Wade House

Join us this Saturday, May 25 at 1 p.m. when author Mary Elise Antoine, focusing on the five black women, will explore the history of slavery in the Upper Mississippi River Valley, relying on legal documents, military records, court transcripts, and personal correspondence. Whether through perseverance, self-purchase, or freedom suits—including one suit that was used as precedent in Dred and Harriet Scott’s freedom suits years later—each of these women ultimately secured her freedom, thanks in part to the bonds they forged with one another.

Antoine’s book, Enslaved, Indentured, Free, 1800 to 1850, focuses on a time when the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 made slavery illegal in the territory that would later become Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. However, many Black individuals’ rights were denied by white enslavers who continued to hold them captive in the territory well into the nineteenth century. Enslaved, Indentured, Free shines a light on five extraordinary Black women—Marianne, Mariah, Patsey, Rachel, and Courtney—whose lives intersected in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, during these seminal years.

Mary Elise Antoine is president of the Prairie du Chien Historical Society and former curator at Villa Louis. She is the author of The War of 1812 in Wisconsin and coeditor, with Lucy Murphy, of Frenchtown Chronicles of Prairie du Chien.

This Taproom Talk will take place at the Wade House Visitor Center located at W7965 Hwy. 23 in Greenbush, WI, halfway between Sheboygan and Fond du Lac. Admission for the lecture is $7 per adult and teens; $5 for seniors and children (5 to 12) and free for children under 5 years of age. For more information and to book your tickets, please visit our website at wadehouse.org or call 920-526-3271. ... See MoreSee Less