February 11, 2026 • 43 mins
Our second episode on the life of Anthony Burns begins with his detention in Boston, which outraged Massachusetts abolitionists. Even after Burns was returned to Virginia to be enslaved once again, his supporters in Boston continued to work for his freedom.
Research:
- Buehrens, John A. “Spiritual friendship and social justice.” UU World. Fall 2019. https://www.uuworld.org/articles/spiritual-friendship
- Sutton, Robert K. “’We waked up stark mad Abolitionists.’” From "Stark Mad Abolitionists.” Salon. 8/5/2017. https://www.salon.com/2017/08/05/we-waked-up-stark-mad-abolitionists/
- Sutton, Robert K. “The Wealthy Activist Who Helped Turn ‘Bleeding Kansas’ Free.” Smithsonian. 8/16/2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/wealthy-activist-who-helped-turn-bleeding-kansas-free-180964494/
- Delblanco, Andrew. “America’s Struggle for Moral Coherence.” The Atlantic. 12/12/2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/the-nation-has-been-this-dividedin-the-civil-war/575587/
- Finkelman, Paul & Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Anthony Burns (1834–1862). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/burns-anthony-1834-1862.
- “Anthony Burns Captured.” Africans in America. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2915.html
- Boston African American National Historic Site. “"God made me a man- not a slave": The Arrest of Anthony Burns.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/-god-made-me-a-man-not-a-slave-the-arrest-of-anthony-burns.htm#_ftnref14
- Linder, Douglas O. “The (Fugitive Slave)Trials of Anthony Burns: An Account.” UMKC School of Law: Famous Trials. 2019. https://www.famous-trials.com/anthonyburns/2425-the-fugitive-slave-trials-of-anthony-burns-an-account
- Encyclopedia Virginia. “The Trial of Anthony Burns (1854).” https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/burns-anthony-the-trial-of-1854/
- Stevens, Charles Emery. “Anthony Burns: A History.” Boston : John P. Jewett and Co. 1856.
- Shapiro, Samuel. “The Rendition of Anthony Burns.” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Jan., 1959). https://www.jstor.org/stable/2716312
- Maginnes, David R. “The Case of the Court House Rioters in the Rendition of the Fugitive Slave Anthony Burns, 1854.” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Jan., 1971). https://www.jstor.org/stable/2716024
- Landon, Fred. “Anthony Burns in Canada.” Reprinted from the Ontario Historical Society’s “Papers and Records” volume XXII. 1925. https://archive.org/details/anthonyburnsinca00land/
- Potter, Joseph S. “The Boston Slave Riot, and Trial of Anthony Burns.” Boston: Fetridge and Company. 1854. https://archive.org/details/DKC0103/mode/1up
- Perlstein, Henry, “From the Ashes of the Common Law”: Personal Replevin in the 21st Century (February 05, 2024). Intercultural Human Rights Law Review, Volume 19, pp. 257-309, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5407082 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5407082
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frye. This is the second part of
our two parter about Anthony Burns, inspired by how frequently
I have seen a quote about him on social media
over the last several months. In part one, we talked
about his life in Virginia up until about the age
(00:32):
of twenty, during which he was enslaved. Then, in eighteen
fifty four, Burns escaped aboard a ship bound for Boston,
where we left off. His enslaver, Charles F. Suttle, had
learned where Burns was and had filed the necessary paperwork
to have him pursued as a fugitive slave catcher, and
Deputy Marshall ASA O. Buttman had arrested Burns under false
(00:57):
pretenses on the evening of Wednesday, May twenty fourth, eighteen
fifty four, saying that Burns had been accused of robbing
a jewelry store. Burns was taken to the courthouse and
held in the jury room, where he was kept under guard.
While Anthony Burns was being held in the jury room
at the courthouse, Charles F. Suttle and William Brent arrived
(01:20):
and they were let in to see him. As we
talked about in Part one, Burns had previously worked for
Brent for a couple of years, and Brent was managing
his hiring out in Richmond, so Brent knew Burns and
could identify him. Suttle asked Burns why he had run away,
and Burns told him he had fallen asleep on board
(01:40):
the vessel where he had been working, and when he
woke up, the ship had set sail and carried him off. This,
of course, had some elements of the truth, but without
an admission that he had been trying to escape. Then
Subtle asked Burns whether he had always been good to him,
whether Suttle had given Burns money when he needed it,
(02:01):
and Burns answered, quote, you have always given me twelve
and a half cents once a year. This statement would
later be used as evidence that Burns knew Subtle and
that he was the fugitive that Subtle was seeking.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Since it was late, Burns was held in the jury
room overnight to appear before the commissioner on the morning
of May twenty fifth. Buttman and several of his men
stayed in the room to guard him. They had dinner delivered,
which they did not share with him. They amused themselves
by playing cards and by telling Burns about Thomas Simms,
(02:37):
who had been held in the same room after being
arrested on April fourth, eighteen fifty one, about six months
after the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty was signed
into law. Thomas Simms had been enslaved in Georgia, and
he was about seventeen when he escaped to Boston by
stowing away on a ship. Asa Buttman had been one
(02:58):
of the men involved in his capture. Commissioner George Tickner
Curtis had presided over the hearing and had ruled in
favor of Sims's enslaver. About three hundred armed police and
members of the City Watch had escorted Simms to Long Wharf.
He was placed aboard a brig called the Acorn, which
(03:19):
set sail for Savannah with him aboard on April twelfth,
returning him to slavery. Abolitionists had made a plan to
try to liberate Sims from the courthouse, which they had
successfully done in the case of Shadrack Mincoln's just a
couple of months before. In Mencoln's case, a group of
black men led by Lewis Hayden had burst into the
(03:39):
courtroom during his hearing and rescued him afterward. Mencoln's had
been moved from one hiding place to another in and
around Boston before being successfully taken to Quebec. Burns's jailer's
did not tell him about Mincoln's successful escape, but that
escape is probably why the plan to resc you Thomas
(04:01):
Simms had failed. After the liberation of Shadrack, Mincoln's authorities
had prepared for Simms's hearing by draping chains around the courthouse,
placing the courthouse under guard, barring all the windows and doors,
and garrisoning a militia nearby at Daniel Hall. Hearing about
someone whose story was so similar to his own, who
(04:23):
was so close to his own age, who had been
held in the same room and then returned to slavery
even after people tried to free him, was as intended
demoralizing for Anthony Burns. When his guards were brought breakfast
in the morning, they offered to share it with him,
but after all of that he had no appetite He
(04:45):
was placed in shackles before being taken to the courtroom,
where US Marshall Watson Freeman posted guards around him. Authorities
had managed to keep Burns's arrest pretty quiet. That was
one of the reasons that Buttman had told Burne he
was being arrested for robbing a jewelry store. They thought
that if they told.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Him the real reason he was being arrested, that he
would probably fight back. He might make a much bigger spectacle.
He might even be killed in the process. So by
the morning of May twenty fifth, Burns's arrest had not
really raised much of an outcry.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
But attorney Richard H. Dana Junior was passing by the
courthouse that morning and heard people talking about what was
going on. Dana was a prominent abolitionist. He had helped
establish the Free Soil Party and was a member of
the Boston Vigilance Committee. Dana had previously helped to defend
both Thomas Simms and Shadrack Mincoln's He did other anti
(05:45):
slavery legal work as well, and he refused to take
payment for any of it. He was also well known
because of his eighteen fifty memoir two years before the
mast detailing his time on a merchant ship. Dana made
his way.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Into the courtroom and he offered to represent Anthony Burns.
At first, Burns refused, saying quote, it will be of
no use.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
They have got me.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Burns also thought that if he did anything other than
just to comply with what he was told to do,
that things would be much harder for him when he
was inevitably returned to Virginia. As word of Burns's arrest
started to spread around Boston, more people started arriving at
the courthouse, including other prominent abolitionists. A minister named Theodore
(06:33):
Parker approached Burns, told him who he was, and again
asked if he wanted representation. Burns answered, quote, I shall
have to go back. Mister Subtle knows me. Brent knows me.
If I must go back, I want to go back
as easy as I can. United States Commissioner Edward G.
Loring was presiding over this hearing, and his participation in
(06:56):
this was complicated. He was acting as a federal commissioner,
but he was also a Massachusetts probate judge. Massachusetts had
passed a personal liberty law in eighteen forty three after
efforts to return a man named George Latimer to slavery.
This law prohibited state officials from arresting and detaining quote,
(07:19):
fugitives from service, so Loring's interpretation was that he was
acting in his federal capacity for this hearing, not in
his state capacity, which would have prohibited him from being involved.
