Unit 2
Black Vigilance
“Anthony Burns,” (detail). John Andrews, engraver, ca. 1855.
The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division LC-USZ62-90750.
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Unit 2 - Black Vigilance
Background
Emancipation came to New York State in 1827, as it had to other northern states earlier, but it did not bring the
full freedom blacks had hoped for, and New York City’s financial and social ties to the South made life especially hard for its black residents. In fact, emancipation generated new rules and procedures at many levels of city
life, designed to keep free blacks less than free. In response, blacks in the city and elsewhere began a determined
effort to build a strong, self-sufficient community. Dr. James McCune Smith, one of several powerful black leaders who emerged during this period, was seen as a champion of the movement toward black autonomy. Many
black-led organizations were established during the 1830s – churches, benevolent societies, newspapers, educational and political groups. In the process, blacks invented the first models for how groups in American society
could seek equality, models still in use today.
Perhaps the most alarming problem faced by blacks in New York City was the presence of slave catchers paid to
take people into slavery in the South. Kidnapping was a source of constant terror. Adults could be seized, but
children were at special risk, since a long, productive period of slavery lay ahead of them and they were not well
able to defend themselves. But no one, child or adult, could feel safe in New York, whether they were actual
fugitives or legally free blacks. All were at risk.
Many people in New York were eager to help southern slave owners find fugitive slaves. One Virginia lawyer
moved to the city just for this purpose and bluntly advertised his services in the newspapers. Others were professional slave catchers, including the infamous Tobias Boudinot and Daniel Nash. Southerner slave owners hired
these men and their assistants to track down and reclaim runaways, often on the basis of nothing more than a
verbal description that resulted in many false seizures.
Blacks and white abolitionists called this action kidnapping or manstealing, and considered it a crime, because
slavery itself was a crime. Slave-catching, however, was not illegal. The U.S. Constitution supported slave owners’ right to reclaim runaways, and the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law specified how this should be done. The law did
not require a jury trial. The captive was to be brought before any local magistrate, who would hear witnesses
and decide whether or not to issue the slave owner a certificate of custody. In New York City, the magistrate was
often City Recorder Richard Riker, who usually gave the slave owners what they wanted, sometimes after witnesses had been paid to lie. The entire proceeding could be over and the captured black person deposited on a
southbound ship before family or friends knew what had happened.
In the mid-1830s, with many city officials taking the side of the slave owners, and white abolitionists more concerned with ending southern slavery than with helping free blacks in the North, black New Yorkers forged their
own protective response to kidnapping. Black Vigilance focuses on the effort to win the freedom of captive
William Dixon, and to secure the right to jury trials in all fugitive slave cases in New York State.
A note about legal terms in Black Vigilance: Free blacks were not considered U.S. citizens, but the American
legal system protected them to a degree. The several writs collectively known as habeas corpus, considered the
great cornerstone of personal liberty in English and American law, applied to any prisoner, regardless of color.
The most common and celebrated of these writs requires prison officials to bring a prisoner to court to determine
if the person is held lawfully or should be released. Lawyers in fugitive slave cases routinely filed a petition for
this writ. Slave owners could also take advantage of habeas corpus writs.
The writ de homine replegiando, like the writs of habeas corpus, dates to common law in medieval England,
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where it was used in cases involving runaway serfs. Abolitionists resurrected this writ in American fugitive slave
cases, and it is central to the story of William Dixon. The process was straightforward: a petition for the writ was
filed by the prisoner or his lawyer, and the magistrate issued the writ unless he saw legal cause not to do so.
Once issued, the writ required that a prisoner be released on bail and remain available to appear in court to
answer charges. (The bail money was actually used to protect the sheriff or prison officials who would be fined
if the prisoner ran away.) Most important, the writ de homine replegiando requires a jury trial. In the 1830s, it
was seen as the only way to bring a fugitive slave case before a jury.
Sources: Fergus M. Bordewich, Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America, (New York: HarperCollins
Publishers, 2005); Leslie M. Harris, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2004); Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease, They Who Would Be Free: Blacks’ Search for Freedom, 1830-1861 (New York: Atheneum, 1974). Special
thanks are due to James Folts, Head of Reference Services, New York State Archives, who searched the New York State court records for evidence of the
Dixon case and added valuable perspective to these materials. Thanks as well to Leonora Gidlund, Director of the Municipal Archives, City of New York,
and Bruce Abrams, Archivist, New York County Clerk’s Office.
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Whereas, the barbarous practice of kidnapping continually menaces, endangers, and invade the
peace, safety and liberty of every colored citizen in these United States. And, whereas, Captains of
Merchant’s vessels, Slaveholders, Slavetraders, and their kidnapping agents have sold into slavery, citizens of the State of New York. And, whereas, the alarming precedent, lately established in this city, has
firmly convinced us in the belief, that the people of color can expect no protection from the laws, as at
present administered, with out the benefit of trial by jury.
And whereas, we view with grief and indignation the conduct of the Hon. Richard Riker,
Recorder of the city of New York, in the case of Abraham Goslee, whom he refused the benefit of three
important witnesses, and pronounced him a slave - then denied him the benefit of the writ of Homino
replegiando, and unjustly granted or issued a writ of Habeas Corpus to reduce him to slavery.
Be it therefore, Resolved, that while we the people of color are deprived of the bulwark of personal freedom, a trial by jury, it is in vain to look for justice in the courts of law, especially where every
advantage is given to slaveholders and kidnappers by the law and practice of those courts.
Resolved, That humanity and justice dictate, that every colored citizen unite his every effort to
procure for every person who may be arrested a fugitive slave a trial by jury; and the removal of such
legal abuses as may at present exist, and continue those efforts in every proper and legal manner, until
our rights be established.
Unit 2, Document #1 (Transcript)
New York Committee of Vigilance, 1836 Resolutions. Delivered at Phoenix Hall, New York City, September 27, 1836. C. Peter Ripley, ed.,
The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol. III (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985) 169-71.
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Document 1
New York Committee of Vigilance, 1836 Resolutions. Delivered at Phoenix Hall, New York City, September
27, 1836. C. Peter Ripley, ed., The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol. III (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1985) 169-7
71.
After 1827, when New York State ended slavery, black New Yorkers faced more risk than ever of being kidnapped and enslaved in the South. One reason was the role played by the City Recorder Richard Riker.
According to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, a slave owner required only a certificate issued by any local magistrate to permit him to take custody of a black he claimed as his runaway slave. In New York City, the magistrate was often Riker, widely thought to be in collusion with local kidnappers. By the mid-1830s, the number of
blacks seized in New York had risen to terrifying levels. Blacks fought back in the only way they could: by
keeping their eyes open and trying to physically prevent kidnappings when they saw them. In 1835, a group of
black leaders formed the New York Committee of Vigilance specifically to organize black resistance to kidnapping. In this 1836 document, the leaders lay out their plans for a united fight to win a fundamental legal right for
blacks claimed as fugitives. (For information on habeas corpus and de homine replegiando, see the Unit 2
Background piece.)
