BURNS FUGITIVE SLAVE CASE

BURNS FUGITIVE SLAVE CASE. The Burns Fugitive Slave Case of 1854 was one of three famous fugitive slave cases arising in Boston after the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. In 1854 Anthony Burns successfully fled bondage in Alexandria, Virginia, and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. Within a few months, however, his owner, Col. Charles F. Suttle, arrived in Boston to reclaim him. In response, part of the Boston Vigilance Committee, a group of lawyers committed to protecting the rights of fugitive slaves, planned to rescue Burns from an upper room of the courthouse. On the night of 26 May, they battered in a door of the building, entered, and one of them shot and killed a U.S. marshal. Despite the committee's efforts, which included an attempt to purchase and then free Burns, U.S. Commissioner Edward G. Loring remanded Burns to his owner. On 2 June throngs witnessed the slave's departure. Violent riots in protest of his return shook Boston, and the federal government had to send in troops to quell the disturbance. In 1855 several rich citizens paid $1,300 for Burns's freedom, and he returned to Massachusetts. Following the Burns case enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law declined.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Campbell, Stanley W. The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850–1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970.

Von Frank, Albert J. The Trials of Anthony Burns: Freedom and Slavery in Emerson's Boston. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Wilbur H.Siebert/a. e.

See alsoAntislavery ; Fugitive Slave Acts ; Personal Liberty Laws ; Slavery .