MS01.01.03.B02.F10.025

-21- [struck: 16]

Duncanson was determined to become an artist of merit and his aspirations
were to be the greatest landscape artist in America. Since the climate of art,
and consequently its final valuation, is always affected by the physical environment
from which its patronage is drawn, there existed, without a doubt, an
ambivalent notion in the mind of the artist regarding his own acceptance as an
artist of color in a city so readily identified with as many southern causes as
were espoused by northern liberals. Duncan was fully aware of the politics
of the day relevant to slavery and the question of full citizenship for all
Americans regardless of color; thus, he kept abreast of all of the laws and
policies pertaining to the malignant system of human bondage which was sanctioned
by law in all of the Southern states.
Prior to the year 1800, fugitive slaves had sought refuge in what was then
called the Northwestern Territory because of the lack of enforcement of federal
and state laws which required that a run-away slave be sent back to his previous owner. But with the influx of slaves coming north because of the success of the
Undergroud Railroad, whites then saw the fugitive slave as a threat to their
own economic security and rallied for the passage of "Black Laws" which were
strictly binding and above all inhumanely repressive. These laws prohibited
black people from settling in Ohio without proof of freedom. One law in particular
required Blacks on entering the state to post a bond of $500 as assurance
of good behavior and proper citizenship. Few people of color were able to secure [struck: come]
such a large sum of money. Thus the black intellectual population
which even at this early date counted writers, painters and musicians in its
ranks, was relatively small in Cincinnati when Robert S. Duncanson sought to
become a painter.