This same argument was also being made for the Suffolk
County Courthouse, where Burns was being held and where this
(07:40):
hearing was taking place. It was a county courthouse, but
it was being used also for federal cases.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Although Burns had virtually no rights guaranteed to him under
the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty, Loring had some
leeway in how he conducted the proceedings. When he entered
the courtroom, Dana approached him regarding his offer to represent Burns.
Dana said that he thought Burns was terrified, truly paralyzed
with fear, and quote, in a condition wholly unfit to
(08:10):
act for himself. He suggested that Loring call Burns to
the bench and try to figure out what his actual
wishes were, rather than questioning him while he was sitting
right next to Subtle, whose presence was obviously intimidating.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Loring started the hearing. Subtle's attorneys were Seth J. Thomas
and Edward G.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Parker.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
One of them read the warrant for Burns's arrest, along
with the document that had been issued in Virginia finding
that Burns was Subtle's property. William Brent was called to
the stand as a witness that Burns was the man
who was named in these documents. There was really no
legal requirement for a more thorough preceding than this, or
(08:52):
for Burns to have any kind of legal representation, But
at this point Dana stood up. He had no authority
to represent Burns in any official capacity, so he addressed
Luring as a friend of the court and made a
motion that Burns be allowed to have counsel. Suttle's attorneys
objected to this, but then another attorney, Charles m Ellis,
(09:14):
made a similar motion to Danis. Commissioner Loring asked Burns
to be brought to the bench and for his shackles
to be removed. He asked whether Burns wanted to make
a defense. When Burns did not answer, Loring asked if
he would like a delay for a day or two
to make a decision. Burns ultimately said that he did,
(09:35):
and Loring postponed the proceedings until May twenty seventh.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Burns continued to be held in the courthouse in the
jury room, manacled and guarded by four men. In the
words of his biographer Charles Emery Stevens, quote, the interval
was industriously employed by these tools of the slaveholder in
the livery of the federal government in attempts to lead
Burns into making admissions fatal to himself. For example, quote,
(10:02):
they plied him with questions which, quietly, assuming the fact
that he was subtle slave, looked toward information on unimportant points.
Thus they inquired whether Subtle raised or bought him. In
this instance, Burns proved too shrewd for them and told
them to find out some other way. He wasn't always shrewd, though.
(10:25):
At one point one of the guards told him that
word around town was that Subtle had mistreated him. The
state of his hand from when he had been injured
working at a sawmill in his early teens was seen
as proof of this alleged mistreatment. The guard said that
Subtle was very annoyed by this, and that it might
help things go better for Burns if he wrote a
(10:47):
letter setting the record straight. So Burns did this, and
then a minister who came to visit him immediately realized
what was going on, that this letter was going to
be incriminating evidence, and demanded that it be destroyed. The guards,
of course, refused to destroy the letter, but then Burns
said that he had something to add to it. They
gave it back to him. He destroyed it himself. We
(11:10):
will talk about what was happening outside the courthouse during
this delay after we paused for a sponsor break.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
While Anthony Burns was being held in the courthouse, Boston's
Committee of Vigilance was working on a plan to free him.
This racially integrated committee had been formed after the passage
of the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty to fight
back against the Act and to try to protect people
who were affected by it. The Committee monitored Southerners who
(11:47):
arrived in Boston to figure out if they were there
to apprehend somebody or for some other reason. If they
heard somebody had escaped and boarded a ship to Boston,
they would try to send a smaller vessel to intercept
that before it got to the harbor. Sometimes they would
make up a purportedly legal reason that they needed to
get aboard. They would then try to get that person
(12:08):
too shore outside of town rather than in Boston Harbor,
so that they had a better chance of getting away.
The committee also tried to shelter and protect people who
arrived in Massachusetts's fugitives, so they had a lot of
connections to the underground railroad. They had been involved in
the efforts to rescue Thomas Simms and Shadrack Mincoln's in
(12:30):
eighteen fifty one. The Committee and other activists in Boston
started working on a plan as soon as they heard
Burns was being held at the courthouse. They also set
around the clock watch on the courthouse in case authorities
tried to move Burns somewhere else or to hold his
hearing in the middle of the night to try to
avoid spectators. Members of the committee held secret meetings at
(12:55):
Faniel Hall and Tremont Temple, and two prevailing thoughts emerged.
One group thought that they should break into the courthouse
and remove Burns by force as soon as possible, as
had been done with Shadrack Mincoln's. Others thought that they
should wait until the Commissioner announced his decision and if
(13:15):
Burns was going to be returned to slavery, then they
should rally support from all over Boston fill the streets.
When he was being taken to the harbor. They would
make themselves into a physical human barrier so they could
get him to safety in the ensuing chaos. Ultimately, the
committee voted in favor of trying to rescue Burns after
(13:36):
the hearing when he was being taken to the harbor,
not trying to get him out of the courthouse itself.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
A public meeting was also planned, with announcements in newspapers
and notices posted all over the city that read, a
man kidnapped. Public Meetings at Faniel Hall will be held
this Friday evening, May twenty six, at seven o'clock to
secure justice for a man claimed as a slave by
a Virginia kidnapper and now imprisoned in Boston Courthouse in
(14:06):
defiance of the laws of Massachusetts. Shall he be plunged
into the hell of Virginia slavery by a Massachusetts judge
of probate. Somewhere between two thousand and five thousand people
attended this public meeting. I saw both of those numbers.
One of the speakers was George R. Russell, former mayor
(14:27):
of Roxbury, who said, in part quote, the boast of
the slaveholder is that he will catch his slaves under
the shadow of Bunker Hill. We have made compromises until
we find that compromise is concession and concession is degradation.
Samuel Gridley Howe also presented a set of resolutions that
(14:48):
were adopted by the meeting, including no man's freedom is
safe unless all men are free. Even though the Vigilance
Committee voted to rescue Burne after the hearing, some of
the advocates for breaking him out of the courthouse went
ahead with that plan, including getting some axes to try
(15:09):
to break down the doors. After the public meeting at
Faniel Hall, word spread that people were attacking the courthouse
and thousands of people arrived on the scene. Someone grabbed
a beam from a nearby construction site to use as
a battering ram. As all of this was happening, Burns
was placed in the corner of the jury room, farthest
(15:30):
away from what was taking place outside. The people who
were attacking the courthouse doors did manage very briefly to
get through one of them, and Unitarian minister Thomas wentworth.
Higginson and another man both wound up inside the building,
not for very long, though they were quickly forced outside again.
But during this struggle, several people were injured, and twenty
(15:54):
four year old Deputy Marshal James Bachelder was fatally wounded.
He was either shot or stabbed, and he bled to
death within minutes. It is not clear exactly what happened.
Different physicians who examined the body came to different conclusions,
and multiple people believed that they had either fired the
(16:14):
fatal shot or had accidentally stabbed him. It is not
even clear whether Bachelder was struck by one of the
attackers trying to get into the building or one of
the people trying to defend the building. The US Marshall
called for federal troops to restore order. This included marines
from Fort Warren and the Charlestown Navy Yard. Multiple people
(16:37):
were arrested, and over the next couple of days, nine
people were charged with murder, including Higginson, although none of
these charges ever came to trial. On May twenty seventh,
Burns's hearing resumed, and President Franklin Pierce ordered federal troops
to guard the courthouse. Dana and Ellis had been joined
by Robert Morris, who we talked about in our episode
(16:59):
on Carl Sumner. Morris was one of the first black
attorneys in the United States. They were trying to find
a way to shift the legal proceedings from the administrative
hearing that was outlined under the Fugitive Slave Act of
eighteen fifty to an actual trial with a jury. This
would not only give Burns rights and protections he was
(17:20):
not entitled to under the Fugitive Slave Act, but it
could also potentially lead to a case that could challenge
the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
One of the things they tried to do was to
file a writ of personal replevin, which is somewhat similar
to a writ of habeas corpus. With a writ of
habeas corpus, authorities who are keeping somewhat in custody have
to produce that person in court. In Massachusetts in eighteen
fifty four, a writ of habeas corpus did not necessarily
(17:53):
result in a jury trial, but a writ of personal
replevin did at that under the way this writ worked,
it was up to the defendant, meaning in this case,
the authorities that were detaining someone to prove that detention
was valid. So the hope was to use a writ
(18:13):
of personal replevin to force Subtle and his attorneys to
prove their case in front of a jury. This process
took days, during which they got another postponement of the hearing.
The coroner had been tasked with serving the writ, and
the first time he tried to do so, the US
Marshal simply refused, saying that Burns was being held under
(18:37):
the legal process outlined in the Fugitive Slave Act. The
federal troops who were stationed around the courthouse were also
trying to prohibit access to the building. A number of
Boston officials, including some of the Board of Aldermen, met
with the Chief of Police to figure out how to
serve the rent without the interference of federal troops. Burns's
(18:58):
attorneys were also trying to gather evidence that could raise
reasonable doubts if this did get in front of a jury.
