On this day, May 24, in 1854

Anthony Burns, who had recently escaped slavery in Virginia, was arrested in Boston under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Burns’ arrest angered both black and white abolitionists who strongly opposed the Fugitive Slave Act. Despite the defense’s claims that the Fugitive Slave Act was unconstitutional, Burns was ordered back into slavery. The day that federal officers escorted him to a ship bound for Virginia, over 50,000 people lined the streets, many of them in protest. This incident increased abolitionist sentiment in the North and Anthony Burns became the last fugitive slave legally returned to slavery from any of the New England States.