Mary Bateman Clark

The documentary, Mary Bateman Clark: A Woman of Colour and Courage, tells the story of her life and fight for freedom.

For instance, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle traveled through the area with a Shawnee slave.

Native American and Black enslaved people were bought and sold in slave markets in New Orleans and Canada.

[1][a] Those who were pro-slavery tried to perform an end run around the Indiana constitution by putting in place indentured servitude under which slaves, in theory, appeared to be able earn their freedom.

[2][3] Many of the slaveholders were influential men like civic and religious leaders, businessmen, and lawyers,[3] who sanctioned going around the law to keep their bondservants.

[6][b] She was a teenager living in Kentucky in 1814, when she was sold to Benjamin J. Harrison, who took her north January of the following year to Vincennes in Indiana Territory.

[4][6][c] Harrison forced Clark to sign an agreement, that she could not read, that required her to remain his servant for 30 years.

[7] This was a landmark contract law case for indentured servants and foretold the end of forced labor in Indiana.

The seven known children were born between 1820 and 1837: Mary Eliza Brewer, George, William G. W., Frances, John S., Lovina Mariah Reynolds, and Maria Rollins.