Remembering when Illinois was a slave state?

Trigger warning. This is a nasty piece of history that slipped into a song intended to be lighthearted and for children. It centers on American slavery.

I have a peculiar little story about a piece of mostly overlooked American history. It’s tragic, and forgotten, and I think it shouldn’t be.

Back in the day I was a direct  report to a fellow who happened to have a PhD in History – great guy—we’re still friends on social media even though we haven’t worked together since the late 1990s. So anyway, one day when we were working together somehow the conversation got around to slavery and Illinois, and I mentioned that there was some kind of exemption back in the early 1800s for two counties in Illinois, Saline and Gallatin. They had legal slavery. Well, he said “No way”, and quoted line and verse about how certain laws prohibited that, and I said, “That may be, but I’ve toured the Old Slave House.”

He didn’t believe me, but that was okay, and life went on. I knew what I had seen. The shackles and the beds the slaves would be chained to is what has stuck with me all these years.

A decade later, long after we had both moved on, I got an email from him with the subject line “Mia Coupa”. It turns out he was going through some old archives and found a document which referenced slavery in Southern Illinois. (The internet tells me it was an exemption written into the Illinois State Constitution—but I didn’t learn that until I started writing this post.)

What they said at the Old Slave House was that there had been salt mines in Saline and Gallatin Counties, along the Saline River—first clue was in the name. Apparently, the river was full of dissolved salt, which was easy to get and very valuable on the frontier, but the water needed to be boiled until the salt crystalized and this was such hard, hot, nasty work that they couldn’t pay people to do it. So, they made an exemption to allow slaves just for processing the salt.

For those with a weak understanding of US geography, the Ohio river was the boundary between free and slave states, and the Saline River is a small tributary of the Ohio, just on the wrong side. Well, wrong for the moneyed elites that needed slaves.

And Lincoln is said to have visited there before taking office. Just saying.

Fast forward to last week. My kid liked sea chanties before they were cool, and we’ve listened to a lot of them on YouTube. One of my favorite groups is The Longest Johns. Now just to be clear, I don’t think these fellows have the slightest idea about this upcoming connection. They are folk musicians from the UK, and they perform a large number of folk songs and sea chanties.

Here is a link to Shawneetown, by the Longest Johns.

Last week the algorithm thought I would like to listen to “Shawneetown”. Well, right away I recognized that the song is about Shawneetown Illinois—the ancient (by American standards) town in Little Egypt, near the southern tip of the state of Illinois. A region that holds a special place in my heart. If for no other reason than it is the best place in the world to set a Call of Cthulhu campaign. And, my wife is from Southern Illinois, and I’ve spent a lot of time there.

According to this fan site, the song Shawneetown is a 1970’s folk song written around some fragments of song preserved from the keelboat era of the early 1800s.

So, I’m listening to the song, for the first time, and yes, it is about Southern Illinois—or at least traveling down the Ohio River. In the song, the travelers are going to Shawneetown to sell produce and buy rock salt.

Where did the Shawneetown rock salt come from?

Remember those salt mines?  There is a route from the mines to the nearby Ohio River and Shawneetown. (Actually, now it’s Old Shawneetown. They moved the town after some flooding during the Great Depression.)

Here’s a picture of the Bank in Old Shawneetown from when I visited about ten years ago. There is not much left in town, but this building is still standing. It was built before the American Civil War and stored money associated with the salt trade.

In the early 1800s, the sale of rock salt was filling the Shawneetown Bank vaults with money. This trade was still being referenced in folk songs 150-years-later. And half-a-century on the song is sung by a popular band in Great Britain. And through all of this, people don’t mention that the rock salt was boiled out of the water of the Saline River by Illinois slaves.

I don’t think this requires any action on the part of the reader. I just feel that people should be aware of Illinois slavery. We should remember that people with money can write for themselves exceptions in just about any rule or law. This has been happening for a very long time, and unless continuous action and vigilance is taken, it will continue happening in the future.

As always, thank you for taking the time to read this and your comments and questions are always welcome.