Like Burns had been identified based on a scar on
his face and the one on his hand from when
he was injured as a teen, but when William Brent
testified about Burns's identity, he said that he had seen
(19:20):
Burns in Richmond at the end of March, that was impossible.
At the end of March, Burns was already in Boston,
and there were multiple witnesses from Boston who could attest
to that. As the public furor over Burns's detention increased
around Boston, the troops who were guarding him started saying
that they were fearing for their lives. Some reported taking
(19:43):
indirect routes to and from the courthouse with the hope
of avoiding demonstrators. Subtle moved from the ground floor of
his lodgings to the attic and went around with a
bodyguard made up of Harvard students from the South. Negotiations
to secure Burns's freedom were also going on outside the courtroom,
and on Saturday May twenty seventh, Subtle agreed to sell
(20:05):
him for twelve hundred dollars. Even though the ultimate purpose
of this sale would be to free him, it would
have been illegal in Massachusetts. Even so, the Reverend Leonard A. Grimes,
pastor at twelfth Baptist Church, started working on raising that money.
He got subscriptions from wealthy people around Boston, including one
(20:28):
that was basically a four hundred dollars loan to just
enable this transaction to happen, but they would need to
raise that money to return it to the donor after
the sale was over. Everything seemed to be lining up
for Burns to be freed, and Subtle signed paperwork agreeing
to this sale. But as they were in the US
(20:49):
Marshall's office finishing the negotiations, District Attorney Benjamin Hallett arrived
and refused to honor that sale. He argued that his
Subtle sold Burns to abolitionists, the US government would have
no opportunity to recoup the expenses that had already gone
into these proceedings, and there would also be no opportunity
(21:09):
for restitution in James Batchelder's death. Arguing over this stretched
past midnight, at which point it was Sunday being the sabbath,
and Commissioner Loring told everyone they would have to leave
and reconvene on Monday morning, May twenty ninth. When they
did reconvene that Monday, Subtle set his offer to sell
(21:30):
Burns had only been good for May twenty seventh, and
it had expired. When that matter was not settled before midnight,
Subtle said he would still sell Burns but only after
the hearing was over and had been found in his
favor and he had returned to Virginia. Although Burns's attorneys
were not successful in their efforts to get him a
(21:51):
jury trial, he did have a longer hearing than the
simple administrative hearing that the law required. Over the next
two days, attorneys on both sides submitted their evidence for
and against Anthony Burns. Richard Dana also delivered a four
hour closing argument in which he pointed out various contradictions
(22:13):
in the testimonies of Subtle and Brent and their legal
documents from Virginia, and spelled out arguments Loring could use
to justify freeing Burns. This included arguing that since Brent
was the one responsible for Burns when he left Virginia,
Subtle didn't even have standing to initiate the proceedings to
have him returned. Yeah, this whole argument was very explicit.
(22:37):
It was like, you can say these things. That is
a compelling legal argument to find in Burns's favor. As
all of this was happening, on May thirtieth, eighteen fifty four,
President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas Nebraska Act into law.
We talked about this Act in our episode on Charles
(22:57):
Sumner last year as well. Under the Missouri Compromise of
eighteen twenty, a dividing line had been established, with slavery
outlawed in new states and territories north of that line,
But the Kansas Nebraska Act repealed that compromise, leaving the
question of whether slavery would be allowed in the newly
formed territories of Kansas and Nebraska up to popular sovereignty
(23:22):
or voting.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Abolitionists in Massachusetts and elsewhere were outraged over the Kansas
Nebraska Act, which had the potential to allow slavery in
places where it had previously been illegal, and it made
a lot of the people who were opposed to Anthony
Burns being returned to slavery even angrier. The following day,
June first, Amos Adams Lawrence wrote a letter to his
(23:46):
father in law, Giles Richards, that said, in part quote,
we went to bed one night, old fashioned conservative compromise
union whigs and waked up stark mad abolitionists. We'll get
to what happened next after sponsor break. On June first,
(24:11):
eighteen fifty four, Commissioner Edward Loring ordered Anthony Burns to
be returned to slavery in Virginia, and while there were,
of course pro slavery people in Boston, a significant part
of the population was outraged. This was a shift from
the public sentiment in eighteen fifty one, when Shadrack Mincoln's
(24:33):
had been freed from the courthouse and taken to Canada,
and when Thomas Simms had been returned to enslavement. In
eighteen fifty one, the Fugitive Slave Act had been controversial,
but more people had supported it or thought it was
necessary to keep the union intact. This shift is something
Burns's attorney, Richard ATE's Jana Junior remarked on saying, quote,
(24:56):
men who were hostile or unpleasant in eighteen fifty one
now are cordial and complimentary, and the prevailing talk among
merchants and lawyers is that of hostility to slavery and
the slave power. Amos Adams Lawrence, for example, was from
a family whose wealth had come from the textile industry,
(25:16):
and that meant it was reliant on southern cotton. He
had written a letter in eighteen fifty one expressing a
willingness to lynch the people who had freed Shadrack Minkns.
In addition to the sentiments expressed in the letter we've
quoted in these episodes, in eighteen fifty four he offered
to pay all of Dana's legal expenses. Not long after this,
(25:38):
he would also pour huge amounts of money into anti
slavery efforts in Kansas. The city of Lawrence, Kansas is
named for him.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, I read a couple of articles that kind of
characterized him as being radicalized by the case of Anthony Burns.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
The federal government, of.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Course, wanted to ensure that the Fugitive Slave Act was
Uphell and that Burns was successfully put on a ship
and sent back to slavery in Virginia. Once again, federal
troops were tasked with doing this. On June second, more
than two thousand federal soldiers and marines were stationed around
Boston City. Police and Boston militia also lined the streets.
(26:19):
A nineteen twenty five piece by Canadian historian Fred Landen
described the law enforcement and military presence that day this way.
Quote in the guard that marched that day through the
streets of Boston. Surrounding Burns, there was a regiment of artillery,
a platoon of US Marines. The Marshall's civic posse of
(26:40):
one hundred and twenty five men close in about the prisoner,
two further platoons of marines immediately behind with a field piece,
and yet another platoon of marines to guard it. The
city of Boston had a population of about one hundred
and thirty seven thousand people in eighteen fifty four. An
estimated fifty thousand of those people took to the streets
(27:03):
on June tewod to protest the rendition of Anthony Burns.
People yelled things like shame and kidnappers at the federal
troops who escorted him to the harbor, some through bricks
and rocks, and there were a number of skirmishes along
the route, some of them resulting in injuries. Businesses and
homes draped their windows with funeral bunting. A coffin draped
(27:27):
in black cloth was suspended over the street in front
of the Old State House, emblazoned with the words the
funeral of Liberty. Yet rendition, if you're not familiar with
that use of that term is sort of the legal
term for an interstate extradition in the United States.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Richard Dana and.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
The Reverend Leonard Grimes asked for permission to accompany Burns
to the harbor, but that permission was refused, so he
walked alone, flanked by soldiers through cordons established by law enforcement,
wearing a new suit that had been given to him
by some of the militia. When he got to the wharf,
he was put aboard a federal ship which had a
naval escort out of Boston Harbor. The cost of Burns's
(28:11):
transportation to the harbor and back to Virginia, which was
paid for by the federal government, was about forty thousand dollars,
which is very roughly equivalent to one and a half
million dollars today.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
This was one of the most infamous fugitive slave trials
in the years leading up to the US Civil War,
and it was also the topic of a lot of
Sunday sermons that week in Boston and elsewhere in Massachusetts.
In the words of Burns's biographer, Charles Emory Stevens, quote,
the extradition of Anthony Burns as a fugitive slave was
the most memorable case of the kind that has occurred
(28:48):
since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. It was memorable
for the place and for the time of its occurrence,
the place being the ancient and chief seat of liberty
in America, and the time being just the moment, but
when the cause of liberty had received a most wicked
and crushing blow from the hand of the federal government.
It was memorable also for the difficulty with which it
(29:10):
was accomplished, for the intense popular excitement which it caused,
for the unexampled expense which it entailed, for the grave
questions of law which it involved, for the punishment which
it brought down upon the head of the chief actor,
and for the political revolution which it drew on.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
After arriving in Norfolk, Virginia, Burns was kept in jail
for two days before boarding another ship bound for Richmond.
There he was incarcerated at a slave trading complex run
by Robert Lumpkin, which was known as Lumpkin's Jail. While
most of the other people there were being held before
being sold, and they were kept in cells together, Burns
(29:50):
was shackled in an attic room that was accessible only
through a trapdoor.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Alone.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
He had a bench rather than a bed, and was
only given a thin blanket and one meal a day.
