Georgetown Historic District

Located in Madison, Indiana, the Georgetown neighborhood, now known as the Georgetown District, became home to free African Americans as early as 1820. [1] Madison is situated directly on the Indiana-Kentucky border at the Ohio River, and Georgetown “became a place in which many freedom seekers found a community of safe houses and conductors willing to give them aid to reach the next station toward freedom.” [2] Eventually, the neighborhood would develop into the central hive of Madison’s bustling Underground Railroad activity, becoming an “important settlement of free Blacks who assisted hundreds of enslaved African Americans to freedom.” [3]

Across several decades, Georgetown’s African American community continued to grow. In the 1820 census, there were 48 free black families listed as living in Madison, and by 1850, the number had increased to 298. [4] Along with the population increase came the additions of several black-run institutions including schools, churches, and businesses. [5] Several free black Georgetown business owners rose to a place of prominence in the community during this time, and used their influence to aid freedom seekers north along the Underground Railroad.

One such prominent resident was George DeBaptiste, who settled in Madison in 1837. Immediately upon his arrival, he protested against racist legislation by contesting an 1831 Indiana act which required new black residents entering the state to pay 500 dollars as “a bond for good behavior and self-support.” [6] After successfully suing to reside in Indiana without paying the bond, DeBaptiste conducted a wholesale shipping business between Madison and Cincinnati. Through this venture, he met William Henry Harrison, who hired him to be “steward of the White House” during his presidency. [7] After Harrison’s death, DeBaptiste returned to Madison and operated a barbershop for six years on the corner of Walnut and Second Streets. During this time, the barbershop was the heart of Underground Railroad activities in Madison. [8] Through these brave efforts, “DeBaptiste estimated that he personally assisted 108 fugitives to freedom, and several times that number indirectly.” [9]

Despite the relative size and success of the free black community, life for residents of Georgetown was not easy. Free African Americans were harassed persistently, facing discrimination at every turn. [10] Furthermore, the Georgetown neighborhood’s connection to the Underground Railroad had long been suspected. In 1846, a mob of slave owners crossed the border from Kentucky and, joined by pro-slavery allies from Madison, violently raided the homes of several black families in Georgetown. [11] The mob “took it upon themselves to search the homes of free African Americans for fugitive slaves and weapons,” [12] and any who resisted were “nearly beat to death.” [13] Several prominent community members, including George DeBaptiste, fled northward to continue their work as conductors in the Underground Railroad under safer circumstances. Although the neighborhood faced white vigilante attacks and the loss of some key leaders, “the system that DeBaptiste and his collaborators built continued to flourish” in Georgetown. [14]

Madison’s Georgetown neighborhood is representative of African American-led Underground Railroad networks across the nation. While the overall population of Madison was overwhelmingly white, the residents of Georgetown had carved out a small, thriving community for themselves. This neighborhood, like in many other black-led nodes of Underground Railroad work, allowed those escaping from slavery a method of camouflage “by blending in with the people around them.” [15] Community leaders like George DeBaptiste in cities across the United States were able to use their wealth, connections, and prominence to help propel freedom seekers northward while hiding their enterprise in plain sight.

The Georgetown neighborhood continued on as a black community nestled within white Madison well into the twentieth century. Madison was heavily segregated, with its black residents restricted to their own residential section, their own school, and their own churches. [16] Madison’s black citizens were not allowed to eat in restaurants, sit with their white peers in theaters, or even be admitted into the main area of the town’s hospital; instead, there were “two rooms in the basement set aside for black patients; if they were filled, no blacks could be admitted.” [17] Only when residents of the Georgetown neighborhood conducted their own sit-in protests modeled after those conducted in the South by civil rights activists in the 1960s was the town finally desegregated. [18] While many of the historic landmarks like churches and the houses of Underground Railroad conductors still stand as a testament to the Georgetown neighborhood’s black history, the black families who remain in Madison have now expanded their community across the entire city, taking advantage of the equal access they finally achieved.

[1] “The Story of Georgetown District in Madison, Indiana.” UNDERGROUND NETWORK TO FREEDOM, Indiana DNR. Accessed March 1, 2019.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Georgetown Historical Interpretive Walking Tour. Madison, IN: Historic Madison, 2018.
[5] “The Story of Georgetown District in Madison, Indiana.” UNDERGROUND NETWORK TO FREEDOM, Indiana DNR. Accessed March 1, 2019.
[6] Earl E. McDonald, “The Negro in Indiana Before 1881,” Indiana Magazine of History 27, no. 4 (1931): 297.
[7] “The Story of Georgetown District in Madison, Indiana.” UNDERGROUND NETWORK TO FREEDOM, Indiana DNR. Accessed March 1, 2019.
[8] John T. Windle. National Register of Historic Places Nomination Madison Historic District. Madison, IN. Historic Madison Inc, 1970
[9] Fergus M. Bordewich, “Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America’s First Civil Rights Movement (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 3.
[10] National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Georgetown Historical Interpretive Walking Tour. Madison, IN: Historic Madison, 2018.
[11] Fergus M. Bordewich, “Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America’s First Civil Rights Movement (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 205.
[12] National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Georgetown Historical Interpretive Walking Tour. Madison, IN: Historic Madison, 2018.
[13] Fergus M. Bordewich, “Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America’s First Civil Rights Movement (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 205.
[14] Fergus M. Bordewich, “Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America’s First Civil Rights Movement (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 206.
[15] National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Georgetown Historical Interpretive Walking Tour. Madison, IN: Historic Madison, 2018.
[16] Don Wallis, All We Had Was Each Other: The Black Community of Madison, Indiana, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), xi.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Don Wallis, “The Struggle Makes You Strong: The Black Community of Madison, Indiana,” Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History 11, no. 3 (1999): 29.

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

PHOTO & VIDEO
Sherman Minton Birthplace, attributed to Nyttend, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sherman_Minton_Birthplace.jpg