The Underground Railroad | Crossing the Line | 3
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Imagine it's early in the morning of April 16th, 1848. You're at home in your Washington, D.C. townhouse and wrap a shawl around your shoulders as you descend the staircase. It's unusually cold today, and you're looking forward to the comfort of a hot breakfast. You push open the door of the dining room and stop in your tracks. The table is bare and no one has lit the fire. Mary? Mary?

Mary, come here right now. Sally. Oh.

"'Morning, ma'am. Have you seen Mary?' "'I don't know, ma'am.' "'Where is she, Sally? I need her here. The house is in complete disarray.' Sally fidgets, avoiding eye contact. Your frustration grows. "'Did she go visit relatives in Maryland? She knows better than to leave without my permission.' "'I don't know, ma'am.' "'Don't lie to me, girl. Tell me where she is.' "'I swear, ma'am, I don't know anything.'

Your patience is wearing thin. If you don't tell me the truth right this instant, I'll just have to have a conversation with Mr. Gilmore about your disobedience. Fear shadows her face as she weighs telling you the truth. It's common knowledge in the neighborhood that Sally's owner, Mr. Gilmore, treats his slaves harshly. Her shoulders slump and she takes a deep breath. I heard talk of some sort of big escape down the Potomac. Lots of folks were going.

You stare at Sally in shock. Her words leave you momentarily paralyzed. You better tell me everything you know. Who's involved? Where did they go? That's all I know, I swear. Just please, don't say anything to Mr. Gilmore. The thought that Sally knew Mary's plans and didn't say anything enrages you. You turn and yell at the open window. Mr. Gilmore, your girl Sally is out here wasting time instead of doing her work.

You'd better keep an eye out on her. You ignore Sally's look of terror and storm back inside your house, anger bubbling up inside you. As you scan the cold, empty kitchen, you're confronted with the harsh reality of Mary's absence. You can't believe that after all these years, she would dare betray you.

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Fuel up at Shell. Download the Shell app to find a station today. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. On the morning of April 16th, 1848, dozens of Washington, D.C. slave owners woke up to find that their slaves had disappeared.

Seventy-seven enslaved men, women, and children had quietly slipped away in the middle of the night and boarded a ship docked in the Potomac River. It was the largest escape attempt by enslaved people in American history, and it sparked panic in the streets of Washington. In the 1840s, enslaved people and their allies in the Underground Railroad executed more daring escapes than ever, and these bold flights to freedom fueled a growing sense of insecurity and paranoia in the South.

Yet despite these high-profile cases, the reach of the Underground Railroad remained limited. Slave owners overestimated its influence and power. To them, it seemed that a sprawling conspiracy of Northern abolitionists was launching a coordinated attack on their way of life, and they channeled their paranoia into demands for stronger legislation to stem the tide of runaway slaves once and for all. This is Episode 3, Crossing the Line.

On October 28, 1830, Josiah Henson and his family arrived on the Canadian shores of the Niagara River. After a 600-mile journey from Kentucky, they were finally free and safe from being kidnapped and returned to slavery under the United States Fugitive Slave Act.

But they were still stepping into an unknown future. They had neither friends nor money except for a single dollar given to them by the Scottish boat captain who ferried them across the river, and they spent that on lodgings for the night.

So the next morning, Henson went out to look for work. He found a nearby farmer who needed a man for hard labor. Henson convinced him to take him on. The farmer gave him a shanty to live in that had previously been occupied by pigs. But Henson scrubbed the floor into the night and brought his wife and four children to their new home the next day.

He worked hard over the next few years, eventually earning enough money to buy some pigs, a cow, and a horse of his own. But he was troubled by the state of his fellow refugees, who had also fled slavery.

In Canada, formerly enslaved people were free. They had property rights, they could sue, they served on juries, and they could vote. But life there was not without challenges. Black people faced racism and discrimination in Canada, too, and they grappled with poverty and limited opportunities, and their inexperience led many to sign unfavorable leases and work contracts. So Henson resolved to improve the circumstances of his fellow refugees.

In 1834, he began meeting with local Black farmers and tenants to discuss the idea of creating a settlement where, according to Henson, they could be their own masters. Soon, a dozen of them agreed to pool their savings. Then Henson found a white landowner in Colchester, Ontario, who agreed to lease them a tract of land. For the next seven years, Henson and the others grew crops together, eventually accumulating enough savings to buy land of their own.

