Lasselle v. State,
Harrison County

The 1820 Indiana Supreme Court Case State v. Lasselle centered upon Polly Strong, a black woman enslaved in Vincennes, Indiana, who asserted her freedom from her master, Hyacinthe Lasselle. Before reaching the Indiana Supreme Court, the case was first tried in Knox County as Polly v. Lasselle. The suit began after Polly’s lawyer, Amory Kinney, petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, which the court granted on July 15, 1818, “directing Lasselle to bring Jim and Polly to the court to explain why he held them against their will.” [1] Jim was another enslaved person whom Lasselle had inherited from his father. [2] However, his case did not make it to the Indiana Supreme Court.

Lasselle contended that he held Polly as an indentured servant, not as a slave. However, the indenture contract Polly had signed was a direct response to the writ of habeas corpus, dated two days after the court’s order. The date, along with the fact that Polly continued to pursue legal action after the contract was signed, showed that the document was a fraudulent attempt by Lasselle to avoid further legal action. [3] Furthermore, Polly’s lawyer argued that she had most likely signed the indenture under duress. As Kinney stated during the court proceedings, Polly “was imprisoned by the said Hyacinthe Lasselle and others in collusion with him […] until by the force and duress of imprisonment,” she signed the indenture. [4]

Prior to statehood in 1816, Indiana Territory operated under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established rules of governance for all territory northwest of the Ohio River. Article Six of the Northwest Ordinance stated that “there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.” [5] However, the Knox County Circuit Court ultimately ruled in favor of Lasselle, claiming that because Polly’s mother had been enslaved before the passage of the Northwest Ordinance, Polly had been born a slave and as such, her status was grandfathered in. [6] With this ruling, the court refused to acknowledge the authority of the Northwest Ordinance and the Indiana Constitution of 1816 to emancipate anyone already enslaved before the adoption of either document.

In 1820, the case was appealed and argued before the Indiana Supreme Court as State v. Lasselle, although Polly and Kinney were still the plaintiffs. The Indiana Supreme Court had only been established three years earlier, and State v. Lasselle was the Court’s first time hearing a case on the issue of slavery. [7] During this trial, Lasselle abandoned the argument that Polly was his indentured servant and instead claimed that he had the right to keep any enslaved people purchased before the Treaty of Greenville of 1795. [8] Lasselle’s attorney argued that before the passage of the treaty, the territory was still occupied by Native Americans, and thus not subject to any federal legislation such as the Northwest Ordinance. [9] Therefore, Lasselle claimed that because Polly had been born into slavery before the Treaty of Greenville, her enslaved status had been grandfathered in and could not be altered by the passage of any later legal code.

The Indiana Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Lasselle’s argument of his “preexisting right” to own Polly, reversing the ruling of the Knox County Circuit Court and declaring Polly free. [10] She was also “awarded $26.12 in costs for her trouble.” [11] The Court found that the 1816 Indiana Constitution’s prohibition of slavery applied to Polly’s case, immediately emancipating her as well as all other enslaved people in Indiana. Justice James Scott’s opinion states that “it is evident that by these provisions, the framers of our Constitution intended a total and entire prohibition of slavery in this State; and we can conceive of no form of words in which that intention could have been more clearly expressed.” [12]

While State v. Lasselle was being argued before the Indiana Supreme Court, the nation was also facing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the issue of the expansion of slavery into new states. In order to maintain a balanced Congress, the Missouri Compromise admitted Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. It also banned the creation of any new slave states north of the latitude 36°30′. While this measure solved the immediate problem, it marked the beginning of the road towards the Civil War and the struggle between the North and the South over the expansion of slavery. This temporary solution “all but determined that the United States would never peaceably solve the problem of slavery’s expansion.” [13] The issue of slavery was not solved at a national level until the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, but the decision in State v. Lasselle ensured that slavery would be abolished in Indiana more than 40 years before Lincoln’s definitive executive order.

State v. Lasselle was one of the final blows against slavery in Indiana. The decision set an important precedent for later cases regarding slavery and indentured servitude in the state, establishing the Indiana Supreme Court’s “remarkably strong and usually steady affirmation of human rights” throughout the nineteenth century. [14] The case is also an early example of the importance of the legal system in the fight for civil rights. Courts have been some of the most decisive battlegrounds in the civil rights movement, with individuals like Polly able to sue for equal treatment under the law. In Indiana and across the nation, the courts became integral during the modern civil rights movement, forcing the issue on desegregation and equal opportunity in such famous cases as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and Loving v. Virginia.

This court case is commemorated with an Indiana Historical Bureau historical marker, installed in 2016, on the site of the first Indiana State Capital building in Harrison County.

[1] Paul Finkelman, "Almost a Free State: The Indiana Constitution of 1816 and the Problem of Slavery," Indiana Magazine of History 111, no. 1 (2015): 79.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 82.
[4] Polly v. Lasselle, 90 116 4F, 2104 (Knox Co. 1818).
[5] “Northwest Ordinance”, July 13, 1787; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M332, roll 9); Miscellaneous Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789; Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789, Record Group 360; National Archives.
[6] Paul Finkelman, "Almost a Free State: The Indiana Constitution of 1816 and the Problem of Slavery," Indiana Magazine of History 111, no. 1 (2015): 83.
[7] Sandra Boyd Williams, “The Indiana Supreme Court and the Struggle Against Slavery,” Indiana Law Review 30, (1997): 305.
[8] Paul Finkelman, "Almost a Free State: The Indiana Constitution of 1816 and the Problem of Slavery," Indiana Magazine of History 111, no. 1 (2015): 84.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Randall T. Shepard, “For Human Rights: Slave Cases and the Indiana Supreme Court,” Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History 15, no. 3 (2003): 36. [12] State v. Lasselle, (Indiana Supreme Court, 1820).
[13] John Craig Hammond, Slavery, Freedom, and Expansion in the Early American West (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007). 8.

Student Authors: Allison Hunt and Jordan Girard
Faculty/Staff Editors: Dr. Ronald V. Morris, Dr. Kevin C. Nolan, and Christine Thompson
Graduate Assistant Researchers: Carrie Vachon and JB Bilbrey

PHOTOS
"Polly Strong Slavery Case markers" courtesy of Indiana Historical Bureau
"Justice James Scott" courtsey of Indiana Historical Bureau
"1801 Map of the Northwest Territory" courtesy of Indiana Historical Society
"Portrait of Hyacinthe Lasselle" courtesy of Indiana State Museum