Boston Combusts: The Fugitive Slave Case of Anthony Burns

On May 24, 1854, 19-year-old escaped Virginia slave Anthony Burns walked quietly through the streets of Boston on his way home. Burns worked as a store clerk at a clothing shop on Brattle Street and was a new member of the nearby Twelfth Baptist Church, where the abolitionist Reverend Leonard Grimes — who shared Burns’ Virginia roots — had welcomed him with open arms. The young man hoped to put the painful memories of bondage behind him and build a new life based on freedom, hard work and worshiping God. What happened to Burns next, however, would forever change his life and dramatically alter the relationship between North and South.

Since about the age of 10, Burns had wanted to escape slavery and Virginia. “I began to learn that there is a Christ who came to make us free; I began to hear about a North, and to feel the necessity for freedom of soul and body,” he recalled in an 1855 speech. When he finally got the chance, Burns fled north as a stowaway aboard a ship sailing from Richmond. After landing in Boston, he found a job and tried to lie low. “I got employment, and I worked hard; but I kept my own counsel, and didn’t tell anybody that I was a slave,” he said. Burns’ master was merchant Charles Suttle of Alexandria, who also owned Burns’ brother. Not long after arriving in Boston, Burns made a fateful mistake: He sent a letter to his brother in Virginia disclosing his whereabouts. Suttle intercepted the letter and then sailed north to recapture his escaped “property.”

Fugitive slaves had long caused conflict between the antebellum South and North. Indeed, the framers of the Constitution, after much heated debate, had compelled Northern citizens to cooperate with Southern masters in reclaiming their runaway slaves. Article 4 contains the Constitution’s “fugitive slave” clause, which states: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party, to whom such service or labor may be due.”

But many abolitionists in the North, especially in places like Boston, had worked tirelessly to undermine the fugitive slave clause by helping transport escaped slaves to Canada or the free black communities of the North. One such underground group was the Boston Vigilance Committee (BVC), whose membership included some of the North’s most prominent clergymen, intellectuals, attorneys and merchants. Starting in the 1840s, the BVC had helped hundreds of escaped slaves find freedom, and the group would turn Burns’ case into an abolitionist crusade.

The South was incensed by these clandestine Northern groups that assisted runaway slaves. As part of the Compromise of 1850, championed by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas and Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster, Congress’ Southern contingent allowed two new free states to enter the Union in exchange for a new, stricter Fugitive Slave Law. In Boston, the Mecca of the American abolitionist movement, Webster would be demonized for his role in the proceedings. He resigned from the Senate that same year, much to the delight of the BVC.

Relying on the power behind the new law, Suttle arrived in Boston, located the federal courthouse and spoke with U.S. Marshal Watson Freeman. A warrant was issued for Burns’ arrest. Freeman ordered his deputy marshal Asa Butman to take the fugitive into custody and jail him in the courthouse until Burns could be transported back to Virginia with Suttle.

Butman was armed with an arrest warrant, but he also understood Boston’s long history of opposition — occasionally violent — to legal authority, perhaps best illustrated by the tarring and feathering of crown officials before the American Revolution. If Boston’s well-connected abolitionist community, especially the BVC, learned about what Butman was up to, he might find himself surrounded by an angry mob bent on helping Burns by whatever means necessary. Butman decided to lie about his intentions — and lit a fire that would combust Boston.