The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims: Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18May, Samuel
History
The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims: Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18
May, Samuel
Fugitive slaves -- United States; United States -- Fugitive slave law (1850)
_Buffalo, August, 1851._ Case of DANIEL ----. D. was a cook
on board the steamer "Buckeye State." He was engaged in his
avocation, when Benj. S. Rust, with a warrant from United
States Commissioner H.K. Smith, went on board the boat.
Daniel was called up from below, and as his head appeared
above the deck, Rust struck him a heavy blow, upon the head,
with a large billet of wood, which knocked him back into the
cook-room, where he fell upon the stove and was badly burned.
In this state, he was brought before the Commissioner,
"bleeding profusely at the back, of the head, and at the
nose, and was moreover so stupefied by the assault, that he
fell asleep several times during the brief and very summary
proceedings." For most of the time he was unable to converse
with his counsel, and "sat dozing, with the blood slowly
oozing out of his mouth and nostrils." After a very hurried
form, and mockery of a trial, Daniel was ordered to be
delivered to Rust, the Agent of George H. Moore, of
Louisville, Kentucky. By a writ of _Habeas Corpus_, Daniel
was brought before Judge Coakling, of the United States
Court, at Auburn, who gave a decision that set Daniel at
liberty, and he was immediately hurried by his friends into
Canada. Rust was indicted, in Buffalo, for his brutal assault
on Daniel. It was fully proved; he afterwards plead guilty,
and; was let off with the paltry fine of fifty dollars.
JOHN BOLDING, _arrested in Poughkeepsie, New York_, claimed
as the property of Barret Anderson, of Columbia, S.C. Bolding
was a young man, of good character, recently married, and had
a small tailor's shop in P. He said he was told, when a boy,
that he was the son of a white man. He was tried before
United States Commissioner Nelson, who ordered him to be
delivered up to his claimants, and he was taken quietly from
the city to Columbia, S.C. The sum of $2,000 was raised in
New York, and paid to Bolding's owner, who had consented to
take that sum for him, and Bolding returned to his family in
Poughkeepsie.
_Christiana, Lancaster County, Penn., Sept. 1851._ Edward
Gorsuch, (represented as a very pious member of a Methodist
Church in Baltimore,) with his son Dickinson, accompanied by
the Sheriff of Lancaster County, Pa., and by a Philadelphia
officer named _Henry Kline_, went to Christiana to arrest
certain slaves of his, who, (as he had been privately
informed by a wretch, named Wm. M. Padgett,) were living
there. An attack was made upon the house, the slave-holder
declaring (as was said) that he "would not leave the place
alive without his slaves." "Then," replied one of them, "you
will not leave here alive." Many shots were fired on both
sides, and the slave-hunter, Edward Gorsuch, was killed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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