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Unit 2, Document #2
“More Slave Trouble.” The Herald, April 12, 1837. Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
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Document 2
“More Slave Trouble.” The Herald, April 12, 1837. Collection of the New-Y
York Historical Society.
This article about the capture of William Dixon on April 4 appeared in the Herald on Wednesday, April 12,
1837. The Herald called it “more slave trouble” because it came just days after the capture of a runaway slave
named George Thompson, an event that had outraged the black community. A huge crowd had kept vigil at the
court house to prevent the sheriff from taking Thompson into slavery. Thompson, however, had admitted being
the fugitive in question – he also detailed how he and other slaves had stolen the master’s boat in order to
escape. Because of these admissions, Thompson was pronounced a slave by Recorder Riker and was taken
South on April 2. When Dixon was captured two days later, George Thompson was on everyone’s mind.
The abolitionists mentioned in this article are the members of the New York Committee of Vigilance and the
abolitionist lawyer Horace Dresser, who represented the captives in the Committee’s fugitive slave cases.
Dresser’s fees were paid by the New York Manumission Society, founded by prominent whites in 1785 to help
blacks secure their legal rights. Some of the Society’s members were abolitionists, but it was not an abolitionist
organization. (For information on de homine replegiando, see the Unit 2 Background piece.)
Note: The slave owner’s name was Walter T. Allender, not Alexander.
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Unit 2, Document #3
“Prisoner’s Introduction into Court.” Henry C. Wright, “Kidnapping in New York!!” The Liberator, April 21, 1837.
Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
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Document 3
“Prisoner’s Introduction into Court.” Henry C. Wright, “Kidnapping in New York!!” The Liberator, April 21,
1837. This article was written during court proceedings on April 11, 1837, William Dixon’s first day in court.
Collection of the New-Y
York Historical Society.
Henry C. Wright was a white abolitionist present when William Dixon first appeared in court. He wrote a long
account of the events of the first two days of the trial and sent it to William Lloyd Garrison, the Bostonian who
published the Liberator, one of the leading abolitionist newspapers in the country. The court proceedings were
held in New York’s City Hall, the same building that serves as City Hall today.
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Unit 2, Document #4
“To the Thoughtless Part of our Colored Citizens.” The Colored American, April 15, 1837.
Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
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Document 4
“To the Thoughtless Part of our Colored Citizens.” The Colored American, April 15, 1837. Collection of the
New-Y
York Historical Society.
William Dixon was jailed for a week before he appeared in Recorder Riker’s court. During that time, word of
his kidnapping spread through the black community. On the second day of the hearing, a crowd of angry blacks
gathered in the park outside City Hall, where the court house was located. When they saw the sheriff leading
Dixon across the park toward prison, they stormed forward. Someone tossed a knife and a dagger to Dixon, who
escaped briefly. A black man and woman attacked Justice John Bloodgood, who was trying to help the sheriff.
The following day, Samuel Cornish responded to these events in the newspaper he had begun to publish just
weeks earlier. Beginning with this issue, the Colored American followed the progress of the Dixon case closely
for many months.
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Unit 2, Document #5
Witness Testimony in the Dixon Case (Right). The Liberator, April 21, 1837 and (Left) The Herald, April 19, 1837. New-York Historical Society Library.
Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
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Document 5
Witness Testimony in the Dixon Case. From an uncited newspaper reprinted in The Liberator, April 21,
1837 and The Herald, April 19, 1837. Collection of the New-Y
York Historical Society.
The Herald was the most widely read newspaper in New York. Its editor, James Gordon Bennett, wrote many
articles defending slavery in the South, calling it a “positive good.” These two accounts follow the court testimony of witnesses appearing for and against William Dixon. The Liberator was an abolitionist newspaper published in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison. This article was first published in an uncited newspaper and then
reprinted in Henry C. Wright’s long article in the Liberator, along with many others from newspapers around the
country, all responding to Dixon’s arrest and trial.
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Unit 2, Document #6
“After a long, and tedious imprisonment….” The Colored American, July 8, 1837. Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
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Document 6
“After a long, and tedious imprisonment….” The Colored American, July 8, 1837. Collection of the NewYork Historical Society.
In the American legal system, if prisoners free on bail do not appear in court to answer charges as required – if
they jump bail – the prison officials who released them are fined. When magistrates set bail, they are actually
setting the amount of this fine. The bail money is set aside to protect the sheriff or other officials from the penalty if a prisoner runs away. Recorder Riker set William Dixon’s bail at $500. This letter makes clear how long the
black community worked to raise these funds and how they went about it
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Dixon (an alleged slave) vs. Allender (claimant)
Question on the writ de homine replegiande, in the case of a slave escaped from the service of his master; and as to the proof necessary to be exhibited.
August 1837.
A writ de homine replegiando was sued out in this case, by the alleged slave, and a motion was
now made by the claimant to quash the writ, on the strength of the decision of this court in the case of
Jack, a Negro man, v. Marin, 12 Wendell, 311.
H. Dresser, in opposition to the motion, insisted that the certificate granted by the recorder in
this case, to the claimant, was granted without such proof having been adduced as is required by the
statute on this subject, Laws of the U.S. vol. 2, p. 165, passed 12th February, 1793, and that therefore
the question of the constitutionality of the act of this state allowing the suing out of a writ de homine
replegiando did not arise. The proof exhibited to the recorder was not taken before and certified by a
magistrate of the state from whence the alleged slave was said to have escaped. This he contended was
necessary, and without it a certificate could not be legally granted. The language of the third section of
the act is, “ upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magistrate, either by oral testimony or affidavit taken before and certified by a magistrate of any such state or territory, that the person so seized or
arrested doth under the laws of the state or territory from which he or she fled, owe service,”&c. it shall
be the duty of such judge or magistrate to give a certificate, &c. Language, he argued, could not be
more explicit, requiring the proof to be taken before and certified by a magistrate of the state from which
the alleged slave had escaped. In the case of fugitives from justice, provided for by the first section of
the same act, it had never been doubted that the affidavit charging the offence alleged to have been committed, must be made before a magistrate of the state or territory from which the party was alleged to
have fled, and the uniform construction had been that the affidavit must be so taken; and he insisted that
the phraseology of the third section demanded the same construction. If right in his construction of the
statue the writ de homine replegiando, he contended, ought not to be quashed.
The Court, Nelson, Ch. J. presiding, directed the motion to be suspended until the next special
term; in the mean time the attorney for the plaintiff to have leave to prepare and serve his declaration,
and the attorney for the defendant to have leave to plead the proceedings had before the recorder under
the act of congress, to which the plaintiff may demur, with the view to enter the formal judgment of this
court, so that the cause may be removed to the court of dernier resort in this state, for a final decision
upon constitutional question involved in the motion now made; be further directed that a record be made
up and presented to him for settlement previous to the entry of judgment thereon.
