Fugitive slave

“ Thirteen years ago, I came to your door, a weary fugitive from chains and stripes. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was hungry, and you fed me. Naked was I, and you clothed me. Even a name by which to be known among men, slavery had denied me. ”

“ It has been to shew the reader the hand of God with a slave; and to elicit your sympathy in behalf of the fugitive slave, by shewing some of the untold dangers and hardships through which he has to pass to gain liberty, and how much he needs friends on free soil; and that men who have felt the yoke of slavery, even in its mildest form, cannot be expected to speak of the system otherwise than in terms of the most unqualified condemnation. ”

“ In the Southern part of the United States I was a slave, thought of and spoken of as property. In the language of the law, "held, taken, reputed and adjudged to be chattel in the hands of my owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, or assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatever."—Brev. Digest, 224. In the Northern States, a fugitive slave, liable to be hunted at any moment like a felon, and to be hurried into the terrible jaws of slavery—doomed by an inveterate prejudice against color to insult and outrage in every hand. ”

“ Nor is it true, that the fugitive slave is made an "outlaw," and on that ground justifiable for bloody and murderous resistance of Law. He is under the protection of Law; and if any man injures him or kills him, the Law will avenge him, just as soon as it would you or me. He is not made an outlaw: common sense knows better. ”

“ He may perchance, come across the mangled and lifeless body of some fugitive, which has just been run down and torn in pieces by the dogs of the hunter! Should he stop a few moments, he will soon see a hole dug in the ground, and the remains of the slave pitched into it, covered sufficiently to hide the unsightly mass from view, and there will be an end of the whole matter! ”

“ By the Federal Constitution, fugitives from justice are to be delivered up, and under this constitutional provision, a free negro may be converted into a slave without troubling even a Justice of the Peace to hear the evidence of the captor's claim. A fugitive slave is, of course, a felon—he not only steals himself, but also the rags on his back which belong to his master. It is understood he has taken refuge in New York, and his master naturally wishes to recover him with as little noise, trouble, and delay as possible. ”

“ It has been most wickedly asserted by our proslavery presses and our proslavery politicians, that the surrender of fugitives from labor and fugitives from justice are similar proceedings. The surrender of a fugitive slave involves two questions, that of identity and that of property; and the law makes the decision of the commissioner on both points final and conclusive upon every State and Federal court in the land. The surrender of a fugitive criminal involves only the question of personal identity. ”

“ Perhaps the most common practice, in places where the courts were known to be friendly to slavery, was to arrest a man on some false pretence, and then, when he appeared in court without opportunity to secure papers or witnesses, to claim him as a fugitive slave. Most of these cases occurred in communities bordering upon or near the Southern States. The risk and trouble of transporting slaves across free States were so great, that up to 1850 we seldom hear of kidnapping cases, and rarely of the capture of a genuine fugitive in the New England States. ”

“ They have heard of the buying and selling of men, women and children, without any regard to the tenderest ties of nature; of the passage and execution of the infamous Fugitive Slave Law; and, as we walk through the streets of London, they occasionally meet an American slave, who reminds them of the fact that while their countrymen are boasting of their liberty, and offering an asylum to the exiled of other countries, they refuse it to their own citizens. ”

“ When tried for the deed at New Amsterdam, he received a death sentence.35 In this case, one of the most complete in detail left to us, may be found, in the incidents of escape, pursuit, resistance, and final rendition, all the features of the later fugitive slave cases. It is also an example wherein the laws of the period, which required the rendition of a bound white man in the same manner as a negro slave, were strictly carried out: and in the diverse fates of the four men we find instances probably typical of the fortunes of most fugitives of the time. ”

“ Yet when victims make their escape from this wild beast of Slavery, northerners consent to act the part of blood-hounds, and hunt the poor fugitive back into his den, "full of dead men's bones, and all uncleanness." ”

“ But the thing which more than all else destroyed the fugitive slave law was the resistance made to it by the fugitives themselves. A decided check was given to the execution of the law at Christiana, Penn., where three colored men, being pursued by Mr. Gorsuch and his son, slew the father, wounded the son, and drove away the officers, and made their escape to my house in Rochester. The work of getting these men safely into Canada was a delicate one. They were not only fugitives from slavery but charged with murder, and officers were in pursuit of them. ”

“ More especially, when it is known that the persons employed in this nefarious business of hunting up fugitive slaves are men destitute of principle, whose hearts are callous as flint, and who would send a free man into bondage with as little compunction as they would a slave, if they could do it with impunity. ”

“ If you are fully persuaded that it would be right for you to maim or kill the kidnapper who had laid hands upon your wife, son, or daughter, or should be attempting to drag yourself away to be enslaved, I see not how you can excuse yourself from helping, by the same degree of violence, to rescue the fugitive slave from the like outrage.... ”

“ In the study of public sentiment and for the weighing of argument the speeches of Phillips, Sumner, Seward, Giddings, Webster, Mann, Rantoul, Loring, and others, are of the greatest value. They often throw light upon obscure cases, and the fugitive slave stories brought in as illustrations have sometimes led to the discovery of interesting and forgotten cases. ”

“ In travelling with this man, whose name I will not mention, I had cherished the idea of being my own master; but, returning to the State of Mississippi, my hopes left me for awhile, for it is almost a matter of impossibility for a slave to escape, on account of its situation; and added to that, there are men who do nothing else but hunt fugitive slaves with hounds that are so well trained, that they do, as they advertise, take slaves without scarring them enough to injure their value. ”

