African American Representation in Citizen Petitions
Wisconsin Citizen Petition Exhibit
Colton's township map
See population numbers in upper left corner
Black Americans have lived and worked in Wisconsin since the eighteenth century; in 1850, Black residents numbered 390 while white residents numbered 233,891, the 1890 census counted 2,444 Black residents in comparison to 1,680,473 white residents.
In the 1820s and 1830s, many of the white settlers who flooded into Wisconsin to mine lead came from southern states, some brought kidnapped and enslaved Black people with them.
However, by the early 1840s, many white residents denounced slavery as morally wrong and began organizing reform measures. Sympathy for self-emancipated Black people was common in Wisconsin and grew in strength in the years preceding the Civil War.
Poster opposing slavery
Poster advertising an Anti-Slave Catchers' Mass Convention View the original source document: WHI 1928
Early petitions from white residents displayed public opinions on the abolition of chattel slavery, but Black male residents were additionally concerned with suffrage, local politics, and the personal laws governing daily life.
The 1854 passage of the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act heightened Wisconsin’s sensitivity to national tensions over chattel slavery. Citizens petitioned the state legislature to pass a formal resolution on the law for a variety of reasons. Abolitionists opposed the passage of any act enabling chattel slavery in new territories and called on the legislature to raise funds to combat “slave powers,” while urban communities experiencing rapid settlement by European immigrants heavily disapproved of the amendment stripping non-citizen immigrants of the right to vote or hold office in either territory.
African American Civil War Soldier
Image of an unidentified Civil War soldier View the original source document: WHI 6984
Despite the Civil War’s roots in the enslavement of Black people, Black men were not permitted to serve in the Union army as soldiers until 1863. Over the next two years, 353 Black Wisconsinites served in the Union army. Black troops’ courageous conduct in the Civil War added fuel to the effort for Black male suffrage. Black volunteers also worked to secure the same benefits for themselves and their families as white soliders.
