existed in what is now the Northwest Territory from the time of the early
exploration and settlement of that region by the French. The first slaves
of white men were Indians. Though it is true that the red men usually
chose death rather than slavery, there were some of them that bowed to the
yoke. So many Pawnee Indians became bondsmen that the word _Pani_
became synonymous with slave in the West.[8] Western Indians themselves,
following the custom of white men, enslaved their captives in war rather
than choose the alternative of putting them to death. In this way they
were known to hold a number of blacks and whites.

The enslavement of the black man by the whites in this section dates from
the early part of the eighteenth century. Being a part of the Louisiana
Territory which under France extended over the whole Mississippi Valley as
far as the Allegheny mountains, it was governed by the same colonial
regulations.[9] Slavery, therefore, had legal standing in this territory.
When Antoine Crozat, upon being placed in control of Louisiana, was
authorized to begin a traffic in slaves, Crozat himself did nothing to
carry out his plan. But in 1717 when the control of the colony was
transferred to the _Compagnie de l'Occident_ steps were taken toward
the importation of slaves. In 1719, when 500 Guinea Negroes were brought
over to serve in Lower Louisiana, Philip Francis Renault imported 500
other bondsmen into Upper Louisiana or what was later included in the
Northwest Territory. Slavery then became more and more extensive until by
1750 there were along the Mississippi five settlements of slaves,
Kaskaskia, Kaokia, Fort Chartres, St. Phillipe and Prairie du Rocher.[10]
In 1763 Negroes were relatively numerous in the Northwest Territory but
when this section that year was transferred to the British the number was
diminished by the action of those Frenchmen who, unwilling to become
subjects of Great Britain, moved from the territory.[11] There was no
material increase in the slave population thereafter until the end of the