“Black Harry” Hoosier: The Story Behind Indiana’s Namesake

On this episode of Our American Stories, Indiana did not choose its nickname so much as grow into it. The term Hoosier appeared in jokes, travel accounts, and frontier banter, yet no one ever agreed on where it started. Despite the uncertainty, the name kept rising to the surface until it became part of the state’s character. What survives is a word tied closely to the people who shaped Indiana in its earliest years. Dr. Stephen Flick explains how a bit of regional language became a lasting identity.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the American Stories podcast, go to the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. How did
Indiana get its nickname as the Hoosier State? And how
did people from Indiana come to be known as Hoosiers.

(00:33):
Here to answer these questions and to tell the story
is doctor Stephen Flick, head of the Christian Heritage Fellowship.
Let's take a listen.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
One such individual that has so deeply influenced our nation
and one state in particular, is a black man, a
black Methodist preacher by the name of Harry Hoosier. John Wesley,
the well known evangelist and father of Methodism, at one

(01:07):
of his conferences in the British Isles in seventeen seventy one,
called for his itinerant ministers to volunteer to go to America.
Among those who volunteered was a young man by the
name of Francis Asbury. In a few short years, Francis

(01:31):
Asbury would rise to the highest office of bishop in America.
Having traveled thousands upon thousands of miles. His face was
more readily recognized than the Father of our nation, George Washington.

(01:51):
It was during the American Revolution that Francis Asbury asked
Harry Hoosier to travel with him him throughout all of
the colonies from New England, the Middle Colonies, and Southern colonies,
and it was there that Harry Hoosier gained a reputation

(02:13):
as the most widely accepted and widely applauded minister of
his day. Harry Hoosier had been born in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
He had been born into slavery. He was purchased by
a Methodist by the name of Henry Gough, and mister

(02:36):
Gough invited his slaves as well as those white inhabitants
of his plantation in the Baltimore area, to prayers both
morning and evening, and it was out of this setting
that mister Gough freed Harry Hoosier. As the first most

(03:00):
anti slavery movement began just prior to the American Revolution,
and it was the Methodist to with the Quakers helped
to champion this cause, and Harry Hoosier was among those
that was the first to be liberated from slavery. After

(03:23):
being liberated, he became the traveling companion of Francis Asbury,
and together they traveled thousands of miles, carrying the Gospel
of Jesus Christ to both black and white. It's very
significant that Harry Hoosier was more widely acclaimed as a

(03:45):
preacher than any other minister, any other preacher, white or black.
In fact, it was one of the three most important
founding fathers, doctor Benjamin Rush, who, along with George Washington
and Benjamin Franklin. Doctor Benjamin Rush was so impressed with

(04:07):
Harry Hoosier's ability as a preacher that he said, making
allowances for his illiteracy, he was the greatest orator in America.
Many of those who heard the preaching of Harry Hoosier
who had been converted as they moved out of the

(04:32):
Appalachian Mountains and moved west, there located in Indiana. Indiana
became a strong haven for Methodism. Those individuals that located
in Indiana assumed the name of Hoosier's because they had

(04:55):
been so deeply and so thoroughly influenced by the preaching
of Harry Hoosier. Like so many other terms that have arisen,
sometimes out of derision, this term Hoosier was also a
term of derision for those who had come to believe

(05:16):
in the anti slavery message and who made their way
into Indiana and other parts of the burgeoning nation. Professor
William Pearson of Fisk University has said, as memories of
the preacher Black Harry slipped away, and as the white

(05:40):
people of the Frontier adopted the nickname Hoosier for themselves,
the term lost its original racial connotations and came to
means simply an illiterate, ignorant or uncouth yahoo For the
thoul who flocked to hear Harry Hoosier preach, the name

(06:03):
Hoosier was a memorial to both the man and his
message of freedom from human bondage and freedom from the
bondage of sin. People from Indiana should take pride in
having the most distinctive state nickname, but they may justly

(06:24):
exercise greater appreciation for the person whose name it was.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
And a terrific job on the production by Greg Hangler.
In a special thanks to doctor Stephen Flick, head of
the Christian Heritage Fellowship, for sharing Harry Hoosier's story. Born
into slavery in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Harry was freed by
a slave owner in Baltimore, Maryland. He would go on
to travel the country preaching the gospel. No less an

(06:56):
authority than doctor Benjamin Rush was impressed his man. Well.
His name was memorialized, as was his message, and of
course the name for anyone who was listening, meant freedom
from human bondage and freedom from human sin. The story
of Harry Hoosier here on our American Story. Here are

(07:30):
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