2024-01 Raynors Americana Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/20/2024
Booklet, titled "BOSTON SLAVE RIOT, AND TRIAL OF ANTHONY BURNS", 86pp. plus [12]pp. of advertisements, Boston: Fetridge and Company, 1854. Early 20-century buckram, leather label. Cloth somewhat dust soiled, spine label slightly chipped. Remnants of paper shelf label on spine, institutional ink stamp on title page. An occasional fox mark. Lacking original pictorial wrappers. The trial of Anthony Burns, a fugitive enslaved man from Virginia, occurred in Boston, Massachusetts, during the spring of 1854. Hired out in Richmond, Burns had saved money and stowed away on a ship to Boston, where he worked in a clothing store. A letter home to his brother unintentionally revealed his location, and when it was intercepted, Burns's enslaver, Charles F. Suttle, traveled north and claimed Burns under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Approved as part of the Compromise of 1850, the law was designed to strengthen federal protections for southerners attempting recover enslaved people who had fled to free states. Members of the Boston Vigilance Committee, a group of antislavery activists who were committed to resisting the law, made an attempt to free Burns from custody. The rescue effort was unsuccessful, and a guard was killed in the process.
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