Boston Vigilance Committee
The Committee aided hundreds of escapees, most of whom arrived as stowaways on coastal trading vessels and stayed a short time before moving on to Canada or England.
Notably, members of the Committee provided legal and other aid to George Latimer, Ellen and William Craft, Shadrach Minkins, Thomas Sims, and Anthony Burns.
Members coordinated with donors and Underground Railroad conductors to provide escapees with funds, shelter, medical attention, legal counsel, transportation, and sometimes weapons.
The Boston Vigilance Committee was formed on June 4, 1841, in response to a public call issued by Charles Turner Torrey and several other signers.
The original Executive Committee was composed of Daniel Mann, Benjamin Weeden, Curtis C. Nichols, Thomas Jinnings Jr., William Cooper Nell, J. P. Bishop, John Rogers, and S. R.
[6] In the fall of 1842, attorney Samuel E. Sewall defended George Latimer, who had escaped slavery in Virginia and was arrested in Boston.
[8] Four years later, abolitionists learned that a fugitive slave was being held on a ship in Boston Harbor, but were unable to rescue him.
On October 4, the Boston Vigilance Committee called a public meeting in Faneuil Hall to discuss how to respond.
Those who provided more hands-on assistance included, among others, Lewis Hayden, who helped rescue Shadrach Minkins from federal custody in 1851;[13] John Swett Rock, the committee's medical officer;[14] and Austin Bearse, a ship captain who smuggled fugitives in and out of Boston.
[15] Several members, such as Richard Henry Dana Jr. and Samuel Edmund Sewall, were lawyers who defended fugitive slaves and their allies in court.
At least three were also members of the Secret Six, who funded John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry: preachers Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Theodore Parker, and physician Samuel Gridley Howe.
The lawyers had Hughes and Knight arrested again and again on various charges: slander (for claiming that William Craft had stolen the clothing in which he escaped), carrying concealed weapons, smoking in the street, swearing in public, and attempted kidnapping.
On one occasion, as they emerged from the courtroom, they were mobbed by a crowd of black abolitionists, and fled in a carriage; they were then arrested for speeding, and for "running the toll when chased over Cambridge bridge.
The Boston Vigilance Committee hired a team of lawyers to defend Minkins, including Richard Henry Dana Jr., Ellis Gray Loring, Robert Morris, and Samuel E. Sewall.
[29] On February 15, 1851, a group of about 20 black activists led by Lewis Hayden stormed the courthouse and released Minkins by force.
[29] At least three committee members were arrested for taking part in the rescue: Lewis Hayden, Robert Morris, and Elizur Wright.
[31] Wright, the only white man arrested, had not voluntarily taken part in the rescue, but had been standing in the courtroom when it happened and was swept along by the crowd.
Committee members Lewis Hayden, Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and John Murray Spear, along with the Reverend Leonard A. Grimes, planned to place mattresses under Sims's cell window so he could jump out and make his getaway in a horse and chaise, but the sheriff barred the window before they could act.
[33] In 1853, Anthony Burns escaped slavery in Virginia and settled in Boston, where he found work in a clothing shop.
[36] When two regiments of troops from Fort Warren and the Charlestown Navy Yard arrived on the scene, the mob scattered, leaving Burns still trapped upstairs.
[36] According to Wilbur H. Siebert, the Boston Vigilance Committee ceased to exist ten years and seven months after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which would mean it disbanded in April 1861.
