuque by 1842 or 1843.[vi]
The early business environment of Dubuque was surely pro-slavery. It’s unclear whether this environment influenced the 12 Dubuque residents who later served the Confederacy.
Postscript
In 1839, the year before the census, the Supreme Court of the Territory of Iowa decided “In the Matter of Ralph.” Ralph was a slave from Missouri who in 1834 signed a written agreement with his master to buy his freedom.
His master authorized Ralph to work in Dubuque in the lead mines until he earned $550. A few years later, Ralph still hadn’t paid off his debt, so slave hunters tried to capture him.
A Dubuque resident took Ralph to see Judge Thomas Wilson, a political rival of George Wallace Jones. The court ruled that Ralph was a free man.[vii]
To learn more about conditions in early Dubuque, I’d highly recommend Bright Radical Star: Black Freedom and White Supremacy on the Hawkeye Frontier by Robert R. Dykstra.
End-notes
[i] 1840 United States Census, Dubuque County, Territory of Iowa.
[ii] Chandler C. Childs, ed. Robert T. Klein, Dubuque: Frontier River City (Dubuque, 1984), 51, quoting Census Bureau, The Census Returns of the Different Counties of the State of Iowa for 1859 (Des Moines, 1859), Table facing p. 3.
[iii]History of Dubuque County, Iowa (Chicago, 1880), 495, 828-830; Timothy R. Mahoney, “The Rise and Fall of the Booster Ethos in Dubuque 1850 to 1861,” Annals of Iowa, (Iowa City, Fall 2002), 372-373, 385.
[iv] “Mayors of the City of Dubuque, Iowa,” City of Dubuque, http://www.cityofdubuque.org/DocumentCenter/Home/View/2977.
[v] George Wallace Jones to Jefferson Davis, 5/17/1861, holograph, George Wallace Jones Vertical File, Center for Dubuque History, Loras College.
[vi] John Carl Parish, George Wallace Jones (Iowa City, 1912), 10; John Nelson Davidson, “Negro Slavery in Wisconsin” (address delivered December 8, 1892 at 40th annual meeting of State Historical Society of WI), Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Issues 39-41(Madison, 1892), 83-84.
[vii] Iowa Judicial Branch, “In the Matter of Ralph, 1 Morris 1 (1839),” http://www.iowacourts.gov/For_the_Public/Court_Structure/Iowa_Courts_History/In_the_Matter_of_Ralph/
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Thanks for reading my blog! Please leave any comments below.
Samuel Family Trails
1 Mar 2016Thank you, David…another piece of the Iowa puzzle!
David Connon
1 Mar 2016Hi, Bonnie. I was very surprised to learn that slaves had ever been held in Dubuque County. I was even more surprised to discover that two of the slave owners later became mayor of Dubuque.
Kathleen Parsons
1 Mar 2016Excellent breakdown of a very sad reality. One wonders what other Iowan counties or Union states had slaves despite the formal stance.
David Connon
1 Mar 2016Hi, Kathy. Thanks for your kind comments! Robert R. Dykstra (in Bright Radical Star: Black Freedom and White Supremacy on the Hawkeye Frontier) states that Dubuque County residents were the only ones bold enough to admit they had slaves in the 1840 census. His authoritative book leads me to conclude that at least a few other humans were probably held in bondage in Iowa Territory in 1840.
Sandy Frykholm
1 Mar 2016Very interesting post!
David Connon
1 Mar 2016Hi, Sandy.
Thanks for your kind words! And thanks for reading my blog.
vam
1 Mar 2016Interesting post
David Connon
1 Mar 2016Hi, Vincent.
Thank you! And thanks for reading my blog.
julieallyn
1 Mar 2016This post, which appeared on my Facebook RSS feed, piqued my interest as I’m currently reading The Invention of Wings which takes place in the south during the early to mid 1800s. The suffering is deplorable and unimaginable.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
David Connon
2 Mar 2016Hi, Julie. Thanks for reading my blog! This topic piqued my interest, too.
Alison McMahan
2 Mar 2016Is that a memento mori picture?
Alison McMahan
2 Mar 2016To clarify my question,
There was a practice of taking pictures of the dead, especially of babies who had not been photographed in life.
