Legal Issues and Fugitive Slaves

The Legal Status of Negroes and Slaves in Tennessee

One of the earliest enactments of the commonwealth was the absolute denial to slaves of the right to own property. Property held by them, such as horses, cattle, or anything of personal value was to be sold and one half of the proceeds given to the informer, the other half to the county...... Read more

Securing the Leg Irons: Restriction of Legal Rights for Slaves in Virginia and M

First devised during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the laws and justice system governing the institution of Negro slavery in the British North American colonies of Virginia and Maryland constituted but one element in a complex matrix of coercive instruments designed for suppression of legal humanity in slaves...... Read more

Fugitive Slave Case: A Slave Named Stephen Pembrook

This exhibit details the 1854 case of the slave owner Jacob Grove and a fugitive slave named Stephen Pembrook. According to the case file, a petition was filed by Jacob H. Grove of Washington County, Maryland, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Grove claimed to be the lawful owner of Stephen Pembrook and reported him as a fugitive...... Read more

Boston Combusts: The Fugitive Slave Case of Anthony Burns

On May 24, 1854, 19-year-old escaped Virginia slave Anthony Burns walked quietly through the streets of Boston on his way home. Burns worked as a store clerk at a clothing shop on Brattle Street and was a new member of the nearby Twelfth Baptist Church, where the abolitionist Reverend Leonard Grimes — who shared Burns’ Virginia roots — had welcomed him with open arms...... Read more

The Fugitive Slave Act

The Compromise of 1850 was introduced to stave off conflict between the slave states and the free states upon the admission of California as a state. Under the Compromise, California was admitted as a free state, New Mexico and Utah were organized as slave territories, and Texas had its boundaries set. Another part of the Compromise was the Fugitive Slave Act, which federalized the return of escaped slaves to their owners...... Read more