Fugitive slaves in the United States
In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th centuries to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called freedom seekers to avoid implying that the enslaved person had committed a crime and that the slaveholder was the injured party.[1]
Generally, they tried to reach states or territories where slavery was banned, including Canada, or, until 1821, Spanish Florida. Most slave laws tried to control slave travel by requiring them to carry official passes if traveling without an enslaver.
Passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 increased penalties against runaway slaves and those who aided them. Because of this, some freedom seekers left the United States altogether, traveling to Canada or Mexico. Approximately 100,000 enslaved Americans escaped to freedom.[2][3]
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Slavery |
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Laws
Beginning in 1643, slave laws were enacted in
Over time, the states began to divide into
Constitution
Legislators from the Southern United States were concerned that free states would protect people who fled slavery.[4] The
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 is the first of two federal laws that allowed for runaway slaves to be captured and returned to their enslavers. Congress passed the measure in 1793 to enable agents for enslavers and state governments, including free states, to track and capture bondspeople. They were also able to penalize individuals with a $500 (equivalent to $11,390 in 2023) fine if they assisted slaves in their escape.[4] Slave hunters were obligated to obtain a court-approved affidavit in order to apprehend an enslaved individual, giving rise to the formation of an intricate network of safe houses commonly known as the Underground Railroad.[4]
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, part of the Compromise of 1850, was a federal law that declared that all fugitive slaves should be returned to their enslavers. Because the slave states agreed to have California enter as a free state, the free states agreed to pass the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Congress passed the act on September 18, 1850, and repealed it on June 28, 1864. The act strengthened the federal government's authority in capturing fugitive slaves. The act authorized federal marshals to require free state citizen bystanders to aid in the capturing of runaway slaves. Many free state citizens perceived the legislation as a way in which the federal government overstepped its authority because the legislation could be used to force them to act against abolitionist beliefs. Many free states eventually passed "personal liberty laws", which prevented the kidnapping of alleged runaway slaves; however, in the court case known as Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the personal liberty laws were ruled unconstitutional because the capturing of fugitive slaves was a federal matter in which states did not have the power to interfere.[7]
Many free state citizens were outraged at the criminalization of actions by Underground Railroad operators and abolitionists who helped people escape slavery. It is considered one of the causes of the American Civil War (1861–1865). Congress repealed the Fugitive Acts of 1793 and 1850 on June 28, 1864.[4]
State laws
Many states tried to nullify the acts or prevent the capture of escaped enslaved people by setting up laws to protect their rights. The most notable is the Massachusetts Liberty Act. This act was passed to keep escaped slaves from being returned to their enslavers through abduction by federal marshals or bounty hunters.[8] Wisconsin and Vermont also enacted legislation to bypass the federal law. Abolitionists became more involved in Underground Railroad operations.[4]
Pursuit
Advertisements and rewards
Enslavers were outraged when an enslaved person was found missing, many of them believing that slavery was good for the enslaved person, and if they ran away, it was the work of abolitionists, with one enslaver arguing that "They are indeed happy, and if let alone would still remain so".[9] (A new name was invented for the supposed mental illness of an enslaved person that made them want to run away: drapetomania.) Enslavers would put up flyers, place advertisements in newspapers, offer rewards, and send out posses to find them. Under the Fugitive Slave Act, enslavers could send federal marshals into free states to kidnap them. The law also brought bounty hunters into the business of returning enslaved people to their enslavers; a former enslaved person could be brought back into a slave state to be sold back into slavery if they were without freedom papers. In 1851, there was a case of a black coffeehouse waiter who federal marshals kidnapped on behalf of John Debree, who claimed to be the man's enslaver.[10]
Capture
Enslavers often harshly punished those they successfully recaptured, such as by amputating limbs, whipping, branding, and hobbling.[11]
Individuals who aided fugitive slaves were charged and punished under this law. In the case of Ableman v. Booth, the latter was charged with aiding Joshua Glover's escape in Wisconsin by preventing his capture by federal marshals. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was unconstitutional, requiring states to violate their laws. Ableman v. Booth was appealed by the federal government to the US Supreme Court, which upheld the act's constitutionality.[12]
The Underground Railroad
The
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Network to Freedom map, in and outside of the United States |
In 1786,
Fellow enslaved people often helped those who had run away. They gave signals, such as the lighting of a particular number of lamps, or the singing of a particular song on Sunday, to let escaping people know if it was safe to be in the area or if there were slave hunters nearby. If the freedom seeker stayed in a slave cabin, they would likely get food and learn good hiding places in the woods as they made their way north.[15]
Hiding places called "stations" were set up in private homes, churches, and schoolhouses in border states between slave and free states.