Unit 2, Document #7 (Transcript)
“Dixon (an alleged slave) vs. Allender (claimant).” John L. Wendell, Reports of the Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Judicature
and in the Court for the Correction of Errors of the State of New-York, Volume XVIII (Albany, 1839), 678-80.
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Document 7
“Dixon (an alleged slave) vs. Allender (claimant).” John L. Wendell, Reports of the Cases Argued and
Determined in the Supreme Court of Judicature and in the Court for the Correction of Errors of the State of
New-Y
York, Volume XVIII (Albany, 1839), 678-8
80.
In 1834, three years before Dixon was captured, a very important case involving the writ de homine replegiando
had reached New York’s Supreme Court. In Jack, a negro man, v. Martin, Chief Justice Nelson had ruled that
the writ could not prevent Martin from reclaiming the fugitive, who had admitted to being her former slave. (For
more information about Jack v. Martin, see the Dixon Case Chronology.) Hoping for a similar decision, Dr.
Allender’s lawyers made a motion to quash, or cancel, the writ’s use in the case of William Dixon. The case
came before Justice Nelson, who was still Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court, on August 1, 1837.
Note: This document provides the only known evidence that Recorder Riker had granted Dr. Allender’s certificate – in other words, he had ruled that William Dixon should be returned to slavery in Baltimore.
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Unit 2, Document #8
“Sir, — It is with regret that I make….” The Colored American, September 9, 1837.
Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
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Document 8
“Sir, — It is with regret that I make….” The Colored American, September 9, 1837. Collection of the NewYork Historical Society.
Two weeks after Chief Justice Nelson postponed the Dixon case until the next special term of the Supreme
Court, David Ruggles wrote this letter to the Committee of Vigilance, apparently in response to a growing
rumor.
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Unit 2, Document #9
Minutes of the New York Manumission Society, Volume 11, November 9 and November 27, 1837.
Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
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Document 9
Minutes of the New York Manumission Society, Volume 11, November 9 and November 27, 1837.
Collection of the New-Y
York Historical Society.
The New York Manumission Society was founded in 1785 by prominent whites to help black people secure their
legal rights. Among its early members were Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. The Society paid Horace Dresser
to serve as William Dixon’s lawyer and provided other important services to the Committee of Vigilance, and to
Dixon himself, as these entries make clear.
Note: In these entries, “manumission” is written as “manumifsion.” An old form of the day’s date is used as
well: “11 mo. 27” is the 11th month, 27th day, or November 27.
Transcripts of the documents included below:
[November 9, 1837]
[November 27, 1837]
At a meeting of the Standing Committee of the
New York Manumifsion Society held at at M.
Day's Store 11 mo. 9, 1837. -
At a meeting of the Standing Committee of the
New York Manumifsion Society held at M. Day's
store 11 mo. 27, 1837 -
Present: Barney Corse Chn.
Mahlon Day
James Ketcham
John Hopper +
Henry Wood
Present: Barney Corse Chn.
Mahlon Day
Isaac Sherwood
James Ketcham
Josiah Hopper +
Henry Wood
On motion it was resolved that the sub committee
having charge of the case of Wm. Dixon who is
now in Canada be authorised to employ a person
to bring him to this city and to pay one half of the
expense.
Then adj'd.
Henry Wood Secretary
The minutes of the last meeting were read and
approved.
A bill in favor of Barney Corse for Forty three
87/100 Dollars expenses incurred in bringing W.
Dixon from Canada and one in favor of D.
Ruggles for $11. 48/100, ½ of W. Dixon's travelling expenses were presented to the committee
and audited.
43.87
11.48
55.35
The Committee then adj'd.
Henry Wood Sec'y
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Free and joyous, however, as I was, joy was not the only sensation I experienced. It was like
the quick blaze, beautiful at the first, but which subsiding, leaves the building charred and desolate. I
was soon taught that I was still in an enemy’s land. A sense of loneliness and insecurity oppressed me
sadly. I had been but a few hours in New York, before I was met in the streets by a fugitive slave, well
known to me, and the information I got from him respecting New York, did nothing to lessen my apprehension of danger. The fugitive in question was “Allender’s Jake,” in Baltimore; but, said he, I am
“William Dixon,” in New York! I knew Jake well, and knew when Tolly Allender and Mr. Price (for the
latter employed Master Hugh as his foreman, in his shipyard on Fell’s Point) made an attempt to recapture Jake, and failed. Jake told me all about his circumstances, and how narrowly he escaped being
taken back to slavery; that the city was now full of southerners, returning from the springs; that the
black people in New York were not to be trusted; that there were hired men on the lookout for fugitives
from slavery, and who, for a few dollars, would betray me into the hands of the slave-catchers; that I
must trust no man with my secret; that I must not think of going either on the wharves to work, or to a
boarding-house to board; and, worse still, this same Jake told me it was not in his power to help me. He
seemed, even while cautioning me, to be fearing lest, after all, I might be a party to a second attempt to
recapture him. Under the inspirations of this thought, I must suppose it was, he gave signs of a wish to
get rid of me, and soon left me – his whitewash brush in hand – as he said, for his work. He was soon
lost to sight among the throng, and I was alone again, an easy prey to the kidnappers, if any should happen to be on my track.
Unit 2, Document #10 (Transcript)
“Free and joyous, however, as I was….” Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855, p. 337-8.
Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
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Document 10
“Free and joyous, however, as I was….” Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855,
p. 337-8
8.
On September 4, 1838, a runaway slave from Baltimore arrived in New York City and was surprised to see
someone he knew on the street. Just two days away from slavery, the runaway was still known as Frederick
Bailey. Later he would change his name to Frederick Douglass.
William Dixon was able to work and move about New York because his legal case was pending, but he clearly
did not feel safe from the threat of reenslavement.
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Unit 2, Document #11
Minutes of the New York Manumission Society, Volume 11, February 20, 1839. Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
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Document 11
Minutes of the New York Manumission Society, Volume 11, February 20, 1839. Collection of the New-Y
York
Historical Society.
This entry appeared in the Manumission Society minutes almost two years after William Dixon was seized on
his way to work. It is the last known, significant mention of this case in official records or newspapers.
Note: In these entries, “manumission” is written as “manumifsion.” An old form of the day’s date is used as
well: “2 mo. 20” is the 2nd month, 20th day, or February 20.
Transcript of the document included below:
[February 20, 1839]
At a meeting of the Standing Committee of the New York Manumifsion
Society held at Mahlon Day's store 2 mo. 20, 1839.
Present Edmund Willets Chn.
John Wood E. Bway.
Jas. Ketcham
John Bartlett +
Henry Wood Sec'y.
