title: History of slavery in Nebraska
text: # History of slavery in Nebraska
  
  Part of a series on :
  
  African Americans :
  
  History
  
  Periods
  
  Timeline
  
  Atlantic slave trade
  
  Abolitionism in the United States
  
  Slavery in the colonial history of the United States
  
  Revolutionary War
  
  Antebellum period
  
  Slavery and military history during the Civil War
  
  Reconstruction era
  
  Politicians
  
  Juneteenth
  
  Civil rights movement (1865–1896)
  
  Jim Crow era (1896–1954)
  
  Civil rights movement (1954–1968)
  
  Black power movement
  
  Post–civil rights era
  
  Aspects
  
  Agriculture history
  
  Black Belt in the American South
  
  Business history
  
  Military history
  
  Treatment of the enslaved
  
  Migrations
  
  Great Migration
  
  Second Great Migration
  
  New Great Migration :
  
  Culture
  
  Lifeways
  
  Dance
  
  Family structure
  
  Film
  
  Folktales
  
  Music
  
  Musical theater
  
  Names
  
  Neighborhoods
  
  Newspapers
  
  Soul food
  
  Schools
  
  Black schools
  
  Historically black colleges and universities
  
  Fraternities
  
  Stepping
  
  Academic study
  
  Studies
  
  Art
  
  Literature
  
  Celebrations
  
  Martin Luther King Jr. Day
  
  Black History Month
  
  Juneteenth
  
  Kwanzaa
  
  Economic class
  
  African-American businesses
  
  Middle class
  
  Upper class
  
  Billionaires
  
  Symbols and ideas
  
  African-American beauty
  
  Black is beautiful
  
  Black pride
  
  African-American hair
  
  Good hair
  
  "Lift Every Voice and Sing"
  
  Self-determination :
  
  Religion
  
  Institutions
  
  Black church
  
  Theologies
  
  Black theology
  
  Womanist theology
  
  Non-Christian groups
  
  Hoodoo
  
  Black Hebrew Israelites
  
  African-American Jews
  
  African-American Muslims
  
  Nation of Islam
  
  Louisiana Voodoo
  
  African Diaspora Religions :
  
  Politics
  
  Organizations
  
  Congressional Black Caucus
  
  Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
  
  National Black Caucus of State Legislators
  
  National Conference of Black Mayors
  
  Ideologies
  
  Afrocentrism
  
  Anarchism
  
  Back-to-Africa movement
  
  Black power
  
  Capitalism
  
  Conservatism
  
  Garveyism
  
  Leftism
  
  Nationalism
  
  Pan-Africanism
  
  Patriotism
  
  Populism
  
  Socialism :
  
  Civic / economic groups
  
  Organizations
  
  Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)
  
  Black conductors
  
  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
  
  National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC)
  
  National Council of Negro Women (NCNW)
  
  National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC)
  
  National Urban League (NUL)
  
  TransAfrica Forum
  
  United Negro College Fund (UNCF) :
  
  Sports
  
  Negro league baseball
  
  Athletic associations and conferences
  
  Central (CIAA)
  
  Gulf Coast (GCAC)
  
  Mid-Eastern (MEAC)
  
  Southern (SIAC)
  
  Southwestern (SWAC) :
  
  Sub-communities
  
  Multiethnic
  
  African-American Jews
  
  Afro-Puerto Ricans
  
  Black Indians
  
  Black Seminoles
  
  Mascogos
  
  Blaxicans
  
  Brass Ankles
  
  Creoles of color
  
  Dominickers
  
  Melungeon
  
  Carmel Indians
  
  Redbone
  
  Specific ancestries
  
  Americo-Liberians
  
  Creek Freedmen
  
  Gullah
  
  Merikins
  
  Nova Scotians
  
  Samaná Americans
  
  Sierra Leone Creole
  
  Sexual orientation
  
  LGBT community :
  
  Dialects and languages
  
  English dialects
  
  African-American English
  
  African-American Vernacular English
  
  Liberian English
  
  Samaná English
  
  Tutnese
  
  Languages and other dialects
  
  Gullah
  
  Afro-Seminole Creole
  
  Negro Dutch
  
  Black American Sign Language :
  
