Slave catcher

Not to be confused with Slave raiding.

Fugitive slave catchers were people who returned escaped slaves to their owners in the United States in the mid 19th century. Slaves who managed to free themselves from their owners had yet another worry: fugitive slave catchers. The Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Law, the latter enacted pursuant to a specific provision contained in Article IV of the United States Constitution, created the Fugitive Slave.

Uneasy compromise and disagreement

At the time of Fugitive Slave catchers the North was moving more in the direction of abolition. The South wanted runaway slaves caught and brought back to their owners and they activated this by means of Fugitive Slave catchers. The Fugitive Slave Law stated that every citizen was responsible for helping to recover and return fugitive slaves; so any white person from the North or South could be, and was expected to be , a fugitive slave catcher. (See also Indiana in Slavery).^[1]

The Northern states, however began giving more freedom and rights to black people; as a result many slaves from the South fled north where they thought they could live with more opportunity for freedom. It was possible for them to be citizens in the North, and not live as slaves.

Helping fugitive slaves was a punishable offense

White abolitionists from the North and anyone else aiding in freeing or hiding of slaves were punished for their efforts. One account of drastic fugitive slave catching was approximately 200 U.S. Marines escorting one fugitive slave back into the custody of his owner. As laws even in the North punished both the people who helped slaves escape as well as the fugitive slaves, many fled to Canada where slavery was illegal.

Slavery

Contemporary Child labour Conscription Debt Forced marriage Bride buying Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Peonage Penal labour Sexual slavery
Historical Antiquity Ancient Rome Babylonia Ancient Greece Topics and practices Atlantic slave trade Middle Passage Arab slave trade Ghilman Mamluk Saqaliba Aztec Blackbirding Byzantine Empire Coolie Corvée labor Field slaves in the United States House slaves Kholop Medieval Europe Panyarring Thrall Serfs History Russia Slave raiding Naval Galley slave Impressment Pirates Shanghaiing Slave ship
By country or region Africa Contemporary Africa Slavery on the Barbary Coast Barbary slave trade Slave Coast Angola Chad Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Somalia South Africa Sudan Seychelles Americas Americas indigenous U.S. Natives Brazil Lei Áurea Canada Caribbean Barbados Code Noir Cuba Haiti revolt Restavek Latin America Puerto Rico Trinidad United States colonial maps female partus penal labor Slave codes interregional Human Trafficking Virgin Islands Asia Bhutan China Booi Aha Laogai India Debt bondage Chukri System Japan comfort women South Korea Yankee princess North Korea Vietnam Australia and Oceania Blackbirding in Australia Human trafficking in Australia Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe Sex trafficking in Europe British Isles Denmark Dutch Republic Germany in World War II Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain colonies Sweden Middle East and North Africa Iran Libya Human trafficking in the Middle East Ottoman Empire Yemen
Religion Bible Christianity Catholicism Islam 21st century Judaism Bahá'í Faith
Opposition and resistance Timeline Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Compensated emancipation Freedman manumission Freedom suit Abolitionists Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution
Related Common law Indentured servant Unfree labour Fugitive slaves laws Great Dismal Swamp maroons List of slaves owners Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave catcher Slave patrol Slave Route Project Treatment in U.S. breeding court cases Washington Jefferson Adams Lincoln 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau bit Wage slavery Emancipation Day

The North increasingly opposed slave catching

With the North becoming increasingly opposed to the idea of fugitive slave catchers they adopted "anti-southern" views. Several northern states passed new personal liberty laws in defiance of the South's efforts to have slaves captured and returned. If the slave catcher fell in love with the slave, the slave and the slave catcher would run off together and make their own lives. Slave-catching was allowed in the North, but the new laws in the North did not make it impossible to catch fugitive slaves but it became so difficult, expensive and time-consuming that the fugitive slave catchers and the owners stopped trying.^[1]

References

Murrin, Johnson & McPherson, Gerstle Rosenburg; Liberty, Equality, Power; A History of The American People: Volume 1: to 1877 (4th edition) Thomas/ Wadsworth 2006 ISBN 0006437885

1 2 John Hope Franklin; Loren Schweninger (20 July 2000). Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-508451-1.

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/25/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.