The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
The following communication was rec'd. from the Secretary of the Society.
"At a Special meeting of the New York Manumifsion Society held 2 mo.
13, 1839.
"It was on motion resolved, that the Standing Committee be authorised,
(with the advice of a majority of the consul of the Society), if they should
deem it best, to prosecute the case of Dixon, before the Court of Errors at
an expense of not exceeding Five hundred Dollars. Extracted from the minutes
Richard Field, Sec'y."
Edmund Willets and Henry Wood were appointed to advise with the counselors of the Society relative to the case named in the foregoing minutes
and report to a future meeting of this Committee.
The Committee then adjourned.
Henry Wood Secretary
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David Ruggles
1810-1
1849
Runaway slaves had long set their sights on New York City, a crowded
place where they could hide and live free. The black community
absorbed them, protected them, gave them food and clothing and helped
them if they wanted to escape further north. Southern slaveholders
knew there were many fugitives in New York, and they often hired
bounty hunters to comb the city and reclaim people they considered
their property. In the 1830s, kidnapping became a much greater problem
for black New Yorkers than it had been before. Federal law, city officials, local newspapers, and many whites supported southerners’ right to
catch runaway slaves. Blacks had few means to fight back other than
trying to rescue a captive by ganging up on kidnappers, a tactic that
rarely worked.
David Ruggles, Engraving. The Amistad Research Center
at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
In 1835, David Ruggles was one of several black leaders who formed
the New York Committee of Vigilance to mount an organized black
response to kidnappings. As the Committee’s staff person, he was responsible for many of the cleverest and most
aggressive efforts to help fugitives and thwart slave catchers. In its first year, the Committee helped rescue fugitives at the rate of one a day. There is no record of how many more people were lost to the South before the
Committee, or anyone else, knew they were missing.
In the summer of 1836, two free black men – Abraham Goslee and George Jones – were captured, brought
before Recorder Riker, and turned over to slave owners. For Ruggles and others in the Committee of Vigilance,
these events were the turning point, the moment when anger and helplessness became action and resolve. The
black community focused on the need for public trials so that fugitives’ cases would follow the established rules
that governed other legal suits. Ruggles also argued that it was time to stop relying on whites in the New York
Manumission Society and the American Anti-Slavery Society, and time for blacks to defend themselves in whatever ways they could. “Let a remedy be prescribed to protect us from slavery! Whenever necessity requires, let
that remedy be applied….Come what will, anything is better than slavery!”
The Committee of Vigilance looked for cases that would help it make the legal argument in favor of jury trials,
cases that would ignite public outrage, cases there was a fair chance of winning. When William Dixon was
arrested, white abolitionist Henry C. Wright sent a long article to William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator, calling
this the most important kidnapping case that had come up in New York — important because Dixon seemed so
dignified and so obviously innocent. Crowds of white New Yorkers attended the proceedings and were incensed
by what they heard. It seemed clear to most onlookers that Dixon had never been a slave in Baltimore. One man
commented that the case was “enough to abolitionize us all.” David Ruggles probably knew the truth, but he
also knew that admitting to being a runaway would cost William Dixon his freedom. Everyone must believe that
Dixon was wrongly accused.
William Dixon’s case was one of several used by the Committee of Vigilance, with New York Manumission
Society lawyers, to challenge the laws that permitted blacks to be seized and enslaved in the South. As the case
slowly made its way through the courts, David Ruggles kept the story in the public eye. He wrote article after
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article, detailing its progress for the Colored American, fanning the public’s justified outrage. Editor Samuel Eli
Cornish praised Ruggles’s work and published his articles, as well as letters and committee reports that helped
readers stay up-to-date on Dixon’s case. At the same time, kidnappings continued in New York.
David Ruggles was never one to fight quietly or politely. He protested, spoke out, agitated, and took risks. He
urged black men – and women, too – to oppose the abductions, to fight back. He named the kidnappers in print,
pointed them out so blacks would recognize them on the street. He sought out southern slaves who had been
brought by their owners to New York and told them they were legally free if they had been living in the state for
more than nine months. When kidnapped blacks were taken before Recorder Riker, Ruggles brought in witnesses to swear that the person was free, just as the slave catchers found witnesses to swear otherwise.
For his efforts, David Ruggles was jailed more than once and nearly kidnapped himself. He was also in frequent
conflict with Samuel Cornish, a more conservative man who found Ruggles’s behavior dangerous to the cause.
Many in the Committee of Vigilance agreed with Cornish, and the friction eventually resulted in forcing Ruggles
out of the Committee in 1840. The episode left Ruggles discouraged and out of money just as he was fighting
the onset of blindness and other health problems. With the help of two white abolitionists, he moved to a community of radicals in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he continued to fight for abolition. He was still a
young man when he died of an infection in 1849.
Sources: American National Biography, s.v. “Ruggles, David”; Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999); C. Peter Ripley, ed., “Founding the New York Committee of Vigilance,” The Black Abolitionist Papers, Volume III
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Graham Russell Hodges, “David Ruggles: The Hazards of Anti-Slavery Journalism,” downloaded
at http://www.freedomforum.org/publications/msj/courage.summer2000/y02.html, accessed 5/13/06.
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Samuel Eli Cornish
c. 1795-1
1858
The Reverend Samuel Eli Cornish. Engraving.
Collection of the New-York Historical Society.
Samuel Cornish knew how whites watched and judged black people. He
noticed how many whites who read black newspapers were critical of
poor writing, or bad behavior, or what they deemed uppity ideas. In 1827,
Cornish and John Russwurm had founded Freedom’s Journal, the nation’s
first black newspaper, though Cornish left after a few months. In March
1837, just before William Dixon was kidnapped, Cornish began publishing the Colored American. He carefully watched over every word printed
in the newspaper and he watched himself as well – he wrote well, dressed
well, acted according to the rules followed by middle-class whites. He
worried that the way the black masses lived, most of them poor, uneducated, and working in menial jobs, fueled white prejudice and held back the
race. Some blacks thought Samuel Cornish looked down on his own people.
Like many whites, Cornish believed that women should stay out of public
life, but he had special reason for this view: he knew that black women had been brutally mistreated by slavery
and thought that black men should create a safe and protected home for their wives and daughters. He broke
ranks with the American Anti-Slavery Society in part because William Lloyd Garrison, the well-known white
Bostonian who led the Society, had started to argue for women’s rights and even to allow female abolitionists to
speak at meetings.
In all these respects, Samuel Cornish was David Ruggles’s direct opposite, but the two men had much in common. Both were committed abolitionists and both were outraged by the American Colonization Society’s proposal to send free American blacks to Africa. Both men worked diligently in the New York Committee of Vigilance
to protect blacks from slave catchers. Ruggles took care of most of the Committee’s day-to-day work. Cornish, a
member of the Committee’s leadership, helped map out the group’s strategies and also published Ruggles’s
accounts of his work in the Colored American. During the late 1830s, Samuel Cornish’s newspaper was black
New York’s main source of information. It helped create a sense of shared identity and to focus people’s rage
over the epidemic of kidnapping in the city. During the years when William Dixon’s case remained unresolved,
the Colored American printed more stories about it than any other newspaper.
