In the 1830s, an influx of families, predominantly from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, moved to Jackson County on the western edge of the United States. Many of them brought with them enslaved individuals, some of whom had served these white families for generations.
The institution of slavery was paramount to the success of this planter class, but the way in which the institution was structured was quite different from the large, sprawling plantations of the South.
In general, this is not the way that slavery looked in western Missouri. To be clear, this doesn’t mean it was any less harsh or acceptable. These settlers who chose Jackson County as their home brought with them a few enslaved who didn’t choose to move. This small slaveholding structure was the backbone of many of these early settlers’ lives…