Fugitive slave

Fugitive slave

In the history of slavery in the United States, a fugitive slave was a slave who had escaped his or her enslaver often with the intention of traveling to a place where the state of his or her enslavement was either illegal or not enforced. The Underground Railroad existed to guide fugitive slaves on the road to freedom. According to the Fugitive Slave Law, though, anyone who found an escaped slave was required by law to return the slave to his owner. Many northerners disliked this law and did not follow it.

Most fugitive slaves traveled alone. Slaves that traveled in groups were more likely to be found, as it was much harder to conceal a group from fugitive slave catchers than it was a single person. The majority of fugitive slaves tried to find their freedom in either a free Northern territory or a foreign country, usually Canada or Mexico.

ee also

* Slave Trade Compromise and Fugitive Slave Clause
*


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  • Fugitive Slave Act — est le nom donné à deux textes de loi du Congrès des États Unis créés, respectivement, le 12 février 1793 et le 18 septembre 1850 (dans le cadre du Compromis de 1850 entre les États Sudistes agraires et esclavagistes et les États Nordistes… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 — The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slaveholding interests and Northern Free Soilers. This was one of the most… …   Wikipedia

  • Fugitive slave laws — The fugitive slave laws were laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another or into a public territory.Colonial eraThe… …   Wikipedia

  • Slave Trade Compromise and Fugitive Slave Clause — The Framers debated over the extent to which slavery would be included, permitted, or prohibited in the United States Constitution. In the end, they created a document of compromise that represented the interests of the nation as they knew it and …   Wikipedia

  • Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 — 1793 Fugitive Slave Act (Feb. 12, 1793, ch. 7, 1 Stat. 302) was written in response to a conflict between Pennsylvania and Virginia. Although the problem of fugitive slaves was addressed at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 (in Article IV,… …   Wikipedia

  • Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 — Bostoner Plakat aus dem Jahre 1851, das entflohene Sklaven davor warnte, dass sie mit Hilfe der Polizei zu ihren früheren Besitzern zurückgebracht werden könnten. Das Fugitive Slave Law, auch Fugitive Slave Act genannt, war ein US amerikanisches… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Fugitive Slave Acts — U.S. laws of 1793 and 1850 (repealed in 1864) that provided for the seizure and return of runaway slaves. The 1793 law authorized a judge alone to decide the status of an alleged fugitive slave. Northern opposition led to enactment of state… …   Universalium

  • Fugitive Slave Act — Bostoner Plakat aus dem Jahre 1851, dass entflohene Sklaven davor warnte, dass sie mit Hilfe der Polizei zu ihren früheren Besitzern zurückgebracht werden könnten. Das Fugitive Slave Law, auch Fugitive Slave Act genannt, war ein US amerikanisches …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • fugitive slave — A slave who had fled from his master …   Ballentine's law dictionary

  • Fugitive Slave Acts — The Act of Congress of February 12, 1793, and that of September 18, 1850, recognizing the existence of slavery, the object and purposes of the acts being to authorize and enable the owners to recover their fugitive slaves who should escape from… …   Ballentine's law dictionary

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