The Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of a compromise allowing California to enter the Union as a free state and ending the slave trade in the District of Columbia. The act made the federal government responsible for tracking down and apprehending enslaved people who had escaped to northern states and included provisions that fined a marshal $1,000 if he did not carry out the arrest warrant. The marshal for Boston, who was not in town when Shadrach was arrested and subsequently rescued by a mob at the courthouse, was, nevertheless, required to pay this sum. This article also gives an account of four of the men who were arrested and mentions in passing that there were also two African Americans who had been detained. Nine men were eventually charged, but all were acquitted.
Franklin Democrat. “To Hon. John P. Bigelow, Mayor Boston.” February 24, 1851. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l09-005/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
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