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James Hamlet: first slave affected by the Fugitive Slave Act...
James Hamlet: first slave affected by the Fugitive Slave Act...
Item # 692188
October 12, 1850
THE GREENSBOROUGH PATRIOT, (Greensboro), North Carolina, Oct. 12, 1850
* Fugitive Slave Act Law of 1850 & James Hamlet
* Southern slavery holders & Northern Free-Soilers
Rarely are we able to secure antebellum newspapers from this city.
Pages 1 and 2 are entirely taken up with: "An Act to Establish Certain Post Roads in the United States" with considerable detail, state by state.
Page 3 has an article on: "Jenny Lind", called the Swedish Nightingale. but of most significance is the back page report: "First Case Under the New Fugitive Slave Law" which reports on the case of James Hamlet. He was the first slave returned to slavery under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, occurring just 8 days after the passage of the new law.
Four pages, very nice condition.
AI notes: In September 1850, just days after the Fugitive Slave Act became law, James Hamlet, a free Black laborer living in New York, was seized by federal marshals under a claim that he was the property of Mary Brown of Baltimore. The law denied him the right to testify on his own behalf, and after a brief hearing before a federal commissioner, he was ordered returned to Maryland toward enslavement. News of his arrest sparked outrage among New York’s Black community and abolitionists, who organized a public subscription to raise about $800 to purchase his freedom. On October 5, 1850, Hamlet was brought back to New York and restored to his family, and his case became a symbol of Northern resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act, highlighting the law’s denial of basic legal protections to accused fugitives and galvanizing anti-slavery sentiment in the North.
Category: Pre-Civil War
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