Freetown Village Joins Project As Interpreters

The project partners are pleased to announce that the well-respected living history group, Freetown Village of Indianapolis, will interpret three of the main characters in the Matson/Bryant story: Jane and Anthony Bryant and Lucy Dupee.

Freetown Village's mission is to educate the public about African American lives and culture in Indiana through living history performances, the collection and preservation of artifacts, exhibits and allied programs. Freetown Village, Inc. is a living history museum without walls. The trials, triumphs, and daily life of African Americans are presented through theater, storytelling, folk crafts, heritage workshops, music, day camp, and special events. Since 1982, Freetown Village has presented programs throughout the state of Indiana and to the contiguous Midwestern states reaching well over 1,000,000 children and adults in small and large communities. Programs have been presented in schools, churches, libraries, museums, theaters, centers, parks, hotels, offices, gymnasiums, parades, homes, and for almost every time of event or occasion. For more information about Freetown you can visit their website at: http://www.freetown.org/Freetown/Welcome.html.

Trial & Tribulations participants will meet Freetown interpreters at Independence Pioneer Village as they portray Jane and Anthony Bryant and Lucy Dupee among the historic log buildings in a picturesque setting. Jane will be found in a log house preparing for the family's upcoming journey to Liberia. She will discuss her history, how she and the children were jailed, what happened during the trial and why they made the decision to emigrate to Liberia.

Anthony will be in the church/school building reading his quarto bible and preparing to leave the local African-American religious community he had served. He will talk with visitors about his role as a Methodist "exhorter," his experience in asking for help from the local Methodists, and the actions he took to protect his family.

Lucy Dupee will also be in a log home, helping to make some of the supplies that the Bryant's will need on their trip. She will be able to speak about the local Brushy Fork community, the impact that the Matson Slave Trial had on it, and how Illinois' Black Laws may have influenced the Bryant's decision to leave the country.

The Story of the Matson Slave Trial

The Matson Slave Trial is one of the top five trials in Coles County, one of the ten most important cases in which Abraham Lincoln participated, and was a turning point for the local free black community at Brushy Fork. The conflict began when Robert Matson brought some of his Kentucky slaves to work on his Illinois farm in northern Coles County in 1845. Among those enslaved people were Jane Bryant and her four children. Jane’s husband, Anthony Bryant, was a freedman who worked and lived at the farm, too. Matson’s mistress and housekeeper, Mary Corbin, threatened that the children would be sold south in August 1847. The Bryants chose to heroically fight back, and sought help from Gideon Ashmore in Independence, known today as Oakland. Ashmore enlisted Dr. Hiram Rutherford to provide guidance and financial assistance. They braved publicly declaring their abolitionist leanings, with little regard to the social and legal consequences.

Jane and her four children, ages 3-14, spent fifty-eight days in jail awaiting a circuit court trial to determine if they were fugitives per Illinois’ Black Laws. When the circuit court convened on October 16, 1847 for a hearing on habeas corpus two state Supreme Court justices who were the circuit judges at the time, Abraham Lincoln, a former Illinois Attorney General, a member of Congress, and an Illinois state Senator gathered to participate. The justices decided that the Bryants were free because the Illinois Constitution did not allow slaves to be held on state soil unless in transit. Current scholars believe that the trial may have been arranged to be precedent-setting as it was highly unusual for two circuit court judges to sit a trial and for them to then publish an opinion. Following the trial, the Bryants returned to Oakland for a few months, then sailed for Liberia in January 1848. Their eventual fate is currently unknown, though plans have been laid to do the research in Liberia to determine what happened to them.

The trial and the commotion surrounding it not only affected the Bryants, but also other African-Americans living in the region who were intertwined by circumstance or blood. A small community of African Americans, called Brushy Fork for the river that ran through it, was located about ten miles southwest of the Matson farm. The Lewis James family and Lucy Dupee family, felt the tension and had to make the decision whether to get involved with the Matson enslaved people. They all had ties to Kentucky and Anthony would have been the closest minister to the Brushy Fork group. After the trial, Jane’s brother, Simeon Wilmot, who had been enslaved by Matson, moved into the community first staying with the Edward Minnis family. A man named Isom Bryant and his wife, Lucy Minnis (Edward’s sister) also joined the Brushy Fork community. It is currently unknown as to what his relationship might be with Anthony Bryant but he was from the same county as Matson.

This is the short version of the story, contact the project if you would like a longer description.