Under this system a large number of slaves were brought into the Territory
especially after 1807. There were 135 in 1800. This increase came from
Kentucky and Tennessee. As those brought were largely boys and girls with
a long period of service, this form of slavery was assured for some years.
The children of these blacks were often registered for thirty-five instead
of thirty years of service on the ground that they were not born in
Illinois. No one thought of persecuting a master for holding servants
unlawfully and Negroes themselves could be easily deceived. Very few
settlers brought their slaves there to free them. There were only 749 in
1820. If one considers the proportion of this to the number brought there
for manumission this seems hardly true. It is better to say that during
these first two decades of the nineteenth century some settlers came for
both purposes, some to hold slaves, some, as Edward Coles, to free them.
It was not only practiced in the southern part along the Mississippi and
Ohio but as far north in Illinois as Sangamon County, were found servants
known as "yellow boys" and "colored girls."--See the _Laws of
Illinois_.]



CHAPTER II

A TRANSPLANTATION TO THE NORTH


Just after the settlement of the question of holding the western posts by
the British and the adjustment of the trouble arising from their capture
of slaves during our second war with England, there started a movement of
the blacks to this frontier territory. But, as there were few towns or
cities in the Northwest during the first decades of the new republic, the