March 7, 1845
The Judge sentences Fairbank to hard labor for a total of fifteen years, five years for each of three indictments against him. The three indictments include one for having enticed a slave named Louis to leave his owners, one for abetting the escape of a slave named Harriet, property of Patterson Bain, and the third regarding a boy named Joe, property of Bain. In the trial Fairbank professes penitence … “he lamented that he engaged in any enterprise of the kind, but protested the conscience sense of duty under which he then acted, the result of his early education; said that he now believed that he was wrong; that he had found that the efforts of the abolitionists , instead of ameliorating, had only served to embitter the fate of the slaves; that they, the slaves, were more comfortably situated here than any of their comrades who had escaped, and concluded by imploring their clemency.” The trial took place in Lexington, Kentucky.
Comments are closed.