Manuscript document. Morgan County, Illinois, 11 May 1840. 2 pages, folio, 7 7/8 x 12 3/8 in. Docketed to verso.

A very rare and fascinating document recording the indenture of an orphaned Black adolescent in Illinois to medical doctor Owen M. Long (1809-1882), who would serve in the Union Army and later as consul to Panama during the Grant Administration. 

The document records that H.G. Reid and Milton M. Mcormick, Justices of the Peace, indentured "a mulatto girl" named Jane Paterson, to Samuel M. and Louisa Prosser, who were bound to "they will teach and instruct her the said Jane in the arts and duties of a house servant to cook, wash, and spin, also that they will clothe and protect her and will learn her to read, and at the expiration of her time of service, they agree to give to her two new suits of clothes suitable to her condition, also a new Bible." The document continues: "And the said Jane agrees on her part to serve the said Samuel M Prosser and Louisa Prosser as an apprentice and servant faithfully and obediently until she shall arrive at the age of eighteen years, which will be on the tenth day of May eighteen hundred and forty two."

Illinois has a complicated history with slavery and indentured servitude, existing for much of its antebellum existence as a quasi-slave state. Beginning as a French colony, slavery was introduced to the territory, and French "Code Noir" laws were adopted. The 1787 Northwest Ordinance stated that there would be neither slavery nor indentured or involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime, but the institution remained contentious. Even after statehood in 1818, loopholes were codified into law, often redressing enslavement with the formalities of indentured contracts, often for time periods measured in decades, some even exceeding 99 years. This was particularly relevant to the southern area of the state, flanked by slave states Kentucky and Missouri. 

In June 1827, the Illinois General Assembly passed "An Act Concerning Minors, Orphans, and Guardians" that empowered probate courts to appoint guardians for orphans under the age of 14. Although a minor and an orphan, it is clear that young Jane was given little to no agency and was thus bound to the Prossers until she was 18. 

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