And in Canada, Henson's children were finally able to attend school, too. His 12-year-old son, Tom, learned to read and then taught his father. Pairs studied each night by the light of a burning hickory bark lamp, and for Henson, literacy was a wake-up call.

He would later write, It has made me comprehend better the terrible abyss of ignorance in which I have been plunged all my previous life. At the same time, it made me more anxious than before to do something for the rescue and elevation of those who were suffering the same evils I had endured.

In order to rescue those still in bondage, Henson became a conductor for the Underground Railroad, crossing the Canadian border and going as far south as Kentucky to bring families and those fleeing slavery north. He would eventually lead more than 100 fugitives out of Kentucky. But to elevate them once in Canada, Henson realized that former slaves needed not just land, but education to achieve true freedom and self-sufficiency.

He dreamed of creating an even bigger community than the one in Colchester, and in 1841, he partnered with a white abolitionist minister to raise money and purchase 200 acres of land for an experimental black settlement called the Dawn Institute. Henson's goal was to provide education and vocational training to former slaves to help them become independent men and women.

In December 1842, the Dawn Institute opened to its first 12 students. Its reputation quickly grew, and within a few years, Dawn boasted 1,500 acres of land in southwestern Ontario and 500 Black residents. Another 3,500 Black settlers lived in the surrounding area, which became a major terminus of the Underground Railroad and would inspire similar communities elsewhere in Canada.

So for Henson and thousands of other fugitive slaves, Canada became not the end of the journey to freedom, but the start of it. While almost all underground railroad conductors took their passengers north, in the summer of 1844, one daring man captured the nation's attention for spiriting a group of runaways further south.

For many slaves trapped in the Deep South, it was almost impossible to travel north by land over 700 miles of slave country. A handful of fugitive slaves made their way west, crossing Texas to reach Mexico, but in reality, escape by sea offered a much quicker path to freedom. Few ship captains, though, were willing to take the risk. But Jonathan Walker was a white, Massachusetts-born abolitionist and a sea captain who lived in Pensacola, Florida.

In mid-June 1844, Walker was approached by a group of enslaved men he had once worked with in Pensacola. The men asked him if he could take them north to the Free States, and Walker was willing, but he knew that sailing up the eastern seaboard was too dangerous. Instead, he offered to take the four fugitives southeast to the Bahamas, then a British colony where slavery had been abolished a decade earlier.

Southern states placed steep punishments on any ship captains who took slaves out of state, and those who took the risk expected to be paid well for it. Walker was a rare exception. He told the men that once they reached their destination, they could pay him whatever they thought his health was worth.

But the fugitives themselves could face even greater danger than Walker if they were caught. And the journey would not be easy. The group would be traveling a thousand miles of open ocean in a whale boat Walker owned that was only 25 feet long. It offered no shelter from harsh weather nor any ability to hide the passengers from passing ships. But the craft was sturdy and light and specially designed to be sailed in the open ocean, in all types of weather.

So on the night of June 19, 1844, seven men gathered on the Pensacola Beach to board Walker's whale boat. Walker was expecting only four passengers, and even though he knew it would force him to make more stops for food and water, he accepted the additional men. The group included four brothers, who hoped to find freedom as a family, and three of their friends.

Walker and the men set sail, but the trip was a disaster from the start. Stormy headwinds slowed their progress, pushing them back toward Pensacola. There was no shelter from the rain, and because the fugitives had no navigation experience, Walker's piloting skills were in constant demand, which prevented him from sleeping.

But then the rain stopped, and on June 26, 1844, Walker made landfall at a harbor near present-day Panama City, Florida. The group had traveled barely 100 miles east, but they were able to dry their clothes and replenish their supplies. The next day, they set out again.

By July 1st, they had sailed and rowed another 300 miles when Walker came down with sunstroke. He suffered headaches, impaired vision, dizziness, and delirium. His entire face was blistered with sunburn, and for several days he lost track of time. This illness made it almost impossible for Walker to steer the boat, and soon the party fell short on water and food, too. There was no room to lie down. Men could only sleep in a seated position when they could fall asleep at all.

