The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers.
The Boston African American National Historic Site, in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts's Beacon Hill neighborhood, interprets 15 pre-Civil War structures relating to the history of Boston's 19th-century African-American community, connected by the Black Heritage Trail. These include the 1806 African Meeting House, the oldest standing black church in the United States.
Abiel Smith School, founded in 1835, is a school located at 46 Joy Street in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, adjacent to the African Meeting House. It is named for Abiel Smith, a white philanthropist who left money in his will to the city of Boston for the education of black children.
Lewis Hayden escaped slavery in Kentucky with his family and escaped to Canada. He established a school for African Americans before moving to Boston, Massachusetts to aid in the abolition movement. There he became an abolitionist, lecturer, businessman, and politician. Before the American Civil War, he and his wife Harriet Hayden aided numerous fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad, often sheltering them at their house.
Shadrach Minkins was an African-American fugitive slave from Virginia who escaped in 1850 and reached Boston. He also used the pseudonyms Frederick Wilkins and Frederick Jenkins. He is known for being freed from a courtroom in Boston after being captured by United States marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Members of the Boston Vigilance Committee freed and hid him, helping him get to Canada via the Underground Railroad. Minkins settled in Montreal, where he raised a family. Two men were prosecuted in Boston for helping free him, but they were acquitted by the jury.
The Boston Vigilance Committee (1841–1861) was an abolitionist organization formed in Boston, Massachusetts, to protect escaped slaves from being kidnapped and returned to slavery in the South. The Committee aided hundreds of escapees, most of whom arrived as stowaways on coastal trading vessels and stayed a short time before moving on to Canada or England. Notably, members of the Committee provided legal and other aid to George Latimer, Ellen and William Craft, Shadrach Minkins, Thomas Sims, and Anthony Burns.
William Cooper Nell was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, publisher, author, and civil servant of Boston, Massachusetts, who worked for the integration of schools and public facilities in the state. Writing for abolitionist newspapers The Liberator and The North Star, he helped publicize the anti-slavery cause. He published the North Star from 1847 to 18xx, moving temporarily to Rochester, New York.
Robert Morris was one of the first African-American attorneys in the United States, and was called "the first really successful colored lawyer in America."
Edward Garrison Walker (1830–1901), also Edwin Garrison Walker, was an American artisan in Boston who became an attorney; in 1861, he became one of the first black men to pass the Massachusetts bar. In 1866 he and Charles Lewis Mitchell were the first two African Americans elected to the Massachusetts state legislature. Walker was the son of Eliza and David Walker, the militant abolitionist and author of An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829).
John J. Smith House was the home of John J. Smith from 1878 to 1893. Smith was an African American abolitionist, Underground Railroad contributor and politician, including three terms as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He also played a key role in rescuing Shadrach Minkins from federal custody, along with Lewis Hayden and others.
John James Smith was a barber shop owner, abolitionist, a three-term Massachusetts state representative, and one of the first African-American members of the Boston Common Council. A Republican, he served three terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He was born in Richmond Virginia. He took part in the California Gold Rush.
Lewis and Harriet Hayden House was the home of African-American abolitionists who had escaped from slavery in Kentucky; it is located in Beacon Hill, Boston. They maintained the home as a stop on the Underground Railroad, and the Haydens were visited by Harriet Beecher Stowe as research for her book, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Lewis Hayden was an important leader in the African-American community of Boston; in addition, he lectured as an abolitionist and was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, which resisted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Until 1950, African Americans were a small but historically important minority in Boston, where the population was majority white. Since then, Boston's demographics have changed due to factors such as immigration, white flight, and gentrification. According to census information for 2010–2014, an estimated 180,657 people in Boston are Black/African American, either alone or in combination with another race. Despite being in the minority, and despite having faced housing, educational, and other discrimination, African Americans in Boston have made significant contributions in the arts, politics, and business since colonial times.
The Twelfth Baptist Church is a historic church in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1840, it is the oldest direct descendant of the First Independent Baptist Church in Beacon Hill. Notable members have included abolitionists such as Lewis Hayden and Rev. Leonard Grimes, the historian George Washington Williams, the artist Edward Mitchell Bannister and abolitionist and entrepreneur Christiana Carteaux, pioneering educator Wilhelmina Crosson, and civil rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Austin Bearse (1808-1881) was a sea captain from Cape Cod who provided transportation for fugitive slaves in the years leading up to the American Civil War.
The New England Freedom Association was an organization founded by African Americans in Boston for the purpose of assisting fugitive slaves.
The Massasoit Guards were an African-American militia company active in 1850s Boston. Clothing retailer John P. Coburn founded the group to police Beacon Hill and protect residents from slave catchers. Attorney Robert Morris repeatedly petitioned the Massachusetts legislature on their behalf, but the Massasoit Guards were never officially recognized or supported by the state. The group was a precursor to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment.
Ellis Gray Loring was an American attorney, abolitionist, and philanthropist from Boston. He co-founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society, provided legal advice to abolitionists, harbored fugitive slaves in his home, and helped finance the abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator. Loring also mentored Robert Morris, who went on to become one of the first African-American attorneys in the United States.
John P. Coburn (1811–1873) was a 19th-century African-American abolitionist, civil rights activist, tailor and clothier from Boston, Massachusetts. For most of his life, he resided at 2 Phillips Street in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood. Coburn was one of the wealthiest African Americans in Boston of his time. His property on the North Slope of Beacon Hill had the third highest real property value in a 1850 census. Coburn was heavily involved in abolition-related work within his community, specifically work related to the New England Freedom Association and the Massasoit Guards.
Elizabeth Cook Riley was an African-American Bostonian abolitionist who aided in the escape of fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins. She was a member of the committee which raised the first funds towards William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, a prominent antislavery newspaper. Afterwards, she was active in the Boston abolitionist community, helping to organize meetings and events.
