Fugitive Slaves Part 1

Fugitive Slaves.

by Marion Gleason McDougall.

PREFACE.

The following monograph was written while the author was a student in the "Harvard Annex" as a study in the Seminary course given by Professor Albert Bushnell Hart. The work has continued during parts of the four years since 1887. The effort has been to trace in some measure the development of public sentiment upon the subject, to prepare an outline of Colonial legislation and of the work of Congress during the entire period, and to give accounts of typical cases ill.u.s.trative of conditions and opinions. Only a few of the more important cases are described minutely, but a critical list of the authorities may be found in the bibliographical appendix.

The thanks of the author are due first to Professor Hart, under whose direction and with whose a.s.sistance and encouragement the monograph has been prepared; then to Miss Anna B. Thompson, without whose careful training in the Thayer Academy and continued sympathy, the work could not have been undertaken. Many thanks are due also to the authorities of the Library of Harvard College for the use, in the alcoves, of their large and conveniently arranged collection of books and pamphlets on United States History, and to the a.s.sistants in the Boston Public and Ma.s.sachusetts State Libraries for courteous aid. Colonel T. W. Higginson has kindly examined the chapter on the cases from 1850 to 1860, suggesting some interesting details; and Mr. Arthur Gilman has read the whole in proof, and made many valuable suggestions.

MARION GLEASON McDOUGALL.

ROCKLAND, Ma.s.s. April 2, 1891.

CHAPTER I.

_LEGISLATION AND CASES BEFORE THE CONSt.i.tUTION._

-- 1. Elements of colonial slavery.

-- 2. Regulations as to fugitives (1640-1700).

-- 3. Treatment of fugitives.

-- 4. Regulations in New England colonies.

-- 5. Escapes in New England: Attucks case.

-- 6. Dutch regulations in New Netherlands.

-- 7. Escapes from New Amsterdam.

-- 8. Intercolonial regulations.

-- 9. Intercolonial cases.

-- 10. International relations.

-- 11. International cases.

-- 12. Relations with the mother country.

-- 13. Regulation under the Articles of Confederation (1781-1788).

-- 14. Ordinance for the Northwest Territory (1787).

-- 15. The Fugitive question in the Const.i.tutional Conventions.

=-- 1. Elements of colonial slavery.=--By the middle of the seventeenth century, the settlements made in America by the English, Dutch, and Swedes were arranged for the most part in a line of little colonies closely following the Atlantic coast. To the west, wide forests and plains, broken only by the paths of the Indian, stretched on to the Pacific; while long intervals of unpopulated country separated the colonists on the north from the French in Canada, and on the south from the Spaniards in Florida.

In all the colonies thus grouped together, the system of slavery had already become well established, and with its inst.i.tution the question of the escape and return of the slaves had necessarily arisen. The conditions of the country, both physical and social, gave unusual facilities for flight. The wild woods, the Indian settlements, or the next colony, peopled by a foreign race, and perhaps as yet without firmly established government, offered to the slave a refuge and possibly protection. Escape, therefore, as a peculiar danger, demanded peculiar remedies. Though it is the purpose of this monograph not so much to study the detail of legislation or escape in the colonies as to deal with the period from 1789 to 1865, a slight sketch of the intercolonial laws and provisions which preceded and in part suggested later legislation will first be necessary.

Almost immediately after the introduction of slavery, in 1619, we begin to find regulations made by the colonists upon this subject. At first they applied solely to their own territory, but soon agreements were entered into among several colonies, or between a colony and the Indians or the French in Canada. These acts and agreements recognized not only the negro, as at a later period, but also the white and the Indian slave.

