By AMY LAMB
Media Relations Manager, Indiana Historical Society

The Indiana Historical Society has made available online the results of its research on early black settlements in Indiana. This effort is part of the Early African American Settlement Heritage Initiative.

During the summer of 2014, the Indiana Historical Society embarked upon a journey to identify African-American rural settlements that existed in Indiana by 1870. As a possible foundational step for statewide research, IHS worked with several individuals, organizations and communities to develop and implement the Early African American Settlement Heritage Initiative, an effort to identify agrarian communities that had dotted the Hoosier landscape.

The new online resource, available at www.indianahistory.org/EBS, identifies 61 early black settlements in 43 counties, and research for all 92 counties is also accessible. The webpages provide an Indiana county map with links to a brief description of the African-American presence in each of Indiana’s 92 counties through 1870, followed by a bibliography. When available, it also includes information about settlement locations and extant historic structures.

Popular understanding of Indiana African-American history focuses on post-Civil War migration to cities in the north, such as Evansville, Indianapolis and Gary. While this generalized understanding situates Indiana’s African Americans as part of a national story, it fails to reveal the stories of free blacks and formerly enslaved people who settled the state much earlier.

With the exception of a handful of monographs, graduate papers and journal articles, few publications have been written that focus on the African-American experience from the state’s founding to the Civil War era. This defies the rich history of the time period. These untold stories have the potential to evoke pride and add a level of complexity to the understanding of black heritage and Hoosier history.

Over the past 30 years, various research projects related to early black settlements have been completed by independent researchers, college professors and students, IHS, Indiana Humanities, Ball State University, Conner Prairie and Indiana Landmarks.

A planning grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. allowed IHS to hire researchers and convene collaborative conversations with representatives from the settlements and other interested organizations to discuss how best to share the early black settlement research. Participants representing Beech, Lyles Station, Lost Creek, Roberts, Union Literary Institute, Division Street School, Georgetown, Leora Brown School and the Eleutherian College provided perspective for the early rural communities. The regional and statewide organizations included Southern Indiana Minority Enterprise Initiative, Indiana Landmarks, Indiana Historical Bureau, Indiana Tourism, Indiana Humanities, Indiana State Library, Indiana State Archives and the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites.

For more information on IHS programs and services, call (317) 232-1882 or visit www.indianahistory.org.