January 2, 1837
Two black women, on board a ship, signal distress from cabin window. Some men of color, seeing this, get a writ of habeas corpus, and the women are freed from the custody of the Captain. A court case proceeds, and the Judge proclaims the women free. Then the article includes a dialogue with the agent of slaveholders.
October 14, 1842
An item from the Albany Tocsin “…. Tell the slaveholders that we passed twenty-six prime slaves to the land of freedom last week, and several more this week thus far. Don’t know what the end of the week will foot up. All went by the ‘underground railroad’.” This is followed by words which seem to be from escaped slaves, addressed to specifically names people in Maryland and Washington city, assuring them they are well, and asking favors of them, namely, clothing to be sent to them.
October 28, 1842
Latimer, a fugitive slave from Norfolk, Va., was pursued by his owner, James Gray, who had him arrested on a charge of larceny. A writ of habeas corpus brought Latimer before the court .Judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court is that he must remain in custody of owner’s agent, allowing time for said agent to produce evidence necessary for Latimer to be returned to Norfolk as slave. The article is from the Atlas, and that paper comments: “Thus is Boston made the slave-hunting ground of the South, and thus does the city consent to aid and abet the vilest of kidnapers!” It has harsh criticism for the police, the city marshal, and all involved in the case .. “There should be but one determination among our citizens — and that is , that Latimer should never go back to the South. Old Faneuil Hall is to speakout, on this matter, on Sunday evening next.”
This issue also notes a meeting at the Belknap-Street church, at which Garrison, Remond, others spoke about the case, and the paper also includes an announcement of a “Grand Meeting at Faneuil Hall, For the Rescue of Liberty!”
March 23, 1849
Signed by Abner Ross, Fairfield District, is notice of a “negro girl named Molly”, who has run away …. “She is sixteen or seventeen years of age slim made, lately branded on the left cheek thus R, and a piece taken off her left ear on the same side; the same letter on the inside of both her legs.” Twenty Dollars Reward is offered for her return.
From the Raleigh Standard, a paper of North Carolina: — “Ran away, a negro woman and two children. A few days before she went off, I burned her with a hot iron on the left side of her face. I tried to make the letter M. Micajah Ricks”
June 28, 1850
Here is an article from the Boston Republican, unsigned, telling the story of a man being taken from the streets of Cincinnati to Kentucky, by men claiming that he had been a slave.
August 9, 1850
From the Portsmouth, N.H. Journal, August 3, is the story of a slave named Adam, who was on board a ship from Pensacola. He had hidden himself for three days until the vessel was far out to sea. His attempt to leave the boat while docked in Portsmouth failed, and Adam was detained by the Captain. Friends of Adam “served out a process against the captain for a false imprisonment. When the process was served upon the captain, he, having consulted counsel and finding that he could not lawfully hold the negro, permitted him to leave the vessel.”….”Adam is said to be about twenty-one years of age – a blacksmith by trade….he leaves a mother and sisters behind him in bondage.”
September 6, 1850
A N.Y. Tribune correspondent is the source of this, from Baltimore, unsigned. The article sites instances of escaping slaves, which have “added new fuel to the indignation of the ‘flesh and blood’ owners and traders. The result of this will be the most active measures to protect slave property, and to secure it when abducted…..It is openly avowed here, that in case another body of slaves abscond, and can be successfully pursued, that it shall be done with an armed band of fifty or an hundred men, if necessary …. Should this be done, we shall have an open border warfare at once, for the Free States will not quietly submit to have their territory invaded by armed posses. …there are thousands in this State and Virginia who will dare the issue, let the consequences be what they may.”
December 6, 1850
From the Georgia Constitutionalist is an account of an unsuccessful attempt to recapture fugitive slaves from Boston. It is written by Willis H. Hughes, from Macon, dated Nov. 21, 1850, and is addressed to “fellow citizens”. The fugitive is named as “Bill”, but it becomes clear it is William Craft. Hughes recounts the ways in various officials in Boston avoided assisting him by delays, postponements, jurisdictional disputes, and even at one time when he was arrested for slandering Ellen Crafts, and held to bail for $20,000. He indicates that he has leaned that the Crafts had “positively left for England”. Hughes concludes that he “went to Boston as an agent to execute a lawful trust, thinking I should be protected and assisted by the laws of my country. But, on the contrary, from the first, the laws of the country, instead of a protection, were made an engine of cruelty, oppression, injustice, and abuse; so that my life was constantly endangered, and this, without the first offer of assistance from Government, national, State, or city. I feel that every man who has a Southern heart in his bosom, and would maintain the honor of his country, should sustain the Southern right cause, by every constitutional measure, until our rights are acknowledged, and justice obtained.”
A similar account is given here by John Knight, the slave Pursuer, from Macon, who had been with Mr. Hughes.
January 3, 1851
Under the title A Contrast, from the New York Independent, there is an item about a meeting on the evening of Monday, Dec 23, held by the New England Society, at the Astor House. There, while one man spoke, calling upon people to emulate the values of the Pilgrims, at the same hour, “there was lying in the custody of the United States Marshal of this District another man, whose office was not that of making speeches at dinner, but of waiting on the table, who had been arrested as a fugitive slave under a law which would never have become a law but for the influence and efforts of this same descendant of the Puritans …On Tuesday morning, ‘the god-like’ received at the City Hall the adulations of the Union Safety Committee, and dilated upon the benefits and glories of the Union. At the same hour, and in a room of the same building, the mighty power of the Union was remorselessly applied to crush a man made in the image of God.”
May 2, 1851
From the Providence Mirror, comes a notice that “a number of fugitive slaves left this city on Monday for Canada.” The article cites one instance of “Mr. Booth”, who had been in the city for many years, and earned a home of his own. The article indicates that he is free, but his wife is a fugitive, and they have six children, all young. She and the children have gone to Canada, but he remains in the city for the moment …. he will probably sacrifice much of his property, in order to join his family in Victoria’s dominions.