Robert Rea speaks again.

This appeared in an article in the Madison,Indiana Courier. It was a theatrical performance with an actor playing the part of Sheriff Robert Rea.

Robert Right Rea didn't start getting his side of the story out until 150 years after he was the sheriff of Jefferson County. As sheriff, he chased down and captured runaway slaves much like he also caught loose cattle or horses when the need arose.

"You're expected to uphold all laws whether you agreed with them or not," Rea said Saturday at one of the Black History Month celebrations, which include re-enactments. He clearly agreed with the anti-slave laws.

He was introduced by events organizer Sue Livers, who slyly told the audience of 15 that she was so sorry that the scheduled speaker, Dennis Jorgensen, was unable to attend, so Sheriff Rea would speak instead.

Rea gave a different perspective than is usually heard about what he said was the attitude of the majority of residents of pre-Civil War Madison, which was across the river from a slave state but was in a state where slave ownership was illegal.

Rea's family moved to Madison when he was 16 in 1816 from North Carolina. His family wasn't in the class that owned slaves, he said. Many residents of Madison also had moved from the South, but they also weren't necessarily anti-slavery, Rea said.

"What we were was anti-Negro because where we came from, the Negro was taking our jobs," Rea said, saying it was cheaper to buy slaves than to hire local people.

And in Rea's view, there wasn't anything wrong with his sometimes getting paid a bounty for catching slaves and returning them to their owners. If his deputies caught slaves, he shared the bounty, he related with pride.

The Constitution even required the return to rightful owners any people - the word slave wasn't used - "held to service or labor" in one state who escaped to another.

Only a very small minority of Jefferson County residents was anti-slavery, and the abolition movement was not the highest priority, Rea said.

The temperance movement was much bigger, he said.

"We're more concerned in Indiana about drinking than we are slavery," he said.

Emancipation also was a bigger issue than abolition, he said.

"Can you imagine what would ever happen if a woman ever got the right to vote?" he said.

Rea gave a history lesson about the politics of the time and justified his actions, telling about the Fugitive Slave Law and an Indiana law that made it illegal for blacks to move into the state. Those already here when the law was passed could stay, but newcomers were breaking the law.

Keeping up with who belonged and who didn't was why he owned a livery stable on Walnut Street in the Georgetown section of Madison, Rea said. Georgetown today is a historic district, with a marker at Fifth and Jefferson streets. Rea spoke Saturday in Georgetown at the A.M.E. Church building on Fifth Street, which is owned by Historic Madison Inc.

Rea said that despite news accounts at the time and the history that was written about Madison of his day, he was not universally hated.

"I was criticized by a few, but I've also been applauded by many," Rea said.

Rea answered questions from the audience, and this is a time when people like to try to trip-up re-enactors. Goaded by Livers, HMI executive director John Staicer asked Rea his wife's name.

There was a blank look on his face, but he quickly recovered and said, "For her protection ...," but didn't get to finish saying that he wouldn't divulge her name because the audience was laughing so much.

John Hutchinson, who was in the audience, asked Rea if he recalled anything about Underwood Cemetery, which is on the hilltop behind the garbage the transfer station. Rea said no, not really.

Hutchinson is descended from Rea's sister. Underwood is where several of Hutchinson's ancestors and their families are buried - including Sheriff Rea.

Livers is never far removed from the character she portrays, Patsy Ann Harris, a real person who was the wife of Rev. Chapman Harris, another real person who was a black pastor and a blacksmith, and was a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

After Rea had left the A.M.E. Church building with Jorgensen's wife, Ginger, Livers was in full Patsy Ann Harris mode as she talked to Staicer and a reporter, furious about the things Rea had said but saying she was trying to understand his point of view