Still, they made progress, averaging 50 miles a day. They made it through the Florida Keys and on the night of July 7th, entered the tranquil waters of Biscayne Bay, just south of Miami. Finally, after 14 days at sea, they were less than 24 hours away from their destination, but they were in desperate need of water.

Imagine it's daybreak on July 8th, 1844. You're the captain of a whale boat adrift in Biscayne Bay off the east coast of Florida. You sit up after a fitful night of sleep, trying to ignore your thirst and the painful sores on your face. The seven fugitive slaves you're taking to the Bahamas sit hunched behind you. You're less than 24 hours from your destination, but you dare not set across the open sea until you can get fresh water at Cape Florida, some 40 or 50 miles away.

You stand up, squinting against the morning sunlight, and see that a sloop has pulled up beside you. A man wearing a captain's hat waves. Hello there. Richard Roberts of the Eliza Catherine. Where are you from and where are you bound? Your pulse quickens, but you steady yourself and smile. From St. Joseph's. Headed to Cape Florida. Robert scans the whale boat, taking in the bedraggled group of fugitives stirring behind you. Well now...

The other captain gestures toward your blistered face and turns to his crew.

Grab some rope and give me a hand, boys. Watch helplessly as two of his crewmen secure your whale boat to his sloop. Captain smiles at the fugitives. Come aboard, folks. We have plenty of room. Runaways begin climbing over the edge of your whale boat to pile into the Eliza Catherine. Mind races as you search for an explanation for your passengers. I'm under contract with the owner of these slaves. He asked me to transport them to the Miami River. You force a smile, praying that he believes you.

Is that right? Hop aboard then, Captain. We'll get you there in no time. He throws out a hand to help you climb aboard. Thank you. Just after you get your footing, you look up and a crooked smile spreads over the captain's face. Your stomach drops. He takes the wheel and begins turning the sloop around away from Cape Florida and back toward the Florida Keys. It's clear now that the captain saw right through your lies and after 14 awful days, your journey is over.

Guilt mixes with fear as you stare into the exhausted faces of the seven men you've failed. On the morning of July 8, 1844, a salvage vessel captured Walker and his seven passengers in Biscayne Bay and took them back to Key West. From there, all eight men were taken back to Pensacola in chains.

The enslaved men were returned to their owners. Four of them were subjected to fifty blows each with a wooden paddle, while the other three went unpunished. Only Walker would face trial. On July 18th, he was locked in an old Spanish jail in Pensacola. Guards shackled him to the wall of his cell with a twenty-two pound chain. He had no bedding, and the floor of the cell was stained with blood. Illness had wracked his body so much that he could grasp his emaciated leg with just his thumb and finger.

His trial began on November 11th. Because Florida was a U.S. territory and not a state, the trial took place in a federal court, and it took only half an hour for the jury to find Walker guilty of slave kidnapping. He was fined $600. Then, five days later, a federal marshal locked his head and hands into a pillory outside the courthouse. From there, he was subjected to one hour of public humiliation. Crowds taunted him and threw eggs.

But even many locals were shocked by Walker's final punishment. The marshal tied him to a wooden railing and pressed a red-hot branding iron into his right hand for 20 seconds. Walker would later recall it made a spattering noise, like a handful of salt in the fire. Pain was severe. It was branded with the letters SS for Slave Stealer.

As news of Walker's ordeal spread, many Northerners were outraged by the brutality of his sentence. While branding and mutilation were routine methods of punishment for runaway slaves, Northerners were shocked to see such violence turned on a white man and it galvanized them to the anti-slavery cause. Sympathetic abolitionists paid Walker's jail fees and recruited him for the lecture circuit.

There, Walker became a hero and a celebrity of the movement. Images of his branded hand were carried in northern newspapers as a symbol of the bravery and sacrifices of those willing to help fugitive slaves. The branding showed that even white men were not safe from the violence of slavery.

And although Walker had no formal connections to the Underground Railroad, his actions made Southern slave owners paranoid about the network's reach. For many, Walker was an agent of chaos, a northerner conspiring to undermine slavery. But soon, an even more audacious escape would bring the controversy over fugitive slaves to the center of political debate. ♪

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After escaping slavery in Maryland in 1838, Frederick Douglass settled into his new life in New Bedford, Massachusetts. To earn money, he shoveled coal, swept chimneys, unloaded ship cargo, and stoked furnaces. He also joined an all-black congregation and subscribed to the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. It soon took pride of place next to his Bible. Douglass then started attending anti-slavery meetings and speaking out in his church.

