The Northwest Territory (now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin), under the Ordinance of 1787, was a free jurisdiction. Yet, all of the states of the territory, except Wisconsin, adopted Black Laws, legislation designed to subjugate African Americans. For the first time, this book brings together the Black Laws of the Old Northwest. The documents in the volume include statutes, legislative reports and resolutions, and petitions and memorials produced by the state legislatures, government agencies, or concerned citizens. Together, the documents provide a history of racial discrimination in this free territory. After a brief prologue, Stephen Middleton organizes the documents by state. Within each state, the documents are arranged into sets on specific topics such as immigration laws, welfare and public education laws, and jury and testimony laws. Although in general the editor lets the documents speak for themselves, he introduces each set of documents with commentary pointing to the themes in the documents. The volume will be a valuable resource for both students and scholars concerned with African-American history.

Middleton does a minimum of editing, choosing to let the various documents speak for themselves as he put it. Graduate; faculty. * Choice *
Middletown's work will be most useful for American scholars engaged in the ongoing debate about the nature of black bondage and freedom in America. Middletown's work provides another window on the legalistic maneuvers that those writing and administering the laws are capable of when the issue is equality, freedom, or access for non-white, oppressed minority peoples. * The Journal of American History *

Stephen Middleton is Assistant Professor of History at North Carolina State University. He received his PhD from Miami University, Ohio. He is the author of Ohio and the Antislavery Activities of Salmon P. Chase (1990), and of several articles on pre-Civil War Ohio.