There existed in some of the colonies of this time a peculiar cla.s.s of white people, who received no wages, and were bound to their masters.[1]

Usually these redemptioners were laborers or handicraftsmen, but sometimes they were persons of education who had committed a crime, and were sold according to law for a term of years, or for life. One of the cla.s.s is curiously connected with the education of no less a person than George Was.h.i.+ngton. An unpublished autobiography of the Reverend John Boucher, who from 1760 to the Revolution was a teacher and preacher in Virginia, contains the following paragraph noticing the fact:--

"Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton was the second of five sons, of parents distinguished neither for their rank nor fortune.... George, who, like most people thereabouts at that time, had no other education than reading, writing, and accounts, which he was taught by a convict servant whom his father bought for a schoolmaster, first set out in the world as a surveyor of Orange County."[2]

=-- 2. Regulations as to fugitives.=--The earliest regulation upon this subject is found among the freedoms and exemptions granted by the West India Company, in 1629, "to all Patroons, Masters, or Private Persons"

who would agree to settle in New Netherlands. The authorities promised to do all in their power to return to their masters any slaves or colonists fleeing from service.[3]

A little later, the Swedish colonists in Pennsylvania asked from their government the same privilege of reclaiming fugitives.[4] The preamble of an act against fugitives in East Jersey, in 1686, explains these provisions. They found that "the securing of such persons as Run away, or otherwise absent themselves from their master's lawfull Occasion," was "a material encouragement to such Persons as come into this country to settle Plantations and Populate the Province."[5] In many of the Southern colonies, as Maryland and South Carolina, so severe were the acts against this cla.s.s of bound colonists that a runaway might be declared outlawed, and might rightfully be killed by any person.[6]

[Sidenote: Treatment of Fugitives]

=--3. Treatment of fugitives.=--From 1640 to 1700, laws were also pa.s.sed in New Jersey, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia. It is not necessary to follow out the provisions here,[7] but each of the Southern colonies, as in later regulations, provided most minutely for all possible cases. By a Virginia law of 1642, all persons who entertained runaways, whether slaves or hired freemen, were to be fined twenty pounds of tobacco for each night's hospitality. The fugitives were to add to their tenure of service double their time of absence, and on a second offence to be branded with the letter R.[8]

A curious regulation in 1660-1, in Virginia, provided that if a negro and white bound servant ran away together, since the negro's time of servitude was for life, and he was therefore incapable of making up his lost time, the white servant's punishment should be doubled by adding the negro's sentence to his own.[9] Another regulation, ent.i.tled "How to Know a Runaway," commanded that all recovered fugitives have their hair "cutt"

close about their ears.[10]

Sometimes the penalties were even more severe, but the processes were much the same. A person who found a slave or vagabond without a pa.s.s usually took him before the next justice, who took cognizance of the captor's good service, and certified it in the next a.s.sembly: the runaway was then delivered from constable to constable, until he was returned to his master.

After 1700 the process grows yet more elaborate; for example, take a North Carolina law of 1741. The securer of a runaway was to have seven s.h.i.+llings and sixpence proclamation money, and for every mile over ten which he conducted the fugitive threepence extra. When seized, runaways were to be whipped and placed in the county gaol. If the owner was known, he was notified and went for his slave; if not, a notice describing the runaway must be placed upon the door of the court-house, and sent to the clerk or reader of each church or chapel within the county. They were required to post all such notices every Lord's day for two months in some convenient place near the church. At the end of this time, should no claimant appear, the slave must be sent from constable to constable, till the public gaol of the government was reached. There, upon consent of the court or of two justices, he might be sold to hire by the gaoler.[11] The Maryland Archives record that in 1669 ten thousand pounds of tobacco were appropriated to build one of these log-house gaols wherein fugitive servants might be lodged.[12]

=-- 4. Regulations in New England colonies.=--Let us turn now to the New England colonies. Here we must expect to find but few provisions, since the cla.s.s of slaves and bound servants was so small that it could easily be controlled. The first law in Ma.s.sachusetts Bay was pa.s.sed in 1630, and was ent.i.tled, "An Act respecting Masters, Servants, and Laborers." In accordance with the arbitrary methods of government then pursued, it included not only runaway servants, but also any persons who should "privily go away with suspicion of evil intention," and ordered the magistrate "to press men, boats, or pinnaces," and "to bring them back by force of arms." A humane provision, usually wanting in Southern laws, though also found in New Netherlands, declared that, whenever servants fled on account of the tyranny of their masters, they should be protected until measures for their relief could be taken.[13]

