Black Handyman

Based on the movie dialogue, it sounds as though he was born slave and lived as a slave long enough to be separated from his wife and children. Under slavery a slave's children were property that belonged to the slave's master.

It is not clear how Enoch gained his freedom. Again from the dialogue, it sounds as though he ran, escaping on his own or with help. However, it made no difference. Should the Raiders capture any Negro (we say African - American today, they used that infamous pejorative that polite people eschew today) they would take him south into slavery, if they didn't kill him or her outright. After all, they were raiding and Negroes were considered "livestock."

He had to have been free. Well before the 1860s, (1) Indiana was a free state, and (2) Quakers in good standing could not own slaves.




*****
We are doomed.

I just finished watching this movie. He said, when he decided to fight the Rebs along with Anthony Perkins, that he wanted to fight because as a runaway slave they would either take him back or kill him, and he wanted to go down fighting.