In the summer of 1841, when he was just 23 years old, he traveled to Nantucket, Massachusetts to speak at an anti-slavery convention. It was his first time addressing a mostly white audience, and he trembled as he took the podium. He later recalled, It was with the utmost difficulty that I could stand erect, or that I could command and articulate two words without hesitation and stammering.

But despite the nerves, crowds were dazzled by his powerful rhetoric and the strength of his conviction as he recounted his life story. One witness remembered, "'Flinty hearts were pierced, and cold ones melted by his eloquence.'"

His speech was so successful, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society hired him on the spot as a traveling speaker. Soon after, Douglass captivated audiences all across the North, and in 1845, he published an autobiography recounting his journey from slavery to freedom. The book made him a household name.

Following the book's publication for the next two years, Douglass toured Europe, where anti-slavery sympathizers raised money for him to purchase his freedom, meaning he would no longer be a fugitive. And in 1847, he returned to the United States and launched an anti-slavery newspaper of his own called the North Star.

Douglass represented a new generation of black abolitionists emerging out of black-led churches, newspapers, and vigilance committees. Many were former slaves themselves, and their harrowing tales of beatings and broken families forced white Northerners to think of slavery as a human tragedy rather than a distant, abstract problem.

But while Douglass and his fellow abolitionists were converting thousands of white Northerners to the anti-slavery cause, in the South, slavery was becoming more entrenched.

In the 1840s, the total enslaved population reached three million, a number that had tripled in three decades. Slave-grown cotton powered the Southern economy and increased the wealth of slave-owning elites. White Southerners used biblical arguments and new pseudoscientific theories to defend slavery and the superiority of the white race. Politicians and writers who had once called slavery a necessary evil now championed it as a positive good,

and there was no tolerance for dissent. White Southerners suspected of harboring anti-slavery views often faced harassment and even violence.

So there was no organized Underground Railroad activity anywhere in the South beyond the Quaker counties of North Carolina. But Southerners attributed escapes of all kinds to the Underground, portraying it as far more powerful than it was. In truth, the majority of fugitives who traveled the Underground Railroad came from the border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland, where slavery collided with the Free North. And nowhere was the contrast between freedom and slavery more apparent than

in Washington, D.C. It was both a center of abolitionism and a thriving hub of the slave trade. Its columned building symbolized the ideals of American freedom while simultaneously housing a federal government that sanctioned human bondage. Political elites spoke of liberty on Capitol Hill while owning slaves at home.

So for years, abolitionists had lobbied Congress to ban slavery in the nation's capital, but with little progress. But though slavery was protected in Washington, the Underground Railroad made it vulnerable.

In the spring of 1847, a white abolitionist boat captain named Daniel Drayton sailed into the Washington Harbor. As he unloaded oysters on the wharf, a black man approached him and asked for help taking a woman and her five children north. She had purchased her own freedom, but her former owner reneged on his promise to emancipate her and was planning to sell her further south. Moved, Captain Drayton agreed. It was the first of several trips he made ferrying runaways to freedom.

The next year, in February 1848, a white local underground railroad conductor named William Chaplin asked Captain Drayton to transport a family or two to the north. Chaplin assured Drayton that he would be well paid for his services. So Drayton agreed and chartered a small schooner called the Pearl for the trip. But Chaplin had not been completely honest. Two black Washingtonians had spread the word across the city that a boat had been prepared to take anyone north who wanted to go.

So on the night of April 15, 1848, 77 enslaved men, women, and children disappeared from the homes, hotels, and boarding houses where they worked and boarded the Pearl. Among the group were men and women owned by a U.S. congressman, the Treasury Secretary, and former First Lady Dolly Madison.

It was the beginning of the largest escape attempt by enslaved people in the nation's history. Captain Drayton embarked with all 77 fugitives aboard and planned to sail 100 miles down the Potomac River, then turn north at Maryland's Point Lookout to travel 125 miles up the Chesapeake Bay to the free state of New Jersey. But after traveling just half a mile, the tide turned, and Drayton was forced to drop anchor to keep from being pulled back up the river.

