Black Pioneers of the Northwest

Timeline for Black History in the Northwest

Although slavery was declared illegal in 1844 by the Oregon Provisional Government, many people brought slaves with them across the Oregon Trail. Due to the length and difficulty of the journey, most slave owners brought only a few slaves West -- often a single longtime family servant and generally no more than a family of slaves, or at least those members deemed able to survive the trip.

The ban on slavery in the Oregon Country had nothing to do with abolitionist leanings. In fact, the opposite was true: slavery was outlawed as a means of keeping the black population in Oregon to a minimum. Owning slaves was widely tolerated in the Northwest, and while some slaves successfully sued for their freedom or the freedom of loved ones, no whites were ever forced to free their slaves upon entering the Oregon Country after 1844. However, some did follow through on promises to free their slaves upon arriving in Oregon, and a small population of free blacks gradually became established in the Pacific Northwest.

Slaves were too valuable for many owners to willingly give them up. Nathaniel Ford, an emigrant of 1844, brought with him three slaves: Robin and Polly Holmes, and their daughter Mary Jane. Ford had promised to free the Holmes family after he had established himself in Oregon, but in 1850 he agreed to free only Robin, Polly, and their infant son -- the Fords kept three other children, including Mary Jane. After a long court battle, the other children were freed by order of the court in 1853. The judge cited the fact that slavery was illegal in the Oregon Territory as the reason for his decision. Although she had been freed, Mary Jane Holmes continued to live with the Fords until her marriage in 1857, and her husband had to pay Nathaniel Ford $750 for permission to marry her.

Not all relationships between slave and master were so antagonistic. In 1849, Rose Jackson willingly traveled the Oregon Trail inside a box in the back of a wagon, coming out only at night to stretch and get some fresh air. Her owners credited her work as a laundress with helping the family survive their first winter in Oregon.

Racism became more widespread and severe along the West Coast in the years leading up to the Civil War. The California legislature almost passed exclusion laws twice, prompting many free blacks to head north to British Columbia. Some slaves still held in the old Oregon Country escaped north, as well. In 1860, a boy held by James Tilton, Surveyor General of the Washington Territory, escaped to Victoria, BC, and was protected by the British. Nothing came of Tilton's protests to the Secretary of State in Washington, DC.

Pro-slavery groups agitated repeatedly to form a new federal Territory -- and eventually a new slave state -- out of what is now southwestern Oregon and northern California. Significant gold strikes in that area in the early 1850s lent some weight to the forces backing this plan, but the first effort in 1854 was thwarted when California refused to cede any of its land. A second attempt in 1857 also failed.

Also in 1857, a bill was proposed in the Territorial Legislature to protect the property of slave owners. While ostensibly intended to protect the interests of slave owners passing through the Territory, it was almost certainly intended to legalize slavery by allowing slave owners to keep their slaves after moving to the Oregon Territory. Forces opposed to the bill defeated it by arguing that it would grant special rights to slave owners which were not enjoyed by the citizens of Oregon.

With statehood imminent in 1858, Oregonians elected their first slate of state officers and legislators. Pro-slavery forces made an excellent showing at the polls, as Governor "Honest John" Whiteaker and other officials elected that year were well known for their views on blacks. Still, Governor Whiteaker was judged to have ably guided the newly minted State of Oregon through the Civil War. One of his contemporaries, Judge Matthew Deady, said of him, "Old Whit ... Wrong in the head in politics, he is honest and right in the heart."

Oregon's early racial politics were dominated by a wish to simply be free of the problem altogether by not allowing blacks to settle here. There was a degree of consensus between the pro-slavery and abolitionist sides to ignore the problem and hope it stayed in the East. Ignoring the problem, however, gave tacit approval to scofflaws who continued to hold slaves after settling in Oregon.