The network extended throughout the United States—including
Harriet Tubman
One of the most notable runaway slaves of
Notable people
Notable people who gained or assisted others in gaining freedom via the Underground Railroad include:
- Henry "Box" Brown
- 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry. He had a hidden room in his tannery building for fugitive slaves.
- Owen Brown, father of John Brown
- Elizabeth Margaret Chandler
- Levi Coffin
- Frederick Douglass
- Calvin Fairbank
- Thomas Garrett
- Shields Green
- Laura Smith Haviland
- Lewis Hayden
- Josiah Henson
- Isaac Hopper
- Roger Hooker Leavitt
- Samuel J. May
- Dangerfield Newby
- John Parker
- John Wesley Posey
- John Rankin
- Alexander Milton Ross
- David Ruggles
- Samuel Seawell
- James Lindsay Smith
- William Still
- Sojourner Truth
- Harriet Tubman
- Charles Augustus Wheaton
Communities
Colonial America
- Spanish Florida
- Fort Mose
- British Florida
United States
- List of Freedmen's towns
Civil War
- Camp Greene (Washington, D.C.) - Civil war camp
- Theodore Roosevelt Island - Civil war camp
Canada
- Africville - Nova Scotia
- Birchtown - Nova Scotia
- Dawn settlement- Ontario
- Elgin settlement- Ontario
- Fort Malden - Ontario
- Queen's Bush - Ontario
See also
- Abolitionism
- Maroon (people), African refugees who escaped slavery in the Americas and formed settlements
- Slave Trade Compromise and Fugitive Slave Clause
References
- ^ "Language of Slavery - Underground Railroad (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved 2021-06-22.
- ^ Renford, Reese (2011). "Canada; The Promised Land for Slaves". Western Journal of Black Studies. 35 (3): 208–217.
- Washington Post. Retrieved 2019-02-20.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Fugitive Slave Acts". History.com. February 11, 2008. Retrieved 2021-06-22.
- ^ "Slavery and the Making of America. The Slave Experience: Legal Rights & Gov't". www.thirteen.org. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
- ^ "Article I, Section 9, Constitution Annotated". Congress.gov, Library of Congress. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
- ISBN 9780312648831.
- ^ [1] Archived October 10, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Reid, JosephB.; Reeder, Henry R. (1838). Trial of Rev. John B. Mahan, for felony : in the Mason Circuit Court of Kentucky : commencing on Tuesday, the 13th, and terminating on Monday the 19th of November, 1838. Cincinnati. p. 4.
- ^ Schwarz, Frederic D. American Heritage, February/March 2001, Vol. 52 Issue 1, p. 96
- ^ Bland, Lecater (200). Voices of the Fugitives: Runaway Slave Stories and Their Fictions of Self Creation Greenwood Press, [ISBN missing][page needed]
- ^ [2] Archived November 20, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c d e f "Underground Railroad". HISTORY. Retrieved 2021-06-22.
- ^ IHB (2020-12-15). "The Underground Railroad". IHB. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
- ISBN 9780766070141. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
- JSTOR 27766856.
- ^ a b Greenspan, Jesse. "6 Strategies Harriet Tubman and Others Used to Escape Along the Underground Railroad". HISTORY. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
- ^ a b "What is the Underground Railroad?". U.S. National Park Service. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
- ^ Reese, Renford (2011). "Canada; The Promised Land for Slaves". Western Journal of Black Studies.
- ^ a b c "Harriet Tubman". Biography. Retrieved 2021-06-23.
- ^ "Myths & Facts about Harriet Tubman" (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved 2021-06-22.
Sources
- Baker, H. Robert (November 2012). "The Fugitive Slave Clause and the Antebellum Constitution". Law and History Review. 30 (4): 1133–1174. S2CID 145241006.
External links
- Maap.columbia.edu Archived 2016-04-20 at the Wayback Machine
- Spartacus-educational.com
- Nps.gov
- Slavenorth.com
- Pbs.org
- Slaveryamerica.org
- Freedom on the Move (FOTM), a database of Fugitives from American Slavery
- Library.thinkquest.org
- Query.nytimes.com
- Wicourts.gov
- Eca.state.gov
- "Millard Fillmore on the Fugitive Slave and Kansas-Nebraska Acts: Original Letter"[permanent dead link], Shapell Manuscript Foundation