This was an attic room in Virginia in the summer,
so it was very hot, and since he was chained
by the hands and feet, Burns had no way to try.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
To make himself more comfortable. This permanently affected his health,
and he said that it felt like revenge. At the
beginning of his incarceration, his chains were periodically removed so
that he could be taken downstairs and shown to visitors.
Most of them wanted not just to gawk at him,
(30:33):
but to tell them how they thought he had damaged
to the state of Virginia and that his life should
have been sacrificed for the good of the slaveholding class.
These visits eventually tapered off, at which point his only
contact with other people was through a hole that he
enlarged through the floor.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
With a spoon. In the area that was covered up
by the trap door. When it was open, he would
talk to the people who were in the cell beneath
him through that hole.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
He had managed to conceal a pen and some paper
in his clothes while still in Boston, and someone in
the cell below had managed to smuggle him some ink.
He worked pieces of brick out of the wall, and
he wrapped letters around them, written to friends in Boston
and elsewhere. He would wait until he saw a black
person pass by on the street below before dropping them
(31:25):
out of the window, and he knew that this was
a risk because a black person finding that letter probably
wouldn't be able to read and would need to find
someone who could. One of these notes ended up being
delivered to Subtle, who had his jailers confiscate his paper
and pen. Yeah, I think he determined that none of
the letters that he tried to send this way actually
(31:47):
wound up getting to their intended recipient. Abolitionists in Boston
were still trying to get Subtle to sell Burns to them,
but at this point he refused. He said that his
friends in Virginia were a posed to it. They said
it might encourage more people to try to escape, knowing
that doing so might lead to their being purchased by
(32:08):
somebody in the North. But eventually some members of the
militia got in touch with him about it, and since
they were militia and not abolitionists, he seemed more willing
to entertain their offer.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
At this point, though, he wanted fifteen hundred dollars, which
they were unable to raise. Finally, Subtle sold Burns at auction,
telling the auctioneer to make sure that he did not
go to anyone in the North. Burns was sold to
David McDaniel of Rocky Mountain, North Carolina for nine hundred
(32:41):
and five dollars. McDaniel left Richmond with Burns at night
to try to avoid the possibility of an angry mob
harassing them on their way out of town. He was
really notorious in the South at this point. He was
getting a comparable level of attention to what he had
gotten in Boston, but like from the absolute opposite angle.
(33:03):
People were ready to tell him that he had harmed
the whole state of Virginia, that he deserved everything, that
he was getting, all kinds of.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Once he was sold to McDaniel, the people of Boston
basically lost track of Anthony Burns, but eventually one of
McDaniel's neighbors realized who he was, and word made its
way back to a minister named George Stockwell contacted the
Reverend Leonard Grimes, who worked with black abolitionists in Boston,
to raise thirteen hundred dollars to purchase Burns from McDaniel.
(33:36):
They traveled to Baltimore to make this transaction, which was
carried out with some difficulty on February twenty seventh of
eighteen fifty five, and after that Burns was free. A
reception was held in his honor at Tremont Temple in
Boston on March seventh, eighteen fifty five. After returning to Boston,
Burns told his life story to Charles Emery Stevens, who
(33:59):
had also witnessed a lot of the events surrounding his
case in Boston firsthand. Stevens wrote Anthony Burns, a History
based on this and other research, and he published that
book in eighteen fifty six. Burns sold copies of the
book and also did speaking engagements to help pay for
his education. He reportedly refused an offer of five hundred
(34:21):
dollars to speak at P. T. Barnum's museum, saying that
Barnum wanted to quote show him like a monkey. He
didn't want to earn a living off of this book
and speaking, though he sort of thought that it was
making money off of something evil. What he wanted was
to become an ordained minister. A Boston donor funded a
(34:43):
scholarship for him to study at Oberlin College in Ohio.
It's possible that he also spent some time at Fairmount
Theological Seminary in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
In eighteen fifty five, Burns wrote to a church that
he had attended in Virginia, asking for a letter of dismission,
ending his membership there so that he could join another church.
This church published its response in the Fort Royal Gazette
on November eighth, eighteen fifty five, saying, quote, Anthony Burns
absconded from the service of his master and refused to
(35:14):
return voluntarily, thereby disobeying both the laws of God and man.
Although he subsequently obtained his freedom by purchase, yet we
have now to consider him only as a fugitive from labor,
as he was before his arrest and restoration to his master.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Burns's response to this was printed as an appendix to
his biography. He told Stevens that he had some assistance
in preparing it, but that the substance was all his own.
It's said in part quote, I admit that I left
my master so called and refused to return. But I
deny that in this I disobeyed either the law of
(35:54):
God or any real law of men. Look at my
case I was stolen and made a slave as soon
as I was born. No man had any right to
steal me. That man stealer who stole me trampled on
my dearest rights. He committed an outrage on the law
of God. Therefore, his man stealing gave him no right
(36:16):
in me, and laid me under no obligation to be
his slave. God made me a man, not a slave,
and gave me the same right to myself that he
gave the man who stole me to himself. The great
wrongs he has done me in stealing me and making
me a slave, and compelling me to work for him
many years without wages, and in holding me as merchandise,
(36:39):
these wrongs could never put me under obligation to stay
with him or return voluntarily. When once escaped, he.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Went on to say, quote, you charge me that in
escaping I disobeyed God's law. No, indeed, that law which
God wrote on the table of my heart, inspiring the
love of freedom and impelling me to seek it at
every hazard, I obeyed, and by the good hand of
my God upon me, I walked out of the house
of bondage. You charge me with disobeying the laws of
(37:09):
men I utterly deny that those things which outrage all
right are laws. To be real laws, they must be
founded in equity. You have thrust me out of your
church fellowship, so be it. You can do no more.
You cannot exclude me from Heaven. You cannot hinder my
daily fellowship with God.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
In eighteen sixty, Burns was offered a position as a
preacher at a church in Indianapolis, Indiana, but he wasn't
able to accept that position since Indiana's eighteen fifty one
constitution banned black people from entering, passing through, or settling
in the state. Not long after, he was hired at
Zion Baptist Church in Saint Catharine's, Canada West, which was
(37:52):
later known as Ontario. He moved there and took up
his position, but he died of tuberculosis a couple of
years later on July twenty seventh, eighteen sixty two, at
the age of twenty eight. He was buried at Saint
Catherine's Cemetery, and his grave there was restored in the
year two thousand.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
In the words of an obituary in a Saint Catherine's
newspaper quote, mister Burns's memory will be cherished long by
not a few in this town. His gentle, unassuming, and
yet manly bearing secured him many friends. His removal is
felt to be a great loss, and his place will
not soon be filled.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
The trial and rendition of Anthony Burns had impacts on
a number of other people who were connected to it,
and on Massachusetts more broadly. In particular, although Commissioner Edward G.
Loring had given Burns a more thorough legal proceeding than
he was legally entitled to under the Fugitive Slave Act
of eighteen fifty, people were outraged that he had found
(38:54):
for Burns and slaver. There were also people who were
angry because they thought Loring's role as a state probate
judge that have prevented him from being involved in the
first place. The Harvard Board of Overseers voted not to
reappoint him for his position at Harvard Law. He was
also removed from his position as a probate judge. However,
(39:16):
President James Buchanan later appointed him to the Federal Court
of Claims.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
In eighteen fifty five. In response to the Burns case
and the events surrounding it, Massachusetts also passed one of
the strictest personal liberty laws in the United States. The
legislature had to override the veto of Governor Henry Gardner
to pass this law, which was written specifically to limit
the power of the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty.
(39:43):
It explicitly applied the terms of the earlier eighteen forty
three personal liberty law to the Fugitive Slave Act. It
declared that quote every person imprisoned or restrained of his
liberty is entitled, as of right and of course, to
the writ of habeas corpus accept in the cases mentioned
in the second section of the chapter, A wide array
(40:07):
of legal bodies and legal officials were authorized to issue
these writs. A court would then have to order a
trial by jury at which the confessions, admissions, and declarations
of the alleged fugitive against themselves would not be admissible
as evidence. So you could not, for example, go ask
(40:29):
somebody a bunch of leading questions to then introduce the
answers to those questions as evidence. The burden of proof
was explicitly on the acclaimant, meaning the enslaver, not on
the alleged fugitive. This law is a big reason why
Anthony Burns was the last person to face a rendition
(40:49):
hearing after escaping from enslavement and fleeing to Massachusetts. Where
are we at on listener mail Tracy.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Well, we are at Iguanadon, been at Guanadon tennor hooray.
