Bring It On! – June 12, 2023: Lick Creek and Roberts Settlement – First Free African American Settlers in Orange County, IN, Pt. 2

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This week, on Bring It On!, hosts, Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell, continue their conversation about Lick Creek. Last week, they spoke with Diana Daniels, a descendant of Lick Creek Settlement, founded by the first African American settlers, who came to Orange County, Indiana five years before the County was established and Indiana became a state. These settlers were free citizens who fled racial persecution and increasingly restrictive laws for free blacks in their previous homes in North Carolina. Traveling with the Quakers offered some protection on their journey and the promise of supportive neighbors upon their arrival. By 1855, the settlement reached its maximum size of 1,557 acres.

This week, they have Diana Daniels joined by LaVella Hyter, a descendant of the Roberts Settlement. The Roberts Settlement was an early rural settlement in Hamilton County, Indiana. Dating from the 1830s, its first settlers were free people of color, most of whom migrated from Beech Settlement, located 40 miles southeast in rural Rush County, Indiana. Many of Roberts Settlement’s early pioneers were born in eastern North Carolina and Virginia. Some of its settlers were ex-slaves. The neighborhood received its name from the large contingent of its residents with the Roberts surname.

By the 1870s the farming community had a population of approximately 300 residents. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the settlement’s population began to decline, largely due to changing economic conditions that included rising farming costs. Fewer than six families remained at the settlement by the mid-1920s. Most of Indiana’s early black rural settlements, including Roberts Settlement, no longer exist. The Roberts Chapel, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, serves as the site for the community’s annual reunions of its friends and the descendants of former residents. Here to shed more light upon the Roberts Settlement is LaVella Hyter.

Credits:
Today’s hosts are Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell.
Bring It On’s Executive Producer is Clarence Boone.
Our Assistant Producer is Liz Mitchell.
The Show Consultant and WFHB News Department Director is Kade Young.
The Program Engineer is Chantalle LaFontant.
The original theme music was created by Jamyl Efiom, with additional background tracks by David Baker