In this picture I suspect that both of them might be dead. It was common to paint “eyes” on the closed eyelids of the dead person, or to prop the eyes open with pins and put drops in to make them look alive. The eyes of the nanny in this image have clearly been doctored by the photographer during the development process.
You can read more about Victorian Memento Mori images here:
http://kloudguy.blogspot.com/2011/12/memento-mori-post-mortem-photography.html
David Connon
2 Mar 2016Hi, Alison.
Thank you for sharing your insights. I admire your eye for detail. I had no idea that it might be a memento mori picture. It’s chilling to think that the baby, and perhaps even the adult in the photo were dead.
George Shurr
2 Mar 2016Another helpful insight into the Confederacy in Iowa. Thanks for sharing your work.
David Connon
2 Mar 2016Hi, George. Thanks for reading my blog! I was interested in this topic, partially because slavery seemed so unlikely and because it was rare in Iowa Territory.
Charles K Connon
2 Mar 2016Good addition to your research!
Dad
David Connon
4 Mar 2016Thanks, Dad.
fRooots
7 Mar 2016Thank you! It is a nice material!
David Connon
7 Mar 2016Hi, fRooots. Thank you for your kind comments!
Mark Wehrle
9 May 2016Thank You for your research and information:
In Henry County Iowa, (south of Mt. Pleasant) there was a farm owned by a man from Cape girardeau, Missouri. In the spring he would bring his slaves north to Iowa to plant his fields. He would then leave some slaves in Iowa, along with an overseer, to tend the crops through the summer. After the fall harvest he would take the slaves back to his home in southern Missouri.
This story was told to me by a Mr. Savage of Salem, Iowa. Mr. Savage told it to me around 2003, When he was over 90 years old. It was told to him by his grandfather who grew up on the farm next to the one the slaves worked.
I realize stories can be just that, stories, But knowing the history of Salem, Iowa, and the history of the man who told it. I tend to believe that at least a good part of his story is true.
David Connon
9 May 2016Hi, Mark.
Thank you for sharing a very interesting story! I had never considered the possibility that a slave-owner in Missouri might have temporarily brought slaves into Iowa to work on a farm. As you said, the story might be true. Of course, documentation is key. Thanks for reading my blog!
John Pregler
25 Dec 2016Great story Mr. Wehrle. The referred to George Wallace Jones came from Cape Girardeau, Missouri as well. So did Henry Dodge, who also brought slaves to the Mineral Point area in the Missouri Territory which encompassed Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and more. Both the Cape Girardeau area and the Tri-State area around Dubuque are lead mining regions.
General Dodge was territorial governor of Wisconsin and its state’s first US Senator. Dodge also led the United States Regiment of Dragoons; the first mounted Regular Army unit in United States Army history. Both Jones and Dodge freed their slaves; Jones in 1842 for political as well as personal reasons. Jones freed 13 slaves in 1842 after one, Paul Jones, sued for wages and won. The book ‘Negro Slavery in Wisconsin and the underground railroad’ tells some of the story of slavery in the upper northwest during the early nineteenth century.
David Connon
16 Oct 2017Hi, Mr. Pregler.
Thank you for your kind comment and for sharing information about George Wallace Jones and Henry Dodge. Would you please tell me the source of your statement, “Jones freed 13 slaves in 1842”? It seems to be in conflict with the 1840 Census in Dubuque, Iowa, that lists George Wallace Jones and three slaves. I might also add that “Slaves in Wisconsin” (from Wisconsinhistory.org) states that George Wallace Jones had allowed his slave, Paul Jones, to work in the neighborhood and earn the money to buy his own freedom. After Paul Jones was free, he sued George Wallace Jones for “wages for his services” and “a return of the money he had paid for his freedom.” Source: https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Newspaper/BA5639
Leslie Schwalm
9 May 2016See also Emancipation’s Diaspora: Race & Reconstruction in the Upper Midwest, which overviews the history of slavery in the region (including Iowa).
David Connon
9 May 2016Hi, Dr. Schwalm. Thanks for your excellent suggestion. Thanks, too, for reading my blog!