When the tide turned again at daybreak, Drayton sailed on. At dusk on April 16th, he dropped anchor at Point Lookout, and the passengers hunkered down for the night.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, D.C., dozens of slave owners had awoken to discover that their slaves were missing. But they soon got some help. One black man who drove two fugitives to the harbor the night before betrayed the entire group. He gave information to authorities, likely in the hopes of collecting a reward. And at 2 a.m. on April 17th, an armed posse caught up with Drayton's ship, boarded the vessel, and took Drayton and the fugitives back to Washington in chains.

Supporters of slavery were outraged by the escape attempt. For three days, angry mobs rioted in the streets. Three thousand people descended on the offices of a local abolitionist newspaper, hurling bricks and stones at the windows. Finally, President James K. Polk dispatched government clerks to help police restore order. And while peace returned to the streets of Washington, things did not go well for the recaptured slaves.

Most of the escapees were sold to slave traders from the deep south as punishment. Lives were separated from their husbands and children from their parents. Many would soon be forced onto cotton plantations, consigned to a life of brutal and back-breaking labor from which few escaped. Then later, that summer, Drayton was put on trial on 77 counts of illegally helping a slave escape. He was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Pearl Incident, as this attempted escape came to be known, inflamed rhetoric in Congress because even though enslaved people had fled from the Capitol before, this time, a single escape attempt impacted dozens of Washington elites.

Slave owners portrayed the incident as an abolitionist-led black revolt. South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun was one of the most zealous pro-slavery politicians in Congress. He characterized the escape as a northern attack on a southern port and called the problem of fugitive slaves the gravest and most vital of all questions to us and the whole Union.

Mississippi Senator and future Confederate President Jefferson Davis also blamed abolitionists for sowing conflict in the Capitol. In a saber-rattling warning, he declared, "...if Washington is to be made the center from which civil war is to radiate, here let the conflict begin."

But the Pearl incident was not the only daring escape attempt that made headlines in 1848. In December, a young enslaved couple from Macon, Georgia, named William and Ellen Craft, devised a clever plan to flee their owners. Ellen would take advantage of her light-skinned complexion and disguise herself as a white person. William would play the role of her enslaved servant.

And because it was not socially acceptable for a white woman to travel with a male slave, she dressed as a male slave owner heading to Philadelphia to seek medical attention. Enslaved people often accompanied their owners when they traveled, so the crafts did not expect to be questioned. William used his earnings as a carpenter to buy a suit for Ellen. She cut her hair short, hid her face with bandages, and wore her right arm in a sling to hide the fact she could not write if asked to sign any papers.

The couple then obtained passes from their owners to take a few days off at Christmastime, allowing them to disappear without raising the alarm. On December 21, 1848, they boarded a train bound for Savannah, Georgia. From there, they traveled by steamer to Charleston, South Carolina. After staying overnight in a hotel, they boarded another steamer to Wilmington, North Carolina. Next, they traveled by rail through Virginia, where they had a brush with disaster. ♪

Imagine it's December 1848, and you're sitting on a train waiting at the station in Richmond, Virginia. You and your husband William are traveling north after escaping your owner in Georgia. You've disguised yourself as a white man, and William is playing the part of your loyal servant. You're thrilled you've made it this far, but you know you can't let down your guard just yet.

A stout, elderly white woman steps into the carriage. Her black dress is adorned with some of the finest lace you've ever seen, and a jeweled brooch on her chest glitters in the sunlight. Her eyes roam the carriage before settling on the vacant seat facing you. Is this seat taken? No, ma'am. She sits down, smoothing out the wrinkles in her lap, then turns to squint out the window. You follow her gaze to see your husband, William, walking by on the platform, heading toward the colored car.

She leaps to her feet and points an accusatory finger. "There goes my boy Ned." Your heart starts to race, but you feel a surge of frustration. You know this woman never owned William. She's confused him for someone else. The woman sticks her head out the window. "Ned? Ned! Come here this instant!" Curious passengers turn their heads.

Please, somebody, stop that boy! He's mine. He ran away and now he's here. A knot tightens in your stomach. You have no legal papers, no proof of ownership to dispute this woman's claims. So you lock eyes with William out on the platform and shake your head, silently urging him to remain quiet and board the colored car. Ma'am, that boy's no runaway. He's mine. Huh?

