Читать книгу Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865) - Marion Gleason McDougall - Страница 17

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§ 23. Canada and Mexico places of refuge.—The existence on the northern and southwestern frontiers of regions in which slavery was practically, if not yet legally, extinct, brought about another set of complications. January 24, 1821, a resolution was presented in Congress from the General Assembly of Kentucky, protesting against the kindly reception of fugitives in Canada, and asking for negotiation with Great Britain on the subject.¹²⁵ In 1826, Mr. Clay, Secretary of State, instructed Mr. Gallatin, United States Minister at the Court of St. James, to propose the "mutual surrender of all persons held to service or labor under the laws of either country who escape into the territory of the other." The British government replied that any such agreement was impossible, and, though a second attempt was made by the United States, it was without success.¹²⁶

In 1841 Mr. Woodbridge submitted a resolution to the Senate requesting the Committee on Foreign Relations to consider the expediency of entering into an arrangement with Great Britain for the arrest of fugitive slaves charged with crime who might escape over the northern boundary of the United States.¹²⁷ No action was taken upon the resolution.

The North, however, was not the only region to which slaves were fleeing at this time. Complaint was heard after 1830, that the "freedom and equality granted blacks by the Mexican Constitution and law of 1829, was attracting large numbers of slaves from Louisiana,"¹²⁸ while in Florida the Seminole trouble was not yet ended.

The last case of this kind occurred just at the outbreak of the Civil War. A slave by the name of Anderson was found one day by Mr. Seneca T. P. Diggs, wandering about his plantation in Howard County, Missouri, without a pass. Mr. Diggs thereupon arrested him as a fugitive slave. In the struggle which followed, the desperate runaway plunged a knife into Mr. Diggs's heart. His captor dead, Anderson hastened on to Canada.¹²⁹ There he lived a quiet and industrious life until 1860, when the American government called upon Canada, under the extradition treaty, to give up Anderson for punishment. He was arrested, but applied to the Toronto court for a writ of habeas corpus, which was refused. An appeal was immediately made to the Queen's Bench, England, which granted the writ.¹³⁰ In the trial Anderson was defended by Mr. Gerrit Smith in an eloquent speech, which made a great impression, and was circulated all over the United States.¹³¹ The prisoner was discharged on a technical point.¹³²

§ 24. Status of fugitives on the high seas.—When in 1830 gradual emancipation began in the British colonies, and in 1837 slavery ceased to exist there, a new set of complications arose. American vessels carrying slaves from one part of the United States to another were repeatedly driven or conveyed into British ports, and the slaves were there treated as ordinary fugitives, that is, as free men. Thus the Comet in 1830,¹³³ and the Encomium in 1834,¹³⁴ were cast away on the Bahamas, and the slaves on board could not be recovered. In 1835 the Enterprise was forced by stress of weather to enter a port of the Bermudas,¹³⁵ and the officers were not permitted by the British authorities to restrain the persons on board.

In none of these three cases were the negroes restored; but in 1840 the British government paid an indemnity for the first two cargoes, on the ground that at the time of the wrecks slavery had not yet been completely extinguished in the colonies.¹³⁶ No indemnity was allowed in the Enterprise case, and the British government declared that it could assume no responsibility in cases arising since the abolition of slavery.¹³⁷ Elaborate resolutions introduced by Calhoun, March 4, 1840, and passed, April 15, by a unanimous vote of the Senate, condemned the British principle.¹³⁸ But when, in the next year, the slaves on board the American ship Creole rose and by force carried her into Nassau,¹³⁹ the British government refused to return them either as slaves or as murderers.¹⁴⁰ Webster, as Secretary of State, strenuously urged the surrender. In 1853, an arbitrator decided that an indemnity must be paid to the American government.¹⁴¹ On the other hand, when, in 1839, a Spanish vessel, L'Amistad, in which the slaves on board had revolted and killed their master, was brought into an American port, the Supreme Court refused to permit their surrender, on the ground that they were free by Spanish law, and therefore could not be tried for murder.¹⁴²