Servants and Slaves
Illinois sactioned a form of slavery during its territorial period, whereby emigrating whites could bring slaves into the territory and maintain control aver them. Imitating the slavecodes of the South, Illinois authorized masters to punish slothful servants. Black residents could also employ servants in Illinois, just as they could own slaves in the Southern states. They could not, however, own a white servant. The state set free any white servant purchased by a black. Illinois law also approved the employment of hired-out slaves, a practice that extended legal slavery far beyond the South.
An act concerning Negroes and Mulattoes. Approved December 22, 1814, Illinois Acts.
Whereas the erection of mills and other valuable improvements are greatly retarded in this Territory, from the want of Laborers, and whereas also experience has proved that the manufacture of salt in particular, at the United States Saline cannot be successfully carried on by white laborers, and it being the interest of every description of inhabitants to afford every facility to the most extensive manufacture of that article, so necessary to them all, that the most natural means of obtaining a certainty of the necessary supplies thereof at the lowest price.
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislative Council and house of Representatives of the Illinois Territory, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same that if any slave whatsoever, shall voluntarily hire himself or herself, within the Territory, by the consent of his or her master, for any term not exceeding twelve months, his or her continuance in the Territory