President Franklin Pierce was determined to turn over an escaped slave from Boston - a center of abolitionist activity - in order to show Southern politicians that Northern states would enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, a key provision of the Compromise of 1850.
In 1851 he was arrested, tried, and acquitted for the court-house rescue of Shadrach Minkins, a freedom seeker who was caught in Boston by federal slave catchers empowered by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
An act of charity in the village assisted one family in the 'Underground Railroad' in the U.S. that resulted from the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
At one time or another during the period leading up to the Civil War, Brown, Clark, Benjamin Waterhouse, and Captain Samuel Barry were arrested for violating the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
The 1850s were difficult times for anti-slavery activists, particularly those involved in running the Underground Railroad, due to the passage of a tougher Fugitive Slave Act which required law enforcement in all states to assist in the recapture of those escaping from slavery, and increased penalties against those who assisted escapees.
Evans rose to national attention after his importance in the 1858 Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, one of the events that challenged the controversial Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
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Walker was an abolitionist who in 1851 collaborated with attorney Robert Morris and activist Lewis Hayden of the Boston Vigilance Committee to gain the release of Shadrach Minkins, a fugitive slave from Virginia who had been arrested in Boston by US Marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.