page_title: Fugitive slave laws
section_title: Results of the slave law
hierarchical_section_title: Fugitive slave laws / Results of the slave law
caption_attribution_description: English: A common image used in runaway slave ads.
context_page_description: The Fugitive Slave Acts were two federal laws that concerned runaway slaves in the United States. The two acts were passed in 1793 and in 1850. They required federal involvement in catching runaway slaves in Northern States. The laws were designed to protect Southern slave owners. They required those states and jurisdictions to help in the capture and delivery of fugitive slaves. The laws were very unpopular in the North. They caused a great deal of resentment in the years leading up to the American Civil War.
context_section_description: The 1850 Fugitive Slave Law caused outrage in the Northern States. It caused thousands of Northerners to be convinced slavery should not be allowed in the western territories. Eight states in the North passed "personal liberty" laws. These prevented any official from helping to return a runaway slave. Southerners regarded these laws as being illegal attempts to prevent the return of their slaves. In the North, free black communities provided runaway slaves with sanctuary and hid them from the hired kidnappers searching for them. About 15,000 free blacks emigrated to Canada, the Caribbean and Africa after the 1850 law was passed. Thousands of others including free blacks were not so lucky and were sent South.
  In 1851, a gun battle broke out between abolitionists and slave catchers in Christiana, Pennsylvania. In Wisconsin a fugitive named Joshua Glover was forcibly freed from a jail. In Boston, a mob tried to free a fugitive named Anthony Burns. It took 22 companies of state troopers to stop them. The Southern states were completely convinced the North would not follow the slave laws.
caption: Common image used for runaway slave posters
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