Underground Railroad Online Handbook

From the National Park Service and Dickinson College

Category: Baker

(1837) Maine-Georgia Extradition Controversy

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On November 9, 2022

In Baker, Sinha

Maine authorities’ refusal to extradite abolitionist sailors who helped a Georgia freedom seeker escape reveals the deepening breakdown of comity between slave and free states

Date(s): escaped May 4, 1837

Location(s): Savannah, Georgia; Maine

Outcome: Reenslavement of Atticus, refusal to extradite Maine sailors

Summary:

Dunlap illustration seated

Maine governor Robert P. Dunlap refused to extradite two Maine sailors to face slave stealing charges in Georgia (Digital Maine)

In May 1837, an enslaved carpenter named Atticus crafted his own way to freedom aboard the vessel Susan. Owned and operated by Maine sailors, the Susan (also known as the Boston) was lying in port in Savannah, Georgia for repairs. The Mainers hired Savannah carpenter and slaveholder James Sagurs to finish repairs to the ship, and Sagurs brought Atticus along to work. Knowing the Susan would set sail on May 4, Atticus stowed away on board. Once the Susan reached Maine, Captain Daniel Philbrook and Edward Kelleran assisted the freedom seeker. But other local men, learning of the reward Sagurs had offered for Atticus’s recapture, seized the freedom seeker and sent him back into slavery by boat. But the case was far from over. Georgia governor William Schley demanded the extradition of Philbrook and Kelleran to face slave stealing charges in Georgia. Maine governor Robert Pinckney Dunlap refused to extradite the two sailors, and Maine’s legislature continued to stand its grown as late as 1841, four years after Atticus’s escape. The case was a sign of the deepening breakdown of comity between slave and free states and foreshadowed a similar confrontation over extraditions sailors between Virginia authorities and New York governor William Seward in 1839.

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(1839) New York-Virginia Extradition Controversy

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On November 9, 2022

In Baker, Sinha

New York governor William Seward refuses to extradite three Black sailors to Virginia on slave stealing charges, signaling Northern states’ growing resolve to protect their free Black residents

Date(s): escaped 1839

Location(s): Norfolk, Virginia; New York

Outcome: Freedom, Refusal to Extradite

Summary:

profile engraving man with collar

New York governor William Seward refused to extradite three Black sailors to face slave stealing charges in Virginia (House Divided Project)

During the summer of 1839, an enslaved carpenter named Isaac escaped from Norfolk, Virginia aboard the Robert Center, a New York ship. Isaac had apparently relied on the assistance of three Black sailors from New York, Isaac Gansey, Peter Johnson, and Edward Smith. But Isaac’s slaveholder caught on and alerted authorities about the escape. Virginia’s lieutenant governor, Henry L. Hopkins, demanded the extradition of Gansey, Johnson, and Smith to face slave stealing charges in Virginia, but New York governor William Seward refused. Seward argued that because New York state laws did not recognize slavery, there was no comparable charge to slave stealing to provide grounds for extradition. The case prompted a lengthy standoff, with Virginia’s legislature targeting New York vessels with special inspection fees, and also helped launch Seward’s career as a darling of the political antislavery movement. In the end, Gansey, Johnson, and Smith never faced extradition, a sign of Northern states’ growing resolve to protect free Black residents on their own soil. 

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(1843) Latimer Law

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On November 12, 2022

In Baker, Grover, Sinha

Citation

An Act to Further Protect Personal Liberty, March 24, 1843, FULL TEXT via State Library of Massachusetts

Excerpt

Latimer headshot

Freedom seeker George Latimer’s arrest prompted the passage of Massachusetts’s 1843 personal liberty law (House Divided Project)

Sec. 1. No judge of any court of record of this Commonwealth, and no justice of the peace, shall hereafter take cognizance or grant a certificate in cases that may arise under the third section of an act of Congress, passed February twelfth, seventeen hundred and ninety-three, and entitled “an Act respecting fugitives from justice and persons escaping from the service of their masters,” to any person who claims any other person as a fugitive slave within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth.

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(1847) Carlisle Fugitive Slave Case

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On December 12, 2022

In Baker, Finkelman, Foner, Jackson

Vigilance activists rescue two freedom seekers and fatally injure Maryland slave catcher James Kennedy in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on June 2. A jury acquits Dickinson College professor John McClintock on charges of inciting a riot, but sentences 11 Black residents to the state penitentiary for their role in the rescue, before the state’s supreme court ultimately overturns their convictions.

[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]

(1854) Wisconsin Supreme Court

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On December 12, 2022

In Baker, Finkelman, Johnson

Wisconsin Supreme Court defies federal authority and declares the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional in July. The US Supreme Court later reverses the Wisconsin court ruling in 1859 in Abelman v. Booth.

[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]

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