“ I dared not murder him, and I dared not let him live. If I killed him, my life must pay the forfeit—if he lived, my life only would satisfy his vengeance. A voice within whispered me to fly. To be a wanderer among the swamps, a fugitive and a vagabond on the face of the earth, was preferable to the life that I was leading.
My resolution was soon formed, and swinging him from the work-bench to the ground, I leaped a fence near by, and hurried across the plantation, passing the slaves at work in the cotton field. ”

“ If a man claims another, without process, by putting his hand on his shoulder, though the man may be as free as you or I, if he resists, or his friends aid him in resisting, the offence is committed. A man claimed as a Fugitive Slave, has been rescued or aided in his escape. You cannot refuse to deliver up a colored boy or girl born in your house, of free parents, to any man who knocks at your door and claims the child, with or without a warrant, without incurring the penalties of this act. ”

“ To understand the attitude of the North toward fugitives, it is necessary to examine some of the different methods used by the fugitives in their flight. Perhaps a better point of view than that of the outside observer will be gained by placing ourselves in the position of the slave, and examining his motives for flight, the difficulties which he encountered at home, the manner in which he overcame them, and, finally, the various paths of escape then open to him, and the agencies which befriended him and forwarded him on his way. ”

“ Whoever arrests a fugitive slave, shall be entitled to one tremisa for every thirty miles, or less, which said slave has traversed in his flight, and a solidus for every hundred miles, as a reward for the capture; and the number of solidi paid shall increase with the number of miles traversed. He who finds a fugitive slave, must deliver him, at once, with all the property which is in his possession, to his master. ”

“ The laws of other states, so-called, have never operated to release a single fugitive slave, and may be regarded simply as a protest of those states against the harsh features of the fugitive slave law. ”

“ There are men in the Free States, and especially in the states adjacent to the Slave States, who make their living by catching the runaway slave, and returning him for the reward that may be offered. As the two slaves above mentioned were travelling on towards the land of freedom, led by the North Star, they were set upon by four of these slave-catchers, and one of them unfortunately captured. The other escaped. The captured fugitive was put under the torture, and compelled to reveal the name of his owner and his place of residence. ”

“ But the day the Fugitive Bill passed, even the bravest abolitionist began to fear that a fugitive slave was no longer safe anywhere under the stars and stripes, North or South, and that William and Ellen Craft were liable to be captured at any moment by Georgia slave hunters. Many abolitionists counselled resistance to the death at all hazards. Instead of running to Canada, fugitives generally armed themselves and thus said, "Give me liberty or give me death." ”

“ Reasons for escape.—First, why did the slave seek to escape? However unlike the attending circumstances, we find upon investigation that the negro's desire to run away may be traced to one of but three or four motives. Among the more intelligent slaves, who could comprehend the nature and injustice of their position, it often rose solely from the upspringing in their hearts of that love of freedom natural to all men. ”

“ By that cruel act of Congress, everybody, all over the country, was required to send back fugitive slaves to their masters. Whoever concealed them or helped them in any way became liable to a year's imprisonment and a fine of a thousand dollars, besides paying the price of the slave. In all the Northern cities there were many honest, industrious colored people who had escaped from Slavery years before, and were now getting a comfortable living. ”

“ Each case as it occurs is fully commented upon, and in addition there is each week a column or two of atrocities, and among them stories of fugitives are often given. The Harvard College Library contains a complete file, which I have examined; and references to the Liberator are therefore frequent throughout the work. The colonial newspapers are of little value, except for the conclusions which may be drawn from the advertisements for runaways. Newspapers of that time were so limited in scope, that an affair so unimportant to them as a fugitive slave case would scarcely appear. ”

“ He saw them clinging to the half frantic husband and father, when the minions of a wicked law tore him away from them for ever. That intelligent, worthy, industrious man was ruthlessly plunged into the deep, dark grave of slavery, where tens of thousands perish yearly, and leave no record of their wrongs. ”

“ There stood one, in physical proportion and stature commanding and exact—in intellect richly endowed—in natural eloquence a prodigy—in soul manifestly "created but a little lower than the angels"—yet a slave, ay, a fugitive slave,—trembling for his safety, hardly daring to believe that on the American soil, a single white person could be found who would befriend him at all hazards, for the love of God and humanity! ”

“ In previous chapters we have noticed many instances wherein fugitives have been befriended by individuals, or by organizations like the Antislavery Societies or the Underground Railroad. But the action of the State governments in the personal liberty bills, from the time the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 began to be executed to the outbreak of the Civil War, showed that the dissatisfaction of the North was fundamental, and was not confined merely to the few in the van of the Antislavery movement. ”

“ She disguised herself in male attire, and passed for a white gentleman, taking her darker colored husband with her as a servant. When the Fugitive Slave Act went into operation, they received warning that the hounds were on their track. They sought temporary refuge in the house of my noble-hearted friend, Ellis Gray Loring, who then resided in the vicinity of Boston. He and his family were absent for some days; but a lady in the house invited Mr. Crafts to come in and stay till they returned. "No, I thank you," he replied. "There is a heavy fine for sheltering fugitives ”

“ The general significance of the long controversy in regard to fugitive slaves can best be understood by tracing the development as a sectional issue of the question at the bottom of it, namely, the obligation to restore fugitives to their masters. The creation of a line dividing the free North from the slaveholding South in the early years of our national history, and the enactment of the first Fugitive Slave Law, by which the general government assumed a certain responsibility for runaways, led to the opening of the question. ”

“ All attempts to procure assistance to capture the fugitive slaves failed, the people in the neighborhood either not relishing the business of slave-catching, or at least, not choosing to risk their lives in it. There was a very great reluctance felt to going even to remove the body and the wounded man, until several abolitionists and Friends had collected for that object, when others found courage to follow on. ”