Congress had organized the Northwest Territory in 1787 under the Northwest Ordinance, which had prohibited slavery by stating "that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory".

It was later decided that anyone who purchased a slave outside of the territory could enter and reside there with their slaves.

The Ordinance had also allowed for preexisting French–native slave arrangements.

Many Virginian natives living in the Indian Territory have interpreted the Ordinance as allowing them to have slaves.

The Ordinance states that the Virginians "shall have their possessions and titles confirmed to them, and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties."

Many, therefore, decide to keep slaves.

Fear of French rebellion had kept the courts from acting against slavery, as did the violent actions of those who would kidnap escaped slaves.

A court ruling in the Michigan Territory in 1807 had stated that preexisting slavery could still exist under the Northwest Ordinance, validated Hoosier slaveholding in the opinions of the slaveholders.

Many of the territory's early settlers had come from the South.

Southern immigrants who were anti-slavery had settled in Ohio, where a strong anti-slavery movement is underway.

The immigrants in favor of slavery have generally moved to Indiana, where the government is friendly to slaveholders.

When they relocate to the Indiana Territory, they bring with them what few slaves they own.

An 1810 census records three hundred and ninety-three free blacks and two hundred and thirty-seven slaves in the Indiana Territory.

Knox County, where the territorial capital of Indiana, Vincennes, is located, is the center of Indiana slavery.

A young Army officer named Charles Larrabee, who is serving in Governor William Henry Harrison’s army, categorizes the Vincennes populace as “chiefly from Kentucky and Virginia…slavery is tolerated here.” (McCord, Shirley S. ed. (1970). Travel Accounts of Indiana 1679–1961. Indiana Historical Bureau.)