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)
_The Norristown (Penn.) Olive Branch_, (in connection with
the last named case,) speaks of a case which had occurred a
short time before, under the Fugitive Law, before United
States Commissioner McAllister, at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
and which has not yet been mentioned in this record. A
colored man and his wife, with their infant child, were
taken, "one morning, very early," before Commissioner Richard
McAllister, and before any counsel could reach the spot the
case had been decided against the man and woman; but the
babe, having been born in Pennsylvania, they did not "dare to
send that" into slavery; "so the only alternative was to take
it away from its mother," which was done, and that evening
the man and woman were taken South. No time had been allowed
to bring forward witnesses in their behalf, and there was
only a single witness against them, and he a boy about
seventeen years old, and a relative of the slave-claimant.
The woman's sufferings, on account of the separation from
her child, seemed greater than for her own fate. The article
from the Norristown paper is in the _National Anti-Slavery
Standard_, June 2, 1855.
GEORGE MITCHELL, a young colored man, at San Jose,
California, arrested and taken before Justice Allen, April,
1855, "charged with owing service and labor to one Jesse C.
Cooper, of Tennessee." Mitchell was brought into California
by his then owner, in 1849, the year before the enactment of
the Fugitive Slave Law. His arrest was made, under a Fugitive
Slave Law of California. By _habeas corpus_ the case was
carried before Judge C.P. Hester, of the District Court.
Mitchell was discharged on the ground (we believe) that the
California Law was unconstitutional; also that the
proceedings were "absolutely void." On the 21st April (or
May) "another attempt was made to reduce George to slavery at
San Francisco." He was brought before the United States
District Court, Judge Hoffman presiding, claimed under the
United States Fugitive Law as the property of the above-named
Cooper. [The result of the trial not known.]--_San Jose
Telegraph_.
_At Dayville, Connecticut_, June 13, 1855, an attempt was
made to seize a fugitive slave; "but the citizens interfered
and the fugitive escaped." He was claimed by a resident of
Pomfret, who said he had bought him in Cuba.--_Hartford
Religious Herald_.
_At Burlington, Iowa_, a colored man, called DICK, was
arrested and taken before United States Commissioner Frazee.
"Much excitement was caused." He was claimed as belonging to
Thomas Ruthford, Clark County, Missouri. Dick was discharged
as not being the man claimed. (June, 1855.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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