In Connecticut and New Hamps.h.i.+re similar laws were pa.s.sed, and in 1707 Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, in regulating the free negro population, enacted that every freeman or mulatto who should harbor a negro servant in his house without his owner's consent should pay five s.h.i.+llings for the use of the poor of the town.[14]

In those days, when bridges were few, the ferrymen were apparently much relied upon as agents to detect and apprehend runaways. In 1714 we find that several negro slaves had been carried over ferries, and thus escaped out of Rhode Island. The a.s.sembly therefore enacted that "no ferryman or boatman whatsoever, within this colony, shall carry or bring any slave as aforesaid over their ferries, without a certificate under the hands of their masters or mistresses, or some person in authority, upon the penalty of paying all costs and damages their said masters or mistresses shall sustain thereby: and to pay a fine of twenty s.h.i.+llings for the use of the colony for each offence, as aforesaid." All persons were also commanded to take up any slave they might find travelling about without a pa.s.s.[15]

[Sidenote: Escapes in New England.]

=-- 5. Escapes in New England: Attucks case.=--Although we do not find records of fugitive slave cases tried at this time within the New England colonies, advertis.e.m.e.nts of runaways exist in sufficient numbers to prove that escapes were common. It seems probable, therefore, that the return of a slave when within his own colony was taken as a matter of course, and roused so little opposition, and required so simple a process at law, that matters concerning it would seldom find mention in the chronicles of the time. Here is a typical advertis.e.m.e.nt:--

"Ran away from Samuel Gilbert of Littleton, an indentured Servant Boy, named Samuel Gilson, about 17 years old, of a middling Stature for his Age, and wears black curled Hair, he carried away with him a blue cloth Coat, a light colored Jacket with sleeves, one pair of worsted Stockings, two striped woolen s.h.i.+rts, and one good linnen s.h.i.+rt. He went away in company with a short thick set Fellow, who wore a green coat and a green Jacket double breasted, also a pair Indian green Stockings. Whoever shall take up and secure, or give information of said runaway, so that his master may find him again, shall receive a Reward of two dollars and all necessary charges from

SAMUEL GILBERT.

"All masters of vessels and others are cautioned against harboring,"

etc.[16]

Again a case interesting not only as an ill.u.s.tration of the customs of the time, but also because the fugitive himself bears a name known to history in another connection, is noticed in the Boston Gazette of 1750.

Here is advertised as escaping, October 2, 1750, from his master, William Browne of Framingham, Ma.s.sachusetts, "A molatto fellow about twenty-seven years of age, named Crispus." After describing his clothing and appearance, a reward of ten pounds, old tenor, is offered for his return, and "all masters of vessels and others are cautioned against concealing said servant on penalty of law."[17] Tradition has it, however, that he was never arrested, but returned of his own accord after a short time, and was for the next twenty years a faithful servant.[18] Then, in 1770, presumably while in town upon one of the expeditions he often undertook to buy and sell cattle for his master, he was drawn into the Boston Ma.s.sacre of March 5.[19]

A somewhat famous case, which also occurred in Ma.s.sachusetts, though many years later, may here be mentioned. About 1769 one Rotch, a Quaker, and therefore probably opposed to slavery, received on board the whaler Friends.h.i.+p a young negro boy named Boston, belonging to the heirs of William Swain. At the end of the voyage his master, John Swain, brought action in the court of Nantucket against Captain Folger for the recovery of the slave; the jury, whether from lack of evidence or from sympathy cannot be determined, returned a verdict in favor of the defendant.[20]

[Sidenote: Dutch and Intercolonial Regulations.]

=-- 6. Dutch regulations in New Netherlands.=--The early New Netherlands regulations furnish many interesting provisions concerning fugitive servants. Apparently the servile cla.s.s was numerous, and hard to govern.

In the words of the ordinance of 1640, "many servants daily run away from their masters, whereby the latter are put to great inconvenience and expense; the corn and tobacco rot in the field, and the whole harvest is at a standstill, which tends to the serious injury of this country, to their masters' ruin, and to bring the magistracy into contempt." It was therefore ordained that runaways must, at the end of their term of indenture, serve double the time of their absence, and make good all loss and damage to their masters; while persons harboring fugitives were obliged to pay a fine of fifty guilders.[21]