Exclusion Laws

In June, 1844, the Provisional Government of Oregon enacted its first laws regarding the status of slaves, and therefore blacks, in the Oregon Country. Slavery was declared to be illegal, and settlers who currently owned slaves were required to free them within three years. Any free blacks age 18 or older had to leave the area, men within two years and women within three. Black children were permitted to stay in the Oregon Country until they reached age 18.

The original exclusion law was the infamous "Lash Law" which subjected blacks found guilty of violating the law to whippings -- no less than 20 and no more than 39 strokes of the lash -- every six months "until he or she shall quit the territory." It was soon recognized that this punishment was far too severe, and the law was modified before it went into effect.

The new version, enacted in December, 1844, replaced the whippings with forced labor. If a black person was tried and found guilty of being in the Oregon Country illegally, he or she was to be hired out publicly to whomever would employ them for the shortest amount of time. After the period of forced labor expired, the "employer" had six months to get the black individual out of Oregon. Failure to do so was punishable by a fine of $1000. This law was to go into effect in 1846, by which time those who wrote it doubtless hoped that most blacks would have left Oregon, but it was repealed in the 1845 session of the Provisional Legislature.

Another exclusion law was passed in September, 1849, which simply forbade blacks from settling in the newly-declared Oregon Territory. Any already in residence were permitted to stay. In 1851, Jacob Vanderpool, a Salem boarding house and saloon owner, became the only person known to have been exiled from the Territory under Oregon's exclusion laws. The law under which he was charged and sentenced was repealed in 1854.

Oregon ratified its state constitution in November, 1857. On the popular ballot for the constitution, there were also two other referendum issues on which citizens were asked to vote. Oregonians rejected slavery but approved adding a new exclusion law to the constitution. This law became part of Oregon's original Bill of Rights.

When Oregon's constitution was submitted to Congress for approval, some Northern legislators complained about the exclusion law. However, others saw it as a structured way to avoid bloodshed over racial issues and the spread of slavery. Thus, in February, 1859, Oregon became the only state admitted to the Union with an exclusion law in its constitution. After several unsuccessful attempts, the state constitution was finally amended in 1926 to remove the exclusion law from the state Bill of Rights. Over 60,000 voters declined to vote on the issue when casting their ballots. A separate clause in Oregon's constitution banning black suffrage was repealed the following year. Of course, these laws had long since been superseded by federal laws and amendments to the US Constitution following the Civil War, but they remained enshrined in the state constitution for 60 years.

Exclusion laws seems bizarre and reprehensible today, but they were not uncommon in the Nineteenth Century. Settlers in the Oregon Country brought the idea with them from their old homes in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Both Illinois and Indiana had exclusion laws on the books in the Nineteenth Century, and all four states denied free blacks the right to vote and restricted their ability to testify in court. Some state and local laws required blacks to post a bond to guarantee their good behavior or to produce proof of their freedom upon the demand of any white person.

The fact that exclusion laws were enacted in Oregon was attractive to some prospective emigrants. Oregon seemed so far away from the United States in the 1840s that some of the settlers probably thought that they really did have a chance to avoid the issues of race and slavery by simply legislating away people of African descent. Some Oregonians supported the laws because they feared the violence that surrounded the politics of slavery in the East; others feared that enslaved blacks would take their jobs if they were brought West in significant numbers; still others were simply out-and-out racists.

Following the killings at the Whitman Mission in 1847, a wave of racial paranoia swept through the Willamette Valley. Many Oregonians convinced themselves that blacks and Indians might collaborate, joining forces to wipe out all the whites in the Oregon Country. Some went so far as to argue that without the exclusion laws, African Americans and Native Americans might intermarry and eventually reduce the white population to a threatened minority. As noted, the modified "Lash Law" was repealed in 1845; the fear following the Whitman Massacre led to the exclusion law of 1848.

There was no organized abolitionist movement in Oregon the way there was in the East, but many white friends of black settlers submitted petitions to the Provisional and Territorial Legislatures asking for exemptions for their friends. In addition, there were many petitions to repeal the exclusion laws submitted through the years. They even succeeded once or twice, but the laws were never out of force for long.