Soon after its founding, the Committee of Vigilance began working to press the State of New York to mandate a
jury trial for fugitive slaves. The goal was to put an end to City Recorder Richard Riker’s control and to bring
these cases into the higher court system where they could be argued in public, before a jury. The Committee
waged this battle on two fronts. First was within the court system itself. With Horace Dresser and the New York
Manumission Society, the Committee made use of the few legal tools available to prevent Recorder Riker from
immediately sending kidnapped blacks to the South. The hope was that, one by one, the cases might progress to
a jury trial.
The second front involved the petition campaign that Samuel Cornish and Henry Highland Garnet began in
February 1837. Collecting signatures of black people and sympathetic whites throughout New York State, they
planned use the petitions to pressure the New York legislature to pass three needed laws. One law would end the
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rule that allowed southern visitors to keep their slaves in New York for up to nine months. One would eliminate
the special property requirements designed to keep most blacks from voting in the state. And one would require
a jury trial for fugitive slave cases. Petition campaigns had been tried before, mostly without success, but this
one was particularly well organized and had the Colored American behind it.
For a man with Samuel Cornish’s outlook, petitions probably seemed an ideal way to work for black rights without affronting and alienating whites. The signed petitions followed established procedures and presented New
York’s black population as respectful, committed, intelligent, and literate. When the legislature tabled the first
petitions, new petitions were circulated and resubmitted. With each setback, the pages of the Colored American
kept readers informed and helped build determination to improve the legal rights of black people in New York.
Cornish’s great newspaper always struggled under financial burdens. The Colored American was not able to
publish consistently, sometimes skipping several weeks between issues, and shut down for good at the end of
1841. Cornish had resigned as editor in 1839. All of this may explain why the outcome of William Dixon’s case
was not detailed in its pages, which had so carefully followed the earlier progress of this suit. After the Colored
America fell silent, New York City had no black newspaper, and would not have another for many years to
come.
Sources: American National Biography, s.v. “Cornish, Samuel Eli”; Leslie M. Harris, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City,
1626-1863 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); David E. Swift, Black Prophets of Justice: Activist Clergy Before the Civil War (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1989).
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Kezia Manning and Jesse Harrod
On April 12, 1837, Kezia Manning and Jesse Harrod stood in the huge
crowd of blacks in a park near City Hall. William Dixon was inside,
appearing before City Recorder Riker. Just a few days earlier, a black
fugitive named George Thompson had been grabbed, and a crowd had collected outside the court house then, too. They had waited all night, willing
to do anything to protect Thompson, but Recorder Riker paid them no
attention. Thompson had been taken to a ship and was now headed back
to slavery in the South. The crowd was enraged to think that could happen
again and determined to prevent it.
The court proceedings dragged on, and the crowd of 2000 or more grew
agitated. Then the court house door finally opened, and Sheriff Lownds
began leading Dixon across the park toward Bridewell prison. A voice
yelled “To the rescue!” and great numbers of people, both men and
women, surged forward and attacked Dixon’s captors. Someone tossed Dixon a knife and a dagger, and after a
moment of confusion, he ran off. He was later found and taken to prison.
“Anthony Burns,” (detail). John Andrews, engraver,
ca. 1855. The Library of Congress Prints and
Photographs Division LC-USZ62-90750.
Justice of the Peace John Bloodgood was not involved in the case, but he was watching from the court house as
the crowd rushed toward Sheriff Lownds. He called for police help, and the men raced out to help fight the
crowd. As he neared Sheriff Lownds, Bloodgood was “violently seized” around the neck from behind by Kezia
Manning. Someone tackled the justice and threw him to the ground. Jesse Harrod struck Bloodgood several
times and held him by the neck. As several other blacks assaulted Justice Bloodgood, Harrod ran off. The police
caught him as he was climbing under the fence that bordered the park.
Two days later, Kezia Manning and Jesse Harrod were indicted for assaulting Justice Bloodgood. Others who
had been involved had escaped in the crowd. Manning and Harrod, imprisoned in Bridewell, were to appear
before the next Court of General Sessions, where the city’s criminal cases were tried.
On June 3, 1837, the day before Manning’s scheduled appearance in court, Sheriff Lownds wrote a brief note to
District Attorney Phoenix. It said that Manning was “so unwell as to be unable to come out,” and asked that her
case be postponed until the following term of the General Sessions. Lownds’s note mentioned a letter from a
physician, but the surviving court papers include no such letter. It might have explained what caused Manning’s
health to fail. With only the sheriff’s wording to go by, it is unclear if she became ill in prison, where contagious
outbreaks were common, or if she was beaten for attacking Justice Bloodgood.
The same question surrounds the fate of Jesse Harrod. The court records contain another letter, dated September
17, 1837, written by Sheriff Lownds and cosigned by John M. Bloodgood. The letter is brief and avoids using
Harrod’s name: “In consideration of the death of the person indicted with Kezia Manning and her ill health
Justice Bloodgood…does not wish to proceed against her.”
Eventually, news of Jesse Harrod’s death and Kezia Manning’s continuing poor health would reach the black
people of New York. It would serve as yet another warning about the risks of fighting white authority — and as
a stark reminder of the need to do so.
Sources: Jno. M. Bloodgood v. Kezia Manning and Jesse Harrod, District Attorney Indictment Papers, 14 April 1837, New York City Municipal Archives,
Microfilm Roll 171; Samuel Eli Cornish, “To the Thoughtless Part of our Colored Citizens,” The Colored American, April 15, 1837; Henry C. Wright,
“Kidnapping in New-York!!” The Liberator, April 21, 1837.
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Richard Riker
Richard Riker enjoyed any opportunity to praise southern slave holders.
More than once, he called them “men of undoubted character and
respectability.” He was not the only New Yorker who held this opinion,
but as the City Recorder for most of the 1830s, he was in a unique position
to act on it. Almost alone, he determined what happened to people seized
as fugitive slaves in New York City. He sent nearly all of them to slavery
in the South.
Southern slave owners went to great lengths to retrieve runaways, not only
because the slaves were valuable but because the public punishment of
returned runaways served as a powerful warning to any slave considering
escape. Sometimes the owners came to New York themselves, but frequently they simply gave bounty hunters a description of a runaway – for example, a stocky 30-year-old man
with a scar on his cheek. Bounty hunters might seize someone who fit the description, or they might bribe a
black person to lead them to a runaway. The best-known and most successful of the paid slave catchers were
Tobias Boudinot and Daniel Nash. Abolitionists called them and their accomplices the Kidnapping Club, and
they considered Riker a club member as well because he turned over so many captured blacks.