The woman sits back down, her expression filled with skepticism and disappointment. She turns to you. Yours? He looks just like my Ned. His name is William. He's been with my family his whole life. I beg your pardon, sir. I've never seen two boys who look more alike. Just a coincidence, I reckon. Well, I hope your slave turns out to be more trustworthy than my worthless Ned. I treated him like my own son.

You nod and bite your tongue, fighting the urge to respond. The burden of keeping up this charade is weighing heavily on you, but you have a long way to go. And as the train rolls out of Richmond, you take some comfort in knowing you're one step closer to freedom.

William and Ellen Craft experienced multiple close calls during their journey. Beyond the incident of confused identity in Richmond, in Baltimore, a Border Patrol officer stopped Ellen to ask for proof of ownership of William. She was saved when he took pity on her bandaged face and let her go. On another train carriage, Ellen found herself seated next to a friend of her owner. Luckily, the man failed to recognize her.

After four nerve-wracking days, the Crafts arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas morning. Ellen burst into tears of joy. The couple found lodging through the local underground network and took a reading lesson on their first day in the city. They soon moved to Boston, where they became popular anti-slavery speakers, thrilling audiences with a story of their daring escape.

But theirs was hardly the only one. In March 1849, an enslaved Virginian named Henry Brown engineered yet another ingenious flight north. Brown decided to nail himself inside a small wooden crate, then ship himself from Richmond, Virginia, to the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia.

It was a tight fit. Brown was 5'8 and 200 pounds. The wooden box was just 3 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2.5 feet deep. Over the course of 27 hours, Brown traveled 350 miles via wagons, trains, a steamboat, and a ferry, experiencing extreme discomfort. Despite a this-side-up sign on the outside of the crate, Brown spent considerable time upside down.

Then, on March 30, 1849, an underground railroad conductor in Philadelphia opened the box. Brown rose to his feet, greeted him, and then promptly fainted. He, too, soon became a traveling speaker and media celebrity known as Henry Box Brown. But successful escapes out of the South were still few and far between. The vast majority of enslaved people never made it out.

In the 1840s, there were more than 3 million enslaved people in the South, but fewer than a thousand escaped to freedom every year. Still, Southern slave owners credited the Underground Railroad with a power and reach it just did not have.

They were infuriated to see the underground lure away their so-called property without consequence, and they feared the institution of slavery was becoming dangerously unstable in the border states. To stem the tide, a growing chorus of pro-slavery voices demanded a stronger and more enforceable fugitive slave law.

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From plumbing to electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades. So leave it to the pros who will get your jobs done well. Hire high-quality certified pros at Angie.com. In the middle of the 19th century, politicians in Washington, D.C. were locked in a bitter debate over the territorial expansion of slavery.

After defeating Mexico in war in 1848, the United States acquired a vast expanse of territory in the Southwest, stretching from Texas to California. This new land reignited debate about the future of slavery in the West. Americans feared that if the new territories went one way or the other, it would upset the delicate balance of power between free and slave states and threaten to tear the Union apart.

In January 1850, the aging Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, known as the Great Compromiser, presented a series of resolutions to try to appease both sides and save the Union from collapse. His proposals kicked off a fierce eight-month debate in Congress.

But at last, in September of that year, Congress passed a package of bills that made up the Compromise of 1850. It was a shaky truce that admitted California as a free state while leaving the rest of the Southwest open to slavery. The slave trade was abolished in Washington, D.C., but to appease slave state politicians, Congress agreed to a harsh new Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

It aggressively expanded the power of Southern slave owners to reclaim fugitives. It was the brainchild of Virginia Senator James Mason, who declared that Northern state governments and citizens had inflicted a wound upon the Constitution by helping deprive Southerners of their property.

This new law strengthened the original Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which many Southerners felt was inadequately enforced. Now, federal law enforcement agents and ordinary citizens were required to actively help slave owners apprehend fugitives. Anyone who interfered with an arrest or aided a fugitive was subject to a $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail.

Additionally, fugitives were forbidden from speaking on their own behalf and they were denied the right to a jury trial. Instead, their cases were assigned to special commissioners who were given a strong incentive to side with slave owners. Commissioners were paid $5 if they decided in favor of the accused and $10 if they ruled in favor of the slave owner. The Federal Treasury paid all costs.

