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North of Slavery: The Matson Slave Trial Presentation
This Saturday, September 13, historian Samuel Wheeler will discuss the critical role that the Illinois Supreme Court played in ensuring Illinois developed as a free state, during a presentation of North of Slavery: The Matson Slave Trial. At 2:00 pm in the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site Auditorium, Wheeler will explore why the future Great Emancipator was on the wrong side of history in this case.
In 1845, Kentucky slaveowner Robert Matson brought several of his enslaved people to Illinois, where he put them to work on his farm in Coles County. Two years later an enslaved woman named Jane Bryant fled the farm with her four children. Matson turned to the judicial system in Illinois, hiring attorney Abraham Lincoln to help him reclaim his human property. The ensuing freedom suit reveals the complexity of the institution of slavery, its implications for the “free state” of Illinois, and the role the institution played in the Civil War.
The Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site is located at 402 South Lincoln Highway Road, Lerna, IL 62440. For more information call 217-345-1845, or visit lincolnlogcabin.org