This is from Grace. It's a short email, but Grace
said hello. When I started the episode on the New
Year's Eve Iguanadon Dinner, I could have sworn that y'all
had already done an episode on it until I remembered
I was thinking of Tasting History. Max Miller did an
(41:20):
episode about the dinner and making salmi de pedri. I'm
saying that real bad. It's French. It's sort of French,
which was on the menu that night. Love hearing about
something from two different angles. Thanks for joining me on
so many car rides and household chores with a smile, Grace,
Thank you so much, Grace for this email. I did
not watch or really look at this episode of Tasting
(41:44):
History when I was working on this, but they did
make this dish. I'm always fascinated with the historical recipes.
There is a recipe on their website that is from
Beaton's Book of Household Management by Isabella Beaton from eighteen
sixty one that has this whole recipe and so it
is partridge and then Sawmi is a French cooking method.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, it's like roasting, yeah, and then in a sauce. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
I did not look too deeply into what any of
the individual dishes that were served in the Iguanadon that
I had never heard of were I actually like. And
now I kind of want to maybe try to recreate
as many of them as possible in the cold winter
where there's currently so much snow that I definitely do
(42:37):
not want to go out to buy ingredients.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
But anyway, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
For that email, Grace, and for reminding me about tasting history,
because I have not really partaken in any tasting history
stuff in a while, and it's really cool. If you
would like to send us a note, we're at history
Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. If you want to look
at the source list for our episodes, that is on
(43:04):
our website at mistonhistory dot com. Also, you can subscribe
to our show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else
you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you missed in
history class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(43:27):
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frye. This is the second part of
our two parter about Anthony Burns, inspired by how frequently
I have seen a quote about him on social media
over the last several months. In part one, we talked
about his life in Virginia up until about the age
(00:32):
of twenty, during which he was enslaved. Then, in eighteen
fifty four, Burns escaped aboard a ship bound for Boston,
where we left off. His enslaver, Charles F. Suttle, had
learned where Burns was and had filed the necessary paperwork
to have him pursued as a fugitive slave catcher, and
Deputy Marshall ASA O. Buttman had arrested Burns under false
(00:57):
pretenses on the evening of Wednesday, May twenty fourth, eighteen
fifty four, saying that Burns had been accused of robbing
a jewelry store. Burns was taken to the courthouse and
held in the jury room, where he was kept under guard.
While Anthony Burns was being held in the jury room
at the courthouse, Charles F. Suttle and William Brent arrived
(01:20):
and they were let in to see him. As we
talked about in Part one, Burns had previously worked for
Brent for a couple of years, and Brent was managing
his hiring out in Richmond, so Brent knew Burns and
could identify him. Suttle asked Burns why he had run away,
and Burns told him he had fallen asleep on board
(01:40):
the vessel where he had been working, and when he
woke up, the ship had set sail and carried him off. This,
of course, had some elements of the truth, but without
an admission that he had been trying to escape. Then
Subtle asked Burns whether he had always been good to him,
whether Suttle had given Burns money when he needed it,
(02:01):
and Burns answered, quote, you have always given me twelve
and a half cents once a year. This statement would
later be used as evidence that Burns knew Subtle and
that he was the fugitive that Subtle was seeking.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Since it was late, Burns was held in the jury
room overnight to appear before the commissioner on the morning
of May twenty fifth. Buttman and several of his men
stayed in the room to guard him. They had dinner delivered,
which they did not share with him. They amused themselves
by playing cards and by telling Burns about Thomas Simms,
(02:37):
who had been held in the same room after being
arrested on April fourth, eighteen fifty one, about six months
after the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty was signed
into law. Thomas Simms had been enslaved in Georgia, and
he was about seventeen when he escaped to Boston by
stowing away on a ship. Asa Buttman had been one
(02:58):
of the men involved in his capture. Commissioner George Tickner
Curtis had presided over the hearing and had ruled in
favor of Sims's enslaver. About three hundred armed police and
members of the City Watch had escorted Simms to Long Wharf.
He was placed aboard a brig called the Acorn, which
(03:19):
set sail for Savannah with him aboard on April twelfth,
returning him to slavery. Abolitionists had made a plan to
try to liberate Sims from the courthouse, which they had
successfully done in the case of Shadrack Mincoln's just a
couple of months before. In Mencoln's case, a group of
black men led by Lewis Hayden had burst into the
(03:39):
courtroom during his hearing and rescued him afterward. Mencoln's had
been moved from one hiding place to another in and
around Boston before being successfully taken to Quebec. Burns's jailer's
did not tell him about Mincoln's successful escape, but that
escape is probably why the plan to resc you Thomas
(04:01):
Simms had failed. After the liberation of Shadrack, Mincoln's authorities
had prepared for Simms's hearing by draping chains around the courthouse,
placing the courthouse under guard, barring all the windows and doors,
and garrisoning a militia nearby at Daniel Hall. Hearing about
someone whose story was so similar to his own, who
(04:23):
was so close to his own age, who had been
held in the same room and then returned to slavery
even after people tried to free him, was as intended
demoralizing for Anthony Burns. When his guards were brought breakfast
in the morning, they offered to share it with him,
but after all of that he had no appetite He
(04:45):
was placed in shackles before being taken to the courtroom,
where US Marshall Watson Freeman posted guards around him. Authorities
had managed to keep Burns's arrest pretty quiet. That was
one of the reasons that Buttman had told Burne he
was being arrested for robbing a jewelry store. They thought
that if they told.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Him the real reason he was being arrested, that he
would probably fight back. He might make a much bigger spectacle.
He might even be killed in the process. So by
the morning of May twenty fifth, Burns's arrest had not
really raised much of an outcry.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
But attorney Richard H. Dana Junior was passing by the
courthouse that morning and heard people talking about what was
going on. Dana was a prominent abolitionist. He had helped
establish the Free Soil Party and was a member of
the Boston Vigilance Committee. Dana had previously helped to defend
both Thomas Simms and Shadrack Mincoln's He did other anti
(05:45):
slavery legal work as well, and he refused to take
payment for any of it. He was also well known
because of his eighteen fifty memoir two years before the
mast detailing his time on a merchant ship. Dana made
his way.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Into the courtroom and he offered to represent Anthony Burns.
At first, Burns refused, saying quote, it will be of
no use.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
They have got me.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Burns also thought that if he did anything other than
just to comply with what he was told to do,
that things would be much harder for him when he
was inevitably returned to Virginia. As word of Burns's arrest
started to spread around Boston, more people started arriving at
the courthouse, including other prominent abolitionists. A minister named Theodore
(06:33):
Parker approached Burns, told him who he was, and again
asked if he wanted representation. Burns answered, quote, I shall
have to go back. Mister Subtle knows me. Brent knows me.
If I must go back, I want to go back
as easy as I can. United States Commissioner Edward G.
Loring was presiding over this hearing, and his participation in
(06:56):
this was complicated. He was acting as a federal commissioner,
but he was also a Massachusetts probate judge. Massachusetts had
passed a personal liberty law in eighteen forty three after
efforts to return a man named George Latimer to slavery.
This law prohibited state officials from arresting and detaining quote,
(07:19):
fugitives from service, so Loring's interpretation was that he was
acting in his federal capacity for this hearing, not in
his state capacity, which would have prohibited him from being involved.
This same argument was also being made for the Suffolk
County Courthouse, where Burns was being held and where this
(07:40):
hearing was taking place. It was a county courthouse, but
it was being used also for federal cases.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Although Burns had virtually no rights guaranteed to him under
the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty, Loring had some
leeway in how he conducted the proceedings. When he entered
the courtroom, Dana approached him regarding his offer to represent Burns.
Dana said that he thought Burns was terrified, truly paralyzed
with fear, and quote, in a condition wholly unfit to
(08:10):
act for himself. He suggested that Loring call Burns to
the bench and try to figure out what his actual
wishes were, rather than questioning him while he was sitting
right next to Subtle, whose presence was obviously intimidating.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Loring started the hearing. Subtle's attorneys were Seth J. Thomas
and Edward G.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Parker.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
One of them read the warrant for Burns's arrest, along
with the document that had been issued in Virginia finding
that Burns was Subtle's property. William Brent was called to
the stand as a witness that Burns was the man
who was named in these documents. There was really no
legal requirement for a more thorough preceding than this, or
(08:52):
for Burns to have any kind of legal representation, But
at this point Dana stood up. He had no authority
to represent Burns in any official capacity, so he addressed
Luring as a friend of the court and made a
motion that Burns be allowed to have counsel. Suttle's attorneys
objected to this, but then another attorney, Charles m Ellis,
(09:14):
made a similar motion to Danis. Commissioner Loring asked Burns
to be brought to the bench and for his shackles
to be removed. He asked whether Burns wanted to make
a defense. When Burns did not answer, Loring asked if
he would like a delay for a day or two
to make a decision. Burns ultimately said that he did,
(09:35):
and Loring postponed the proceedings until May twenty seventh.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Burns continued to be held in the courthouse in the
jury room, manacled and guarded by four men. In the
words of his biographer Charles Emery Stevens, quote, the interval
was industriously employed by these tools of the slaveholder in
the livery of the federal government in attempts to lead
Burns into making admissions fatal to himself. For example, quote,
(10:02):
they plied him with questions which, quietly, assuming the fact
that he was subtle slave, looked toward information on unimportant points.
