Fugitive slave laws

The **Fugitive Slave Acts** were two federal laws that concerned  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  slaves. It started with the purchase of 20 Africans from an English warship named the *White Lyon.* The Colonists in the Virginia Colony bought the contracts of the Africans as indentured servants. Not long after this it became a custom to hold slaves for life in the colonies. Neither the word "slave" or "slavery" were used in the Constitution.

In the United States, up to the 1860s, slaves and indentured servants were treated as personal property. They were subject to the property laws of the individual states. A slave woman could not defend herself against the attack by a white person. The United States Supreme Court decision *Dred Scott v. Sandford* (1857) confirmed that slaves were not citizens of the United States nor of any state they reside in. In 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment overturned the Dred Scott decision.
 
## Early pro-slavery legislation 
### Northwest Ordinance 1787 
The Northwest Ordinance (1787) was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States (before the United States Constitution). It created the Northwest Territory, the first organized territory of the United States. The Ordinance provided that the territory would be formed into "not less than three nor more than five States". 

The territory was made up of lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains. It was south of British North America and the Great Lakes. It was north of the Ohio River. Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery in the new territory. However, it contained a  that any fugitive slaves caught in the territory would be returned to their owners. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 passed by the second Congress added that mechanism. It added a fine of $500 to any person who helped a runaway slave. Anyone who provided food or shelter to any suspected runaway slave was subject to six months in prison and a fine of $1,000. An officer who captured a runaway slave would get a bonus or a promotion. The 1850 law provided for special commissioners to decide if the alleged fugitive was to be returned to slavery. He received $10 if the fugitive was returned, but only $5 if the fugitive was freed. This amounted to a legal form of bribery. This caused a large number of free blacks to be sent into slavery.

## Results of the slave law 
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.

## References 
## Other websites 
* Slavery Fugitive Slave Law; YouTube
* Fugitive Slave Act and Uncle Tom's Cabin; YouTube