Black on the Wisconsin Frontier: From Slavery to Suffrage, 1725-1866

Christy Clark-Pujara

Associate Professor of History in the Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Black Americans were a tiny minority in Wisconsin territory and later the history of the state; nevertheless, the practice of race-based slavery and anxieties about Black migrants led white Wisconsinites to dispute abolition and the rights of Black residents. Enslaved and free Black people lived, labored, and raised families on the Wisconsin frontier. Yet their stories remain largely untold, and history of the state and the region remains incomplete without a full accounting of the African American experience and influence.

Christy Clark-Pujara is an Associate Professor of History in the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island; her current book project is Black on the Midwestern Frontier: From Slavery to Suffrage in the Wisconsin, 1725-1868.

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