Thus they inquired whether Subtle raised or bought him. In
this instance, Burns proved too shrewd for them and told
them to find out some other way. He wasn't always shrewd, though.
(10:25):
At one point one of the guards told him that
word around town was that Subtle had mistreated him. The
state of his hand from when he had been injured
working at a sawmill in his early teens was seen
as proof of this alleged mistreatment. The guard said that
Subtle was very annoyed by this, and that it might
help things go better for Burns if he wrote a
(10:47):
letter setting the record straight. So Burns did this, and
then a minister who came to visit him immediately realized
what was going on, that this letter was going to
be incriminating evidence, and demanded that it be destroyed. The guards,
of course, refused to destroy the letter, but then Burns
said that he had something to add to it. They
gave it back to him. He destroyed it himself. We
(11:10):
will talk about what was happening outside the courthouse during
this delay after we paused for a sponsor break.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
While Anthony Burns was being held in the courthouse, Boston's
Committee of Vigilance was working on a plan to free him.
This racially integrated committee had been formed after the passage
of the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty to fight
back against the Act and to try to protect people
who were affected by it. The Committee monitored Southerners who
(11:47):
arrived in Boston to figure out if they were there
to apprehend somebody or for some other reason. If they
heard somebody had escaped and boarded a ship to Boston,
they would try to send a smaller vessel to intercept
that before it got to the harbor. Sometimes they would
make up a purportedly legal reason that they needed to
get aboard. They would then try to get that person
(12:08):
too shore outside of town rather than in Boston Harbor,
so that they had a better chance of getting away.
The committee also tried to shelter and protect people who
arrived in Massachusetts's fugitives, so they had a lot of
connections to the underground railroad. They had been involved in
the efforts to rescue Thomas Simms and Shadrack Mincoln's in
(12:30):
eighteen fifty one. The Committee and other activists in Boston
started working on a plan as soon as they heard
Burns was being held at the courthouse. They also set
around the clock watch on the courthouse in case authorities
tried to move Burns somewhere else or to hold his
hearing in the middle of the night to try to
avoid spectators. Members of the committee held secret meetings at
(12:55):
Faniel Hall and Tremont Temple, and two prevailing thoughts emerged.
One group thought that they should break into the courthouse
and remove Burns by force as soon as possible, as
had been done with Shadrack Mincoln's. Others thought that they
should wait until the Commissioner announced his decision and if
(13:15):
Burns was going to be returned to slavery, then they
should rally support from all over Boston fill the streets.
When he was being taken to the harbor. They would
make themselves into a physical human barrier so they could
get him to safety in the ensuing chaos. Ultimately, the
committee voted in favor of trying to rescue Burns after
(13:36):
the hearing when he was being taken to the harbor,
not trying to get him out of the courthouse itself.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
A public meeting was also planned, with announcements in newspapers
and notices posted all over the city that read, a
man kidnapped. Public Meetings at Faniel Hall will be held
this Friday evening, May twenty six, at seven o'clock to
secure justice for a man claimed as a slave by
a Virginia kidnapper and now imprisoned in Boston Courthouse in
(14:06):
defiance of the laws of Massachusetts. Shall he be plunged
into the hell of Virginia slavery by a Massachusetts judge
of probate. Somewhere between two thousand and five thousand people
attended this public meeting. I saw both of those numbers.
One of the speakers was George R. Russell, former mayor
(14:27):
of Roxbury, who said, in part quote, the boast of
the slaveholder is that he will catch his slaves under
the shadow of Bunker Hill. We have made compromises until
we find that compromise is concession and concession is degradation.
Samuel Gridley Howe also presented a set of resolutions that
(14:48):
were adopted by the meeting, including no man's freedom is
safe unless all men are free. Even though the Vigilance
Committee voted to rescue Burne after the hearing, some of
the advocates for breaking him out of the courthouse went
ahead with that plan, including getting some axes to try
(15:09):
to break down the doors. After the public meeting at
Faniel Hall, word spread that people were attacking the courthouse
and thousands of people arrived on the scene. Someone grabbed
a beam from a nearby construction site to use as
a battering ram. As all of this was happening, Burns
was placed in the corner of the jury room, farthest
(15:30):
away from what was taking place outside. The people who
were attacking the courthouse doors did manage very briefly to
get through one of them, and Unitarian minister Thomas wentworth.
Higginson and another man both wound up inside the building,
not for very long, though they were quickly forced outside again.
But during this struggle, several people were injured, and twenty
(15:54):
four year old Deputy Marshal James Bachelder was fatally wounded.
He was either shot or stabbed, and he bled to
death within minutes. It is not clear exactly what happened.
Different physicians who examined the body came to different conclusions,
and multiple people believed that they had either fired the
(16:14):
fatal shot or had accidentally stabbed him. It is not
even clear whether Bachelder was struck by one of the
attackers trying to get into the building or one of
the people trying to defend the building. The US Marshall
called for federal troops to restore order. This included marines
from Fort Warren and the Charlestown Navy Yard. Multiple people
(16:37):
were arrested, and over the next couple of days, nine
people were charged with murder, including Higginson, although none of
these charges ever came to trial. On May twenty seventh,
Burns's hearing resumed, and President Franklin Pierce ordered federal troops
to guard the courthouse. Dana and Ellis had been joined
by Robert Morris, who we talked about in our episode
(16:59):
on Carl Sumner. Morris was one of the first black
attorneys in the United States. They were trying to find
a way to shift the legal proceedings from the administrative
hearing that was outlined under the Fugitive Slave Act of
eighteen fifty to an actual trial with a jury. This
would not only give Burns rights and protections he was
(17:20):
not entitled to under the Fugitive Slave Act, but it
could also potentially lead to a case that could challenge
the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
One of the things they tried to do was to
file a writ of personal replevin, which is somewhat similar
to a writ of habeas corpus. With a writ of
habeas corpus, authorities who are keeping somewhat in custody have
to produce that person in court. In Massachusetts in eighteen
fifty four, a writ of habeas corpus did not necessarily
(17:53):
result in a jury trial, but a writ of personal
replevin did at that under the way this writ worked,
it was up to the defendant, meaning in this case,
the authorities that were detaining someone to prove that detention
was valid. So the hope was to use a writ
(18:13):
of personal replevin to force Subtle and his attorneys to
prove their case in front of a jury. This process
took days, during which they got another postponement of the hearing.
The coroner had been tasked with serving the writ, and
the first time he tried to do so, the US
Marshal simply refused, saying that Burns was being held under
(18:37):
the legal process outlined in the Fugitive Slave Act. The
federal troops who were stationed around the courthouse were also
trying to prohibit access to the building. A number of
Boston officials, including some of the Board of Aldermen, met
with the Chief of Police to figure out how to
serve the rent without the interference of federal troops. Burns's
(18:58):
attorneys were also trying to gather evidence that could raise
reasonable doubts if this did get in front of a jury.
Like Burns had been identified based on a scar on
his face and the one on his hand from when
he was injured as a teen, but when William Brent
testified about Burns's identity, he said that he had seen
(19:20):
Burns in Richmond at the end of March, that was impossible.
At the end of March, Burns was already in Boston,
and there were multiple witnesses from Boston who could attest
to that. As the public furor over Burns's detention increased
around Boston, the troops who were guarding him started saying
that they were fearing for their lives. Some reported taking
(19:43):
indirect routes to and from the courthouse with the hope
of avoiding demonstrators. Subtle moved from the ground floor of
his lodgings to the attic and went around with a
bodyguard made up of Harvard students from the South. Negotiations
to secure Burns's freedom were also going on outside the courtroom,
and on Saturday May twenty seventh, Subtle agreed to sell
(20:05):
him for twelve hundred dollars. Even though the ultimate purpose
of this sale would be to free him, it would
have been illegal in Massachusetts. Even so, the Reverend Leonard A. Grimes,
pastor at twelfth Baptist Church, started working on raising that money.
