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In 1670, Massachusetts made it legal for the children of slaves to be sold into bondage. [41] By 1680, the colony had laws restricting the movements of blacks. [41] A 1703 law required owners to post a bond for all slaves to protect towns in the case that a slave became indigent should the master refuse to continue caring for him or her. [42]
An 1851 poster warning the "colored people of Boston" about policemen acting as slave catchers, pursuant to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The Boston Vigilance Committee (1841–1861) was an abolitionist organization formed in Boston, Massachusetts, to protect escaped slaves from being kidnapped and returned to slavery in the South.
The laws were established by the Massachusetts General Court in 1641. The Body of Liberties begins by establishing the exclusive right of the General Court to legislate and dictate the "Countenance of Authority". In 1684, King Charles II revoked the Body of Liberties and reinstated English law over the Commonwealth.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decisions in Walker v. Jennison and Commonwealth v. Jennison established the basis for ending slavery in Massachusetts on constitutional grounds. Still, no law or amendment to the state constitution was passed. Instead, slavery gradually ended "voluntarily" in the state over the next decade.
Although Boston was an important center of the abolitionist movement, its residents were by no means unanimously opposed to slavery or the Fugitive Slave Law. On the contrary, the local press excoriated Huggerford and Sheriff C. P. Sumner (father of abolitionist Charles Sumner) for not having placed more officers at the courthouse. The riot was ...
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War , he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery .
The Provincial legislature of Massachusetts Bay, as noted by historian Gary B. Nash, approved a law "prohibiting the importation and purchase of slaves by any Massachusetts citizen." The Loyalist governor of Massachusetts , Thomas Hutchinson , vetoed the law, an action that prompted angered reaction from the general public.
The law stated that slave claimants were not allowed to be on state property, fugitive slaves were required to have a trial by jury, and slave claimants had to produce two credible and unbiased witnesses to prove the evidence in their case. [22] Burns's trial was the last rendition hearing for a fugitive slave in Massachusetts.