e out the Negroes who were
becoming too well established in that city and who were giving offense to
white men who desired to deal with them as Negroes were treated in the
South. The city continued in this excited state for about a week. There
were brought into play in the upheaval the police of the city and the
State militia before the shooting of the Negroes and burning of their
homes could be checked. So far as is known, no white men were punished,
although a few of them were arrested. Some Negroes were committed to
prison during the fray. They were thereafter either discharged upon
producing certificates of nativity or giving bond or were indefinitely
held.[44]

In southern Indiana and Illinois the same condition obtained. Observing
the situation in Indiana, a contributor of _Niles Register_ remarked,
in 1818, upon the arrival there of sixty or seventy liberated Negroes sent
by the society of Friends of North Carolina, that they were a species of
population that was not acceptable to the people of that State, "nor
indeed to any other, whether free or slaveholding, for they cannot rise
and become like other men, unless in countries where their own color
predominates, but must always remain a degraded and inferior class of
persons without the hope of much bettering their condition."[45]

The _Indiana Farmer_, voicing the sentiment of that same community,
regretted the increase of this population that seemed to be enlarging the
number sent to that territory. The editor insisted that the community
which enjoys the benefits of the blacks' labor should also suffer all the
consequences. Since the people of Indiana derived no advantage from
slavery, he begged that they be excused from its inconveniences. Most of
the blacks that migrated there, moreover, possessed, thought he, "feelings
quite unprepared to make good citizens. A sense of inferiority early
impressed on their minds, destitute of every thing but bodily power and
having no character to lose, and no prospect of acquiring one, even did
they know its value, they are prepared for the commission of any act, when
the prospect of evading punishment is favorable."[46]

With the exception of such centers as Eden, Upper Alton, Bellville and
Chicago, this antagonistic attitude was general also in the State of
Illinois. The Negroes were despised, abused and maltreated as persons who
had no rights that the white man should respect. Even in Detroit,
Michigan, in 1833 a fraca