He got subscriptions from wealthy people around Boston, including one
(20:28):
that was basically a four hundred dollars loan to just
enable this transaction to happen, but they would need to
raise that money to return it to the donor after
the sale was over. Everything seemed to be lining up
for Burns to be freed, and Subtle signed paperwork agreeing
to this sale. But as they were in the US
(20:49):
Marshall's office finishing the negotiations, District Attorney Benjamin Hallett arrived
and refused to honor that sale. He argued that his
Subtle sold Burns to abolitionists, the US government would have
no opportunity to recoup the expenses that had already gone
into these proceedings, and there would also be no opportunity
(21:09):
for restitution in James Batchelder's death. Arguing over this stretched
past midnight, at which point it was Sunday being the sabbath,
and Commissioner Loring told everyone they would have to leave
and reconvene on Monday morning, May twenty ninth. When they
did reconvene that Monday, Subtle set his offer to sell
(21:30):
Burns had only been good for May twenty seventh, and
it had expired. When that matter was not settled before midnight,
Subtle said he would still sell Burns but only after
the hearing was over and had been found in his
favor and he had returned to Virginia. Although Burns's attorneys
were not successful in their efforts to get him a
(21:51):
jury trial, he did have a longer hearing than the
simple administrative hearing that the law required. Over the next
two days, attorneys on both sides submitted their evidence for
and against Anthony Burns. Richard Dana also delivered a four
hour closing argument in which he pointed out various contradictions
(22:13):
in the testimonies of Subtle and Brent and their legal
documents from Virginia, and spelled out arguments Loring could use
to justify freeing Burns. This included arguing that since Brent
was the one responsible for Burns when he left Virginia,
Subtle didn't even have standing to initiate the proceedings to
have him returned. Yeah, this whole argument was very explicit.
(22:37):
It was like, you can say these things. That is
a compelling legal argument to find in Burns's favor. As
all of this was happening, on May thirtieth, eighteen fifty four,
President Franklin Pierce signed the Kansas Nebraska Act into law.
We talked about this Act in our episode on Charles
(22:57):
Sumner last year as well. Under the Missouri Compromise of
eighteen twenty, a dividing line had been established, with slavery
outlawed in new states and territories north of that line,
But the Kansas Nebraska Act repealed that compromise, leaving the
question of whether slavery would be allowed in the newly
formed territories of Kansas and Nebraska up to popular sovereignty
(23:22):
or voting.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Abolitionists in Massachusetts and elsewhere were outraged over the Kansas
Nebraska Act, which had the potential to allow slavery in
places where it had previously been illegal, and it made
a lot of the people who were opposed to Anthony
Burns being returned to slavery even angrier. The following day,
June first, Amos Adams Lawrence wrote a letter to his
(23:46):
father in law, Giles Richards, that said, in part quote,
we went to bed one night, old fashioned conservative compromise
union whigs and waked up stark mad abolitionists. We'll get
to what happened next after sponsor break. On June first,
(24:11):
eighteen fifty four, Commissioner Edward Loring ordered Anthony Burns to
be returned to slavery in Virginia, and while there were,
of course pro slavery people in Boston, a significant part
of the population was outraged. This was a shift from
the public sentiment in eighteen fifty one, when Shadrack Mincoln's
(24:33):
had been freed from the courthouse and taken to Canada,
and when Thomas Simms had been returned to enslavement. In
eighteen fifty one, the Fugitive Slave Act had been controversial,
but more people had supported it or thought it was
necessary to keep the union intact. This shift is something
Burns's attorney, Richard ATE's Jana Junior remarked on saying, quote,
(24:56):
men who were hostile or unpleasant in eighteen fifty one
now are cordial and complimentary, and the prevailing talk among
merchants and lawyers is that of hostility to slavery and
the slave power. Amos Adams Lawrence, for example, was from
a family whose wealth had come from the textile industry,
(25:16):
and that meant it was reliant on southern cotton. He
had written a letter in eighteen fifty one expressing a
willingness to lynch the people who had freed Shadrack Minkns.
In addition to the sentiments expressed in the letter we've
quoted in these episodes, in eighteen fifty four he offered
to pay all of Dana's legal expenses. Not long after this,
(25:38):
he would also pour huge amounts of money into anti
slavery efforts in Kansas. The city of Lawrence, Kansas is
named for him.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yeah, I read a couple of articles that kind of
characterized him as being radicalized by the case of Anthony Burns.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
The federal government, of.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Course, wanted to ensure that the Fugitive Slave Act was
Uphell and that Burns was successfully put on a ship
and sent back to slavery in Virginia. Once again, federal
troops were tasked with doing this. On June second, more
than two thousand federal soldiers and marines were stationed around
Boston City. Police and Boston militia also lined the streets.
(26:19):
A nineteen twenty five piece by Canadian historian Fred Landen
described the law enforcement and military presence that day this way.
Quote in the guard that marched that day through the
streets of Boston. Surrounding Burns, there was a regiment of artillery,
a platoon of US Marines. The Marshall's civic posse of
(26:40):
one hundred and twenty five men close in about the prisoner,
two further platoons of marines immediately behind with a field piece,
and yet another platoon of marines to guard it. The
city of Boston had a population of about one hundred
and thirty seven thousand people in eighteen fifty four. An
estimated fifty thousand of those people took to the streets
(27:03):
on June tewod to protest the rendition of Anthony Burns.
People yelled things like shame and kidnappers at the federal
troops who escorted him to the harbor, some through bricks
and rocks, and there were a number of skirmishes along
the route, some of them resulting in injuries. Businesses and
homes draped their windows with funeral bunting. A coffin draped
(27:27):
in black cloth was suspended over the street in front
of the Old State House, emblazoned with the words the
funeral of Liberty. Yet rendition, if you're not familiar with
that use of that term is sort of the legal
term for an interstate extradition in the United States.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Richard Dana and.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
The Reverend Leonard Grimes asked for permission to accompany Burns
to the harbor, but that permission was refused, so he
walked alone, flanked by soldiers through cordons established by law enforcement,
wearing a new suit that had been given to him
by some of the militia. When he got to the wharf,
he was put aboard a federal ship which had a
naval escort out of Boston Harbor. The cost of Burns's
(28:11):
transportation to the harbor and back to Virginia, which was
paid for by the federal government, was about forty thousand dollars,
which is very roughly equivalent to one and a half
million dollars today.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
This was one of the most infamous fugitive slave trials
in the years leading up to the US Civil War,
and it was also the topic of a lot of
Sunday sermons that week in Boston and elsewhere in Massachusetts.
In the words of Burns's biographer, Charles Emory Stevens, quote,
the extradition of Anthony Burns as a fugitive slave was
the most memorable case of the kind that has occurred
(28:48):
since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. It was memorable
for the place and for the time of its occurrence,
the place being the ancient and chief seat of liberty
in America, and the time being just the moment, but
when the cause of liberty had received a most wicked
and crushing blow from the hand of the federal government.
It was memorable also for the difficulty with which it
(29:10):
was accomplished, for the intense popular excitement which it caused,
for the unexampled expense which it entailed, for the grave
questions of law which it involved, for the punishment which
it brought down upon the head of the chief actor,
and for the political revolution which it drew on.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
After arriving in Norfolk, Virginia, Burns was kept in jail
for two days before boarding another ship bound for Richmond.
There he was incarcerated at a slave trading complex run
by Robert Lumpkin, which was known as Lumpkin's Jail. While
most of the other people there were being held before
being sold, and they were kept in cells together, Burns
(29:50):
was shackled in an attic room that was accessible only
through a trapdoor.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Alone.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
He had a bench rather than a bed, and was
only given a thin blanket and one meal a day.
This was an attic room in Virginia in the summer,
so it was very hot, and since he was chained
by the hands and feet, Burns had no way to try.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
To make himself more comfortable. This permanently affected his health,
and he said that it felt like revenge. At the
beginning of his incarceration, his chains were periodically removed so
that he could be taken downstairs and shown to visitors.
Most of them wanted not just to gawk at him,
(30:33):
but to tell them how they thought he had damaged
to the state of Virginia and that his life should
have been sacrificed for the good of the slaveholding class.
These visits eventually tapered off, at which point his only
contact with other people was through a hole that he
enlarged through the floor.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
With a spoon. In the area that was covered up
by the trap door. When it was open, he would
talk to the people who were in the cell beneath
him through that hole.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
He had managed to conceal a pen and some paper
in his clothes while still in Boston, and someone in
the cell below had managed to smuggle him some ink.