  Population
  
  U.S. states
  
  Alabama
  
  Arkansas
  
  California
  
  Florida
  
  Georgia
  
  Kansas
  
  Louisiana
  
  Maryland
  
  Mississippi
  
  Nebraska
  
  North Carolina
  
  Oklahoma
  
  Oregon
  
  South Carolina
  
  Tennessee
  
  Texas
  
  Utah
  
  Virginia
  
  U.S. cities
  
  Black mecca
  
  List of neighborhoods
  
  Atlanta
  
  Baltimore
  
  Boston
  
  Chicago
  
  Dallas-Fort Worth
  
  Davenport
  
  Detroit
  
  Houston
  
  Jacksonville
  
  Kentucky
  
  Los Angeles
  
  New York City
  
  Omaha
  
  Philadelphia
  
  San Antonio
  
  San Francisco
  
  Historic places
  
  District of Columbia
  
  Florida
  
  Georgia
  
  Mississippi
  
  Missouri
  
  Omaha, Nebraska
  
  North Carolina
  
  South Carolina
  
  Texas
  
  West Virginia
  
  Population count
  
  U.S. states and territories
  
  U.S. metropolitan areas
  
  U.S. cities
  
  U.S. communities
  
  Places by plurality of population
  
  Diaspora
  
  Africa
  
  France
  
  Ghana
  
  Israel
  
  Liberia
  
  Nova Scotia
  
  Sierra Leone :
  
  Prejudice
  
  Racism
  
  Black genocide
  
  Race and ethnicity in the United States Census
  
  Racism against Black Americans
  
  Reparations for slavery
  
  School segregation in the United States
  
  Stereotypes and media depictions
  
  Blackface
  
  Criminal stereotypes
  
  Hollywood
  
  Magical Negro
  
  Minstrel show :
  
  United States portal
  
  Category
  
  Index :
  
  vte :
  
  The history of slavery in Nebraska is generally seen as short and limited. The issue was contentious for the legislature between the creation of the Nebraska Territory in 1854 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.
  
  There was a particular acceptance of African Americans in the Nebraska Territory when they first arrived en masse. According to a publication by the Federal Writers Project,
  
     In the Territory of Nebraska the fight to exclude slavery from within the territorial boundaries spread from the Senate to the press and to the pulpit. Even among the slaves in the South the word spread that here was a place where the attitude toward Negroes was tempered with tolerance.
  
  ## Early history
  
  York, an enslaved African American held by William Clark, traveled and worked with him from 1804 to 1806 as part of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition's exploration of the Missouri River lands. He was the first black person recorded in what would become Nebraska.
  
  In 1820, the United States Congress passed the Missouri Compromise. It prohibited slavery in the unorganized lands that would become the Nebraska Territory. The topic of slavery in Nebraska would not be revisited by Congress until 1854.
  
  ## Kansas–Nebraska Act
  
  In 1854 the Kansas–Nebraska Act created the Nebraska Territory. The act overturned the Missouri Compromise by allowing legislatures of the Nebraska and Kansas territories to determine whether to permit or abolish slavery. From 1855 on, what to do about slavery was a recurring topic of debate in the Territorial Legislature.
  
  ## Incidents
  
  Meanwhile, some immigrant farmers from Southern states brought a small number of slaves with them into the territory. "In Nebraska the people never voted for slavery, but people coming here from the South brought slaves with them. In 1855 there were thirteen slaves in Nebraska and in 1860 there were ten. Most of these were held at Nebraska City."
  