Abolitionists immediately denounced the new law as draconian and unconstitutional. Even non-abolitionists were outraged by the idea of being forced to actively participate in upholding slavery. A Columbus, Ohio newspaper lamented, Others denounced the law as an assault on state sovereignty. Protests erupted throughout the North.

But the real impact of the law was felt by the thousands of fugitive slaves living in the Free States. Just days after the law's passage, they began to discover that their freedom was once again in peril.

Imagine it's the morning of September 26th, 1850, on Water Street in Manhattan. You hoist a heavy trunk into a horse-drawn carriage and wipe the sweat from your brow. It's been two years since you escaped your owner in Baltimore. Now you work as a hotel porter. And as you reach for a hat box on the top of the pile of luggage you're loading, you come face to face with a white man with a shiny badge on his chest. Good morning. My name is U.S. Marshal Benjamin Talmadge.

Good morning, sir. I'd like to speak with you about a criminal case I'm investigating. Can you spare a moment? You hesitate, your instincts telling you to run. But you know you can't afford to look guilty or draw attention to yourself. Of course, sir. What's this about? Let's start with your name and birthplace. His eyes bore into you. You reach for the name of a childhood friend. Name's Roberts, sir. Henry Roberts. I was born in Syracuse. His gaze narrows.

The man nods, a smile creeping on the corners of his lips. A shiver runs down your spine. You shrug, fighting to keep your composure.

I've heard of it, sir. The man looks over your shoulder. You turn your head to follow his gaze and find two more white men standing behind you. Your heart is racing, but there's nowhere to run. You turn back around, and the man isn't smiling anymore. Cut the act. I know you're a runaway slave. You belong to a Mrs. Mary Brown of Baltimore, don't you? No, sir. I've never heard of her. The man nods to his deputies. They grab your wrists and clamp iron handcuffs onto them.

A cold weight makes you feel sick. I have a warrant for your arrest. But I was born free, I swear. You've got the wrong man. The man shakes his head. Your testimony means nothing. As the deputies lead you away, you think of your owner, Mrs. Brown, her sharp tongue and her 20 years of indifference. The idea of leaving the life you've built and going back to her is unthinkable. But for the first time in two years, you're powerless to change your fate.

On September 26, 1850, just eight days after the passage of the new Fugitive Slave Act, a United States Marshal snatched James Hamlet from his place of work in New York City. He was the first fugitive to be apprehended under the new law. Hamlet was quickly convicted and returned to Baltimore. But furious abolitionists raised $800 to purchase his freedom, and Hamlet soon came back to New York.

For many years, fugitive slaves had lived in relative safety in northern states. But now they faced imminent danger. Formerly enslaved men and women lived under the constant threat of recapture. Many fugitives who had built lives in northern towns and cities then fled further north to Canada to begin yet again. Roughly 3,000 men, women, and children moved to Canada in just the first three months after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.

William and Ellen Craft fled to England to avoid bounty hunters. The climate of fear the Fugitive Slave Act brought down on the North was oppressive, and it emboldened slave owners and slave catchers. But it also strengthened the resolve of abolitionists. Members of the Underground Railroad vowed to fight back against a law they deemed unjust, launching radical new efforts to help fugitives escape from the clutches of bondage.

From Wondery, this is episode three of our four-part series, The Underground Railroad, from American History Tellers. On the next episode, abolitionists rescue fugitive slaves from federal officials and slave hunters. Their open defiance of the Fugitive Slave Act exacerbates tensions between the North and South, and Harriet Tubman embarks on her first mission to help other men and women escape from slavery.

American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham, for Airship. Audio editing by Christian Paranga. Sound design by Molly Bach. Music by Lindsey Graham.

voice acting by Ace Anderson and Cat Peeples. This episode is written by Ellie Stanton, edited by Dorian Marina, produced by Alita Rozanski, coordinating producer Desi Blaylock, managing producer Matt Gant, senior managing producer Ryan Moore, senior producer Andy Herman. Executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marsha Louis for Wondery.

What's up, guys? It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season. And let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay? Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation. And I don't mean just friends. I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox. The list goes on. So follow, watch, and listen to Baby. This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.