He worked pieces of brick out of the wall, and
he wrapped letters around them, written to friends in Boston
and elsewhere. He would wait until he saw a black
person pass by on the street below before dropping them
(31:25):
out of the window, and he knew that this was
a risk because a black person finding that letter probably
wouldn't be able to read and would need to find
someone who could. One of these notes ended up being
delivered to Subtle, who had his jailers confiscate his paper
and pen. Yeah, I think he determined that none of
the letters that he tried to send this way actually
(31:47):
wound up getting to their intended recipient. Abolitionists in Boston
were still trying to get Subtle to sell Burns to them,
but at this point he refused. He said that his
friends in Virginia were a posed to it. They said
it might encourage more people to try to escape, knowing
that doing so might lead to their being purchased by
(32:08):
somebody in the North. But eventually some members of the
militia got in touch with him about it, and since
they were militia and not abolitionists, he seemed more willing
to entertain their offer.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
At this point, though, he wanted fifteen hundred dollars, which
they were unable to raise. Finally, Subtle sold Burns at auction,
telling the auctioneer to make sure that he did not
go to anyone in the North. Burns was sold to
David McDaniel of Rocky Mountain, North Carolina for nine hundred
(32:41):
and five dollars. McDaniel left Richmond with Burns at night
to try to avoid the possibility of an angry mob
harassing them on their way out of town. He was
really notorious in the South at this point. He was
getting a comparable level of attention to what he had
gotten in Boston, but like from the absolute opposite angle.
(33:03):
People were ready to tell him that he had harmed
the whole state of Virginia, that he deserved everything, that
he was getting, all kinds of.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Once he was sold to McDaniel, the people of Boston
basically lost track of Anthony Burns, but eventually one of
McDaniel's neighbors realized who he was, and word made its
way back to a minister named George Stockwell contacted the
Reverend Leonard Grimes, who worked with black abolitionists in Boston,
to raise thirteen hundred dollars to purchase Burns from McDaniel.
(33:36):
They traveled to Baltimore to make this transaction, which was
carried out with some difficulty on February twenty seventh of
eighteen fifty five, and after that Burns was free. A
reception was held in his honor at Tremont Temple in
Boston on March seventh, eighteen fifty five. After returning to Boston,
Burns told his life story to Charles Emery Stevens, who
(33:59):
had also witnessed a lot of the events surrounding his
case in Boston firsthand. Stevens wrote Anthony Burns, a History
based on this and other research, and he published that
book in eighteen fifty six. Burns sold copies of the
book and also did speaking engagements to help pay for
his education. He reportedly refused an offer of five hundred
(34:21):
dollars to speak at P. T. Barnum's museum, saying that
Barnum wanted to quote show him like a monkey. He
didn't want to earn a living off of this book
and speaking, though he sort of thought that it was
making money off of something evil. What he wanted was
to become an ordained minister. A Boston donor funded a
(34:43):
scholarship for him to study at Oberlin College in Ohio.
It's possible that he also spent some time at Fairmount
Theological Seminary in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
In eighteen fifty five, Burns wrote to a church that
he had attended in Virginia, asking for a letter of dismission,
ending his membership there so that he could join another church.
This church published its response in the Fort Royal Gazette
on November eighth, eighteen fifty five, saying, quote, Anthony Burns
absconded from the service of his master and refused to
(35:14):
return voluntarily, thereby disobeying both the laws of God and man.
Although he subsequently obtained his freedom by purchase, yet we
have now to consider him only as a fugitive from labor,
as he was before his arrest and restoration to his master.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Burns's response to this was printed as an appendix to
his biography. He told Stevens that he had some assistance
in preparing it, but that the substance was all his own.
It's said in part quote, I admit that I left
my master so called and refused to return. But I
deny that in this I disobeyed either the law of
(35:54):
God or any real law of men. Look at my
case I was stolen and made a slave as soon
as I was born. No man had any right to
steal me. That man stealer who stole me trampled on
my dearest rights. He committed an outrage on the law
of God. Therefore, his man stealing gave him no right
(36:16):
in me, and laid me under no obligation to be
his slave. God made me a man, not a slave,
and gave me the same right to myself that he
gave the man who stole me to himself. The great
wrongs he has done me in stealing me and making
me a slave, and compelling me to work for him
many years without wages, and in holding me as merchandise,
(36:39):
these wrongs could never put me under obligation to stay
with him or return voluntarily. When once escaped, he.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Went on to say, quote, you charge me that in
escaping I disobeyed God's law. No, indeed, that law which
God wrote on the table of my heart, inspiring the
love of freedom and impelling me to seek it at
every hazard, I obeyed, and by the good hand of
my God upon me, I walked out of the house
of bondage. You charge me with disobeying the laws of
(37:09):
men I utterly deny that those things which outrage all
right are laws. To be real laws, they must be
founded in equity. You have thrust me out of your
church fellowship, so be it. You can do no more.
You cannot exclude me from Heaven. You cannot hinder my
daily fellowship with God.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
In eighteen sixty, Burns was offered a position as a
preacher at a church in Indianapolis, Indiana, but he wasn't
able to accept that position since Indiana's eighteen fifty one
constitution banned black people from entering, passing through, or settling
in the state. Not long after, he was hired at
Zion Baptist Church in Saint Catharine's, Canada West, which was
(37:52):
later known as Ontario. He moved there and took up
his position, but he died of tuberculosis a couple of
years later on July twenty seventh, eighteen sixty two, at
the age of twenty eight. He was buried at Saint
Catherine's Cemetery, and his grave there was restored in the
year two thousand.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
In the words of an obituary in a Saint Catherine's
newspaper quote, mister Burns's memory will be cherished long by
not a few in this town. His gentle, unassuming, and
yet manly bearing secured him many friends. His removal is
felt to be a great loss, and his place will
not soon be filled.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
The trial and rendition of Anthony Burns had impacts on
a number of other people who were connected to it,
and on Massachusetts more broadly. In particular, although Commissioner Edward G.
Loring had given Burns a more thorough legal proceeding than
he was legally entitled to under the Fugitive Slave Act
of eighteen fifty, people were outraged that he had found
(38:54):
for Burns and slaver. There were also people who were
angry because they thought Loring's role as a state probate
judge that have prevented him from being involved in the
first place. The Harvard Board of Overseers voted not to
reappoint him for his position at Harvard Law. He was
also removed from his position as a probate judge. However,
(39:16):
President James Buchanan later appointed him to the Federal Court
of Claims.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
In eighteen fifty five. In response to the Burns case
and the events surrounding it, Massachusetts also passed one of
the strictest personal liberty laws in the United States. The
legislature had to override the veto of Governor Henry Gardner
to pass this law, which was written specifically to limit
the power of the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty.
(39:43):
It explicitly applied the terms of the earlier eighteen forty
three personal liberty law to the Fugitive Slave Act. It
declared that quote every person imprisoned or restrained of his
liberty is entitled, as of right and of course, to
the writ of habeas corpus accept in the cases mentioned
in the second section of the chapter, A wide array
(40:07):
of legal bodies and legal officials were authorized to issue
these writs. A court would then have to order a
trial by jury at which the confessions, admissions, and declarations
of the alleged fugitive against themselves would not be admissible
as evidence. So you could not, for example, go ask
(40:29):
somebody a bunch of leading questions to then introduce the
answers to those questions as evidence. The burden of proof
was explicitly on the acclaimant, meaning the enslaver, not on
the alleged fugitive. This law is a big reason why
Anthony Burns was the last person to face a rendition
(40:49):
hearing after escaping from enslavement and fleeing to Massachusetts. Where
are we at on listener mail Tracy.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Well, we are at Iguanadon, been at Guanadon tennor hooray.
This is from Grace. It's a short email, but Grace
said hello. When I started the episode on the New
Year's Eve Iguanadon Dinner, I could have sworn that y'all
had already done an episode on it until I remembered
I was thinking of Tasting History. Max Miller did an
(41:20):
episode about the dinner and making salmi de pedri. I'm
saying that real bad. It's French. It's sort of French,
which was on the menu that night. Love hearing about
something from two different angles. Thanks for joining me on
so many car rides and household chores with a smile, Grace,
Thank you so much, Grace for this email. I did
not watch or really look at this episode of Tasting
(41:44):
History when I was working on this, but they did
make this dish. I'm always fascinated with the historical recipes.
There is a recipe on their website that is from
Beaton's Book of Household Management by Isabella Beaton from eighteen
sixty one that has this whole recipe and so it
is partridge and then Sawmi is a French cooking method.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, it's like roasting, yeah, and then in a sauce. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
I did not look too deeply into what any of
the individual dishes that were served in the Iguanadon that
I had never heard of were I actually like. And
now I kind of want to maybe try to recreate
as many of them as possible in the cold winter
where there's currently so much snow that I definitely do
(42:37):
not want to go out to buy ingredients.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
But anyway, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
For that email, Grace, and for reminding me about tasting history,
because I have not really partaken in any tasting history
stuff in a while, and it's really cool. If you
would like to send us a note, we're at history
Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. If you want to look
at the source list for our episodes, that is on
(43:04):
our website at mistonhistory dot com. Also, you can subscribe
to our show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else
you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you missed in
history class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
(43:27):
you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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