     It is not generally known, but it is a fact, that there were from 1856 to 1858 more slaves in Nebraska than in Kansas. Most of the Kansas slaves were conveyed to the North Star section [the Underground Railroad] soon after. The first attempt to cross the Missouri River by the new route was made by the Massachusetts party, under the charge of Martyn Stowell, of which I was a member. We were the advance guard in July, 1856, of Jim Lane's hastily gathered command. The Nebraska City ferry was a flat boat worked by a Southern settler named Nuckolls, who had brought slaves there and who declared we should not cross. Three of us, who were mounted, rode down, called, and got the ferry over on the Iowa or eastern side of the river with Nuckolls himself in charge, and we held him there until our little company of sixty-five young men, with three wagons, wene ferried over. These incidents are only mentioned to show the nature of the obstacles. Mr. Nuckolls yielded to our persuasive force, aided by that of his neighbors, many of whom were free state in sympathy, and perhaps even more by the profit he found by the large ferriage tolls we promptly paid.
  
  On November 25, 1858, two slaves owned by the above Mr. Nuckolls escaped, and on June 30, 1860 six slaves owned by Alexander Majors also of Nebraska City did the same thing. Two slaves were sold at public auction in Nebraska City on December 5, 1860.
  
  In 1859, the Daily Nebraskian newspaper reported that it favored slavery:
  
     The bill introduced in [Omaha City] Council, for the abolition of slavery in this Territory, was called up yesterday, and its further consideration postponed for two weeks. A strong effort will be made among the Republicans to secure its passage; we think, however, it will fail. The farce certainly cannot be enacted if the Democrats do their duty.
  
  During that period, several local newspapers openly editorialized against the presence of blacks in Omaha, for the Confederacy and against the election and re-election of Abraham Lincoln. Nebraska Territory Governor Samuel W. Black vetoed two antislavery bills during these years, arguing that popular sovereignty, as defined by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, made it the responsibility of the drafters of the state constitution to outlaw slavery, as opposed to the Territorial Legislature. There were many legislators who argued that Nebraska simply did not need a law because slavery did not exist "in any practical form" in the state.
  
  The 1860 census showed that of the 81 negroes in Nebraska, only 10 were enslaved.
  
  Answering the criticism of legislators who opposed an anti-slavery law, Mr. Little, a legislator, remarked in session that:
  
     The opponents of this measure have not a single reason to advance why this bill should not pass. They put forth, however, some excuses for opposing it. They come forth with the miserable plea that they are opposed to blotting our statute books with useless legislation. Sir, this is not so much a plea against this law as it is in favor of blotting our territory with slavery. They say that slavery does not exist here, and that this measure is useless. This excuse will not now hold good, for a president's message has just reached us, in which it is declared, and in this opinion he is backed by a powerful party, that men have the right to bring slaves here, and to hold them as such, and that this is slave territory ... If the friends of slavery insist that they have the right to hold slaves here, shall we tamely submit to it? If they insist on making this a slave territory, which they do, shall we not insist that it shall be forever free?
  
  In 1861 the territorial legislature passed a bill prohibiting slavery in Nebraska, but the governor vetoed it. He claimed that since there were few slaves in the territory, passing a slavery ban was an unworthy use of time, and that the issue should instead be raised if Nebraska earned statehood. The veto message was called "the weakest paper we have ever known to come from a man of the Governor's pretentions and acknowledged ability" by the Nebraska Advertiser in 1861. A vote of ten to three in the Territory Council, and thirty-three to three in the Territorial House overrode his veto, and slavery was forbidden in Nebraska.
  
  Although the Territory prohibited slavery, at first the legislators limited suffrage to "free white males", as was typical of many states. Following the Civil War, having this clause in the proposed 1866 Nebraska State Constitution delayed Nebraska's entrance to the Union for nearly a year, until the legislature changed it.
  
  ## Mayhew Cabin
  
  Located just outside Nebraska City, Nebraska, is the Mayhew Cabin. Built in 1855, it was owned by Allen and Barbara (Kagi) Mayhew. John Henri Kagi, Barbara's brother, met and was deeply influenced by abolitionist John Brown in 1856. Kagi became the secretary of war in Brown's army. Kagi made his sister's farm a stop on the Underground Railroad to house slaves escaping from the South. In 2005, the Mayhew's cabin was rehabilitated. Today, the museum site also houses the Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the first black churches established west of the Missouri River.
  
  