“Drawing for Proposed City Hall,” 1802. Library of
Congress Prints and Photographs Division. LCUSZC4-7.
Richard Riker, like all recorders in New York State, was a state-appointed official who served the city. Boudinot
was a Third Ward constable. Official New York seemed to be on the side of the slave catchers, since no authorities challenged the Kidnapping Club, which worked with grim speed and efficiency. The slave catchers and their
captive would be brought as quickly as possible before Recorder Riker. A few white witnesses would be brought
in to swear that the captured person was a runaway slave; some were paid to lie. Many captives had no lawyer,
and there was never a jury. A captive could be placed on a ship headed south within a few hours of seizure.
In late March 1837, Boudinot, Nash, and the Manumission Society lawyer Horace Dresser appeared before
Recorder Riker. The captive, George Thompson, had admitted to being the runaway in question. When Riker
seemed indecisive about the case, Dresser told Thompson he was free to go. Boudinot’s power is apparent in
what happened next: he grabbed Thompson, jailed him in Bridewell, and then took him to a southbound ship.
All this took place just days before William Dixon was seized and the same cast of characters appeared in
Recorder Riker’s chambers.
In Dixon’s case, Horace Dresser and the Committee of Vigilance were using some different strategies, which
may have been made possible by a week-long delay between Dixon’s capture and his court appearance. To begin
with, Dresser petitioned for the writ de homine replegiando in Dixon’s name. Riker had found cause to deny this
writ before, but he issued it now and set Dixon’s bail at $500. He may have decided to grant the writ because the
court room was jammed with onlookers, so many that the proceedings had to be moved out of the usual small
chamber to the larger Court of General Sessions. In the week between Dixon’s arrest and his first court appearance, his supporters had apparently been busy spreading the word to build this court room audience. Several
reporters were in attendance. Some came from newspapers like the Herald, which could be relied on to treat
Richard Riker with respect. Others, though, wrote for the anti-slavery papers; on the first day, abolitionist Henry
C. Wright sat next to Dixon and scribbled constantly, as if in a rage.
Then there was the mob action outside the court house, and the assault on Justice Bloodgood. Riker was not a
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young man, and he may have wondered if the crowd’s rage would turn on him. He knew he was recognized and
hated in the black community. He may even have had doubts about Dixon’s identity after some white witnesses
testified that Dixon was absolutely not Dr. Allender’s slave as others contended.
In the end, Riker may have been rattled by the unusual course of events and by all the attention paid to the case.
Boudinot and Nash were accustomed to quick action, but Riker refused to be pushed to an early decision.
Instead he tried to show himself a reasonable man. He told Dixon he would not hold the mob’s actions against
him, since Dixon had had no role in planning it and only ran when pushed to do so, a detail reported in several
abolitionist newspapers. When Justice Bloodgood noisily interrupted the trial to produce two pistols he said had
been taken from people in the mob, Riker advised him to show less emotion and to be cautious about confusing
the innocent with the guilty.
Recorder Riker let the Dixon testimony drag on. He closed the proceedings for a week, saying he was busy. In
late April, he postponed the case for several weeks more. In July, he finally found in Dr. Allender’s favor and
issued the certificate the slave owner needed. He did this after, and maybe because, Dixon had been freed on
bail in early July. It was his last official action in the case.
Other New York magistrates appear to have been unnerved by William Dixon’s case. In October 1837, while it
was still pending, Henry Metscher was arrested by Boudinot and Nash. Recorder Riker was not in his office, so
the man was brought before Justice Bloodgood, who refused to interfere in the matter. Then Judge Betts refused
to hear the case. Judge Ulshoeffer refused as well, saying it was “another abolition case – I’ll not meddle with
it.” In the meantime, Recorder Riker returned and said he was willing to jail the prisoner but not to go any further until the Dixon case was resolved.
Recorder Riker retired from his long career as city recorder around 1840.
Sources: “Another Slave Case,” The Colored American, October 21, 1837; Fergus M. Bordewich, Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the
War for the Soul of America (New York: HarperCollins, 2005); Leslie M. Harris, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-186
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 208-15, 271; “The Alleged Fugitive from Justice,” The Colored American, April 8, 1837; “Slave Case – No.
3,” The Colored American, May 9, 1840; “Slave Case – No. 3, Concluded,” The Colored American, May 16, 1840; “Trial by Jury, in Questions of Personal
Freedom,” American Jurist and Law Magazine, Volume 17, April, 1827; John L. Wendell, Reports of the Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme
Court of Judicature and in the Court for the Correction of Errors of the State of New-York, Volume XVIII (Albany, New York: Wm. and A. Gould and
Company, 1839).
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William Dixon
On the morning of April 4, 1837, William Dixon was getting ready for
work as usual. His wife was not feeling well when he said good-bye and
left their home on the corner of Hester Street and the Bowery. A man in his
thirties, tall and powerfully built, he usually found work sawing wood or
whitewashing buildings or fences. He did not work on Sundays, which he
devoted to the Zion Church. He sang in the choir.
No sooner had Dixon reached the street than he was seized by three men:
a Baltimore policeman and two New Yorkers Dixon probably knew well,
Tobias Boudinot and Daniel Nash. They pushed him into a carriage and
took him to Bridewell Prison. It was all over in seconds, but someone was
watching. Before the end of the day, the New York Manumission Society
knew that Dixon was in prison, that he had been claimed as a slave by a
Dr. Allender of Baltimore, who said the man’s name was Jake and that he
had run away in June 1832.
“Whitewasher.” From [William] Croome for City Cries,
or A Peep at Scenes in Town , 1850. Collection of
the New-York Historical Society.
Most fugitive slave cases were dispatched with great speed, sometimes
within hours of capture. But William Dixon spent a week in Bridewell
Prison, in a tiny, airless stone cell, before he was brought to Recorder Riker’s chambers. This delay may have
been related to Riker’s schedule, as he claimed to be very busy during the month. Whatever the cause, lawyer
Horace Dresser and the members of the New York Committee of Vigilance put the delay to good use. They
found people willing to testify on Dixon’s behalf. And they talked to Dixon himself. If he told them he had been
Dr. Allender’s slave, they surely coached him not to admit this, ever. If he did, he would be returned to slavery.
Everyone who worked on behalf of fugitive slaves – the Committee of Vigilance, the black community, the
Manumission Society, white abolitionists – had had a recent hard lesson in fighting kidnappers. It was a fight
they lost, and the case of a fugitive slave named George Thompson was now on many people’s minds.
Thompson had admitted in prison that he was the runaway being sought. As William Dixon sat in Bridewell
prison, the Colored American reported that Thompson was on a southbound ship and that he had been “cruelly
treated.”
