The fugitive slave law is a law passed by the US government in September of 1850. It meant that all runaway slaves were sent back to their masters. This was because the white owners feared a ‘Slave power conspiracy’.
Here is a reverends account of how the law affected his life:
Reverend Luther Lee, pastor of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Syracuse, New York said in 1855:
“I never would obey it. I had assisted thirty slaves to escape to Canada during the last month. If the authorities wanted anything of me, my residence was at 39 Onondaga Street. I would admit that and they could take me and lock me up in the Penitentiary on the hill; but if they did such a foolish thing as that I had friends enough on Onondaga County to level it to the ground before the next morning. The slaves could no longer take control over what they could never imagine.”
This shows that this law increased the confidence of abolitionists of slave trade.
Monday 30 June 2008
