Notes from the Road with Caroline Kisiel

Past Meets Present in Equality, Illinois 

If we listen closely, can we hear the voices from early Illinois history?
If so, what are they telling us…and in 2024, why should we care?

This was not history I had ever learned attending Illinois schools, and it bumped up against my understanding that Illinois was always a free state. We’re the “Land of Lincoln,” the champions of freedom… right? 

History has gotten a bad rap for being dry and irrelevant to present-day concerns. It has also recently come under attack. Two hundred years after this early Illinois controversy – in a time when we are bombarded by headlines about innumerable controversies daily – events in the long-ago past often pale in comparison. But I feel passionate that this notion is far from the truth! Where this has come to life for me is in archival records of direct communications about the 1823-1824 Illinois slavery controversy. In searching for a creative way to bring the Constitutional Convention moment in Illinois history to life, the idea of harnessing voices in a performance came to mind. By combining historical research with my storytelling and performance background I have sought to embody some of the voices from each side of this controversy through primary source documents such as newspaper editorials, speeches, and personal letters. In hearing three proslavery and three antislavery voices from this controversy, my hope is that one of the most significant and forgotten historical struggles in Illinois history is brought to life… and brought back into relevance. 

Why should we care about listening to their voices in 2024? After all, the voters of 1824 Illinois voted the measure down – Illinois kept its “free state” constitution, and the rest is two hundred years of history. Or is it?  

Consider: had voters gone the other way, this could have shifted the balance of power toward the further entrenchment of the institution of slavery in the 1820s United States. Had Illinois declared it would permit slavery outright via its constitution, this could have paved the way for other proslavery leaders in northern states who were favorable to slavery to push for similar changes, looking to Illinois as an example. What could that have meant to our nation’s trajectory leading up to the start of the Civil War in 1861? Could this have even led to a different outcome of the Civil War?

The far-southern region of Illinois was remote in the nineteenth century and might still be considered remote today. As I drove the nearly six hours from my home in northern Illinois, ominous midsummer storm clouds across open fields were more than a little concerning, and thunder and lightning in the dark forced me to wait out the storm, lest I was caught unaware by a sudden tornado. Spotty cell reception meant relying on the GPS of instinct. It occurred to me that this would have been the GPS of the early nineteenth-century antislavery champions I present in my talk, who forged ahead despite the odds of a mostly proslavery legislature.

My hosts were gracious and took me to sites in the region where the salt was produced and where the enslaved were managed. We also paid a visit to the Gallatin County Courthouse, where a WPA-era mural is installed behind the judge’s bench in the county courtroom, depicting enslaved workers engaged in salt production. In another example of past meeting present, I was told that as recently as five years ago an African American who had a court case there expressed that they did not feel they could receive a fair trial with this mural on display. In response, the county took measures to install a screen that can be pulled down during hearings. This preserves the important regional history and historical memory, while fostering respect and equality for present-day residents. 

While one audience member came to my presentation to learn the history, they informed me they knew of others who refused to come because of the title of the talk. While I know an aspect of my title can be provocative, it is meant to be an invitation for all of us – can we think beyond the language and open ourselves to what can be learned from the sincere question I ask of our history?

On the other hand, several people had traveled across the state from Belleville to attend, and one gentleman and his wife traveled from Evansville, Indiana. “I was curious about the history of southern Illinois,” stated Bill Elliott of Evansville. “I was not aware of the magnitude of historic salt production in Equality and that slaves were used for the labor-intensive work prior to and in the early years of Illinois statehood.”

After I presented the voices from the past, I asked the question to my present-day audience in Equality on that steamy day in July 2023: “So… did Black lives matter in early Illinois?”  

A resounding “No!” erupted from the audience! With my Professor Hat on I reminded everyone of the complexities of the time, and of Illinois’s antislavery leaders who were instrumental in this controversy at keeping slavery at bay in our state… but I nevertheless appreciated this audience's enthusiasm and felt hopeful about their engagement with history.

James Baldwin tells us: “History is not the past, it’s the present. We carry our history with us, we are our history.” Making connections from past to present, from local community to state, and from state to nation is something we must all be vigilant about today. Instead of something irrelevant or a topic to be feared, history can be our partner as we navigate our world today.