After a week in prison, William Dixon was brought before Recorder Riker. He bowed respectfully and said, as
calmly as he could, that he was a freeman, that he had a wife whom he loved, that it was hard to be thrown in
jail just because he was a colored man claiming to be free. At the end of the first day, Recorder Riker ordered
the prisoner returned to Bridewell. The following day testimony resumed. As Dixon was led across the park by
the Sheriff and his deputy, a huge crowd of black people rushed toward them. Someone slipped Dixon a knife
and a dagger and told him to run. He was not sure what to do, but eventually he ran several blocks and hid in a
basement on Duane Street. He was chased, caught, and taken to Bridewell.
The court case continued, and witnesses appeared on both sides. Then the court appearances stopped around the
end of April, with no decision from Riker, and Dixon spent day after day in his cell. He was not free, but neither
was he on a ship headed to Baltimore. Finally, one day in early July, Dixon was let out of Bridewell on bail
money raised by the Committee of Vigilance. Soon after, Recorder Riker reached a decision in Dr. Allender’s
favor. But Dr. Allender could not make use of the certificate that gave him custody of the man he called Jake,
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perhaps because he could not find him. The Committee of Vigilance had helped William Dixon get to Canada.
He remained there until mid-November, when Barney Corse, a white man who belonged to the Manumission
Society, traveled to Canada and brought him home. It is not known why Dixon was brought back to New York at
this time, but it is possible that some development occurred in his case that required his appearance in court.
William Dixon’s case remained unresolved, however. He could not feel safe for many, many months, as his
nervous behavior toward Frederick Douglass makes clear. As late as February 1839, there was still a possibility
that his case would appear before the New York State Court of Errors. Judging from all available records, this
never happened, though some agreement may have been reached that gave Dixon his freedom. The best evidence for this outcome is the U.S. Census. In 1840, Dixon was listed as a “free colored person” and was living
with his wife in his old neighborhood. So despite the untold numbers of free blacks who had been kidnapped
and taken into slavery, William Dixon was one actual runaway who went free.
His life was not easy, though. In the 1850 census, he was among the inmates in city prison, at a time when the
prison was crowded with blacks and Irish immigrants, New York’s very poorest residents. He was still listing his
occupation as whitewasher. He was charged with a felony, though it is not known what crime he committed, if
any. But his landing in prison may be one indication of the strains and pressures he endured as a 50-year-old
black man recovering from the long trauma of his trial and struggling to get by on low-paying work in a prosouthern, pro-slavery city.
Sources: Leslie M. Harris, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999);
“Kidnapping by American Law,” New York Evangelist, May 6, 1837; Henry C. Wright, “Another Kidnapping in New York!!” The Liberator, April 21,
1837; The Colored American, April 15, 1837, July 8, 1837, September 9, 1837, October 21, 1837, December 9, 1837, January 10, 1838, January 20, 1838,
May 8, 1840; The Herald, April 12, 1837, April 19, 1837, April 25, 1837; New York Manumission Society Papers, Ms., New-York Historical Society
Library, Minutes, Volumes 8 and 11.
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The Dixon Case Chronology
The items in the Document Set for Black Vigilance were selected to show the major developments in William
Dixon’s case over a two-year period. The following chronology is based on these items as well as others, mostly
newspaper articles, that were not included in the set but which shed light on the case. A complete list of references appears in the sources at the end of this chronology.
July 1834
The New York State Supreme Court decided the fugitive slave case of Jack, a negro man, v. Martin. Chief
Justice Nelson ruled that the writ de homine replegiando did not prevent the slave owner, Mary Martin, from
reclaiming the man called Jack, who had admitted he was Martin’s runaway slave. On the divisive question of
whether states could write laws concerning fugitive slaves, Nelson wrote that “the right of legislation on this
subject belongs exclusively to the national government.” In a response to the decision, Reuben H. Walworth,
Chancellor of New York – the highest legal officer in the state after the governor — wrote that if a fugitive
admitted to being a runaway slave, or if this was proven in court, the law required that the person be returned to
the slave owner. He noted, however, that questions about a captive’s identity often arose. In these cases, he did
not believe that the framers of the Constitution intended to leave a person’s liberty exclusively in the hands of
“an inferior state magistrate.” He voiced his support of the right of individual states to write laws dealing with
fugitive slaves. As the Dixon case moved through the courts, Chancellor Walworth’s opinion was widely discussed and reprinted in the abolitionist press.
Late March, 1837
Tricked by a paid black informant, a gardener and runaway slave named George Thompson was kidnapped by
Boudinot and Nash. Thompson admitted to being the fugitive in question and was returned to slavery on Sunday,
April 2.
April 4, 1837 (Tuesday)
William Dixon was arrested and confined in Bridewell prison.
April 11, 1837 (Tuesday)
William Dixon’s court case began before City Recorder Richard Riker. Dixon’s lawyer, Horace Dresser, petitioned for a writ de homine replegiando, which Riker issued. Dixon made his only address to the court.
April 12, 1837 (Wednesday)
Witnesses appeared for both sides. Some, both black and white, argued that Dixon was not the former slave of
Dr. Allender of Baltimore. Others testified to the contrary. After the case was adjourned, a huge crowd of black
men and women tossed weapons to Dixon and helped him escape briefly. Justice Bloodgood came to assist the
Sheriff and was attacked by Kezia Manning and Jesse Harrod, who were imprisoned in Bridewell.
April 13, 1837 (Thursday)
Testimony continued with witnesses for and against Dixon.
April 14, 1837 (Friday)
Kezia Manning and Jesse Harrod were indicted for the attack on Justice Bloodgood.
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April 15, 1837 (Saturday)
The Colored American ran Samuel Eli Cornish’s criticism of mob violence in the Dixon case, and especially of
the role women had played.
April 17, 1837 (Monday)
Testimony continued with witnesses on both sides.
April 24, 1837 (Monday)
More witnesses testified on both sides. Riker adjourned the case indefinitely, blaming his busy schedule. Dixon
remained in jail, where he had been confined since his arrest.
Early July 1837
William Dixon was released on bail.
July 1837
After Dixon was freed on bail, Recorder Riker reached a decision in Dr. Allender’s favor. He granted the slave
owner the required certificate to take Dixon back to Baltimore as a slave.
July 17, 1837 (Monday)
In a letter to the New York State Supreme Court, Dr. Allender’s lawyers requested either that the case be set
aside as contrary to the Constitution and the laws of Congress, or that the writ de homine replegiando in this
case be cancelled or “quashed.” The letter requested an August 1 court date.
August 1, 1837 (Tuesday)
The motion to quash the writ de homine replegiando came before the New York State Supreme Court. Horace
Dresser argued that evidence against Dixon had not been certified by a Maryland judge, as the law required, so
the constitutionality of the writ was not at issue. Justice Nelson suspended the motion to quash the writ until the
next special term of the court. Lawyers for both sides were asked to prepare their arguments for an eventual
appearance before the Court of Errors, the highest court in New York State.
August 14, 1837 (Monday)
David Ruggles informed the Committee of Vigilance that William Dixon was in hiding. His letter suggests that
Dixon “retired to the country” after Recorder Riker issued the certificate to Dr. Allender. Though not stated in
the letter, Dixon had been safely transported to Canada.
September 17, 1837 (Sunday)
Justice Bloodgood dropped his case against Kezia Manning, noting that she was too ill to appear in court, and
that Jesse Harrod was dead.
October 1837
A man named Henry Metscher was seized as a fugitive. Three judges refused to hear the case while Dixon’s case
remained undecided. City Recorder Riker was willing to jail the man but to go no further.
November 1837
Between November 9 and 27, Barney Corse of the New York Manumission Society traveled to Canada to bring
William Dixon back to New York. No record indicates why Dixon was retrieved from Canada at this time, but
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he was obliged by law to appear in court whenever needed; possibly there were developments in his case.
September 4, 1838 (Tuesday)
On a New York City street, William Dixon ran into a man he had known when both were slaves in Baltimore.
The recent fugitive would soon take the name Frederick Douglass.
February 20, 1839 (Wednesday)
In the last reference to the Dixon case entered in its minutes, the New York Manumission Society authorized the
Standing Committee to pursue Dixon’s case before the Court of Errors “if they should deem it best,” and money
was set aside to cover costs.
1840
William Dixon appeared as a “free colored person” in the U.S. Census for New York, living with his wife in his
old neighborhood.
1850
In the U.S. Census, a 50-year-old whitewasher named William Dixon was listed among the inmates of city
prison, charged with an unspecified felony.
Important Note:
There is no record that William Dixon’s case ever came before the New York Court of Errors. The records may
have been lost, but it is also possible that the case was withdrawn, or that the two sides reached an agreement,
since both had something to lose. If Dr. Allender won, William Dixon would lose his freedom. If William Dixon
won, Dr. Allender would lose what he saw as his property, and perhaps more important, the writ de homine
replegiando would be strengthened in future slave cases. Pro-slavery forces may have advised Dr. Allender to
drop the case rather than risk this outcome. The State of New York was increasingly opposed to slavery, an antislavery man had been elected governor, and Chief Justice Nelson had not immediately found in Dr. Allender’s
favor, so a decision in Dixon’s favor may have looked likely.
Sources: The Colored American, April 15, 1837, April 29, 1837, July 8, 1837, August 5, 1837, August 12, 1837, September 30, 1837, October 21, 1837,
December 9, 1837, January 20, 1838, April 18, 1840, May 9, 1840; The Herald, April 12, 1837, April 13, 1837, April 14, 1837, April 19, 1837, April 25,
1837; “Jno. M. Bloodgood v. Kezia Manning and Jesse Harrod,” District Attorney Indictment Papers, 14 April 1837, New York City Municipal Archives,
Microfilm Roll 171; “Judicial: Case of William Dixon,” The Philanthropist, August 4, 1837; “Kidnapping By American Law,” New York Evangelist, May
6, 1837; “Kidnapping in New-York!!” The Liberator, April 21, 1837; New York Manumission Society Papers, Ms., New-York Historical Society,
Minutes, Vol. 8, February 13, 1839 and Vol. 11, April 4, 1837, April 8, 1837, June 21, 1837, July 11, 1837, July 26, 1837, October 12, 1837, November 9,
1837, November 27, 1837, January 2, 1837, February 8, 1839, February 20, 1839; “Trial by Jury, in Questions of Personal Freedom,” American Jurist and
Law Magazine, April 1837; John L. Wendell, “Dixon (an alleged slave) vs. Allender (claimant),” Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme
Court of Judicature and in the Court for the Correction of Errors of the State of New-York (Albany, 1839), 678; Jacob D. Wheeler, “Jack, a negro man, v.
Martin,” A Practical Treatise of the Law of Slavery, Being a Compilation of all the Decisions Made on that Subject, in the Several Courts of the United
States, and State Courts (New York, 1837), 384.
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Strategies for Fighting Kidnappers
The case of William Dixon tells the story of the black community organizing to fight kidnappers and save one
man’s liberty. This effort involved a number of creative strategies, as the documents and life stories show. These
strategies are summarized below.
Form the New York Committee of Vigilance.
There was no organized effort to fight slave owners and slave catchers until a mostly black group established the
New York Committee of Vigilance in 1835. Part of a concerted movement toward black autonomy, the formation
of the Committee was the single most important step in protecting free blacks and fugitive slaves from capture.
In addition, the Committee gave runaways food, shelter, clothing, and access to the Underground Railroad if
they wished to move further north.
Work with the New York Manumission Society.
David Ruggles at one point wanted to free the black community from reliance on white abolitionists and
lawyers, but both remained critical to kidnapped blacks. The New York Manumission Society, founded by
prominent whites in 1785 to help blacks secure their legal rights, paid lawyer Horace Dresser to take on all the
kidnap cases brought by the Committee of Vigilance. So the two groups worked together as one team on case
after case, learning valuable lessons.
Use available legal tools.
The right of slave owners to reclaim fugitives who escaped to another state was written into the U.S.
Constitution. In 1793, the nation’s first Fugitive Slave Law determined how people captured as fugitives would
be returned to owners: they would be brought before a local magistrate who would hear testimony and determine
if the captive was the escaped slave. The absence of a jury and the speed with which hearings were held made
the trials all but secret, and they frequently resulted in fugitives being enslaved. Some northern states passed
what were known as personal liberty laws to increase the rights of fugitives, but since the U.S. Constitution took
precedence, their right to do so was in question. So northern abolitionists, looking for a way to press for a jury
trial for individual fugitives, resurrected a medieval British legal tool called the writ de homine replegiando. It
allowed a prisoner to be released on bail and also required that the case be heard by a jury. (For more information on de homine replegiando, see the Unit 2 Background piece.)
Prepare Dixon.
William Dixon may never have admitted to the Committee of Vigilance that he had been Dr. Allender’s slave in
Baltimore. But given the witnesses who apparently lied on Dixon’s behalf – witnesses who were probably lined
up and coached by Ruggles and Dresser — it seems more likely that he did admit as much at some point during
the week he spent in Bridewell after his capture. If so, he was surely warned not to say this in public. In warning
William Dixon on this issue, Dresser, Ruggles, and Cornish would have been looking to build public support and
outrage for an apparently innocent man. More important, they would have had their eyes on an eventual
Supreme Court appearance. An admission from Dixon would oblige the courts to return him to Allender. It had
happened before.
Publicize the case.
The hands of David Ruggles and Samuel Cornish become especially apparent here. The black community and
white abolitionists were all aware of the case early on, and also of its importance. George Thompson’s terrible
fate no doubt haunted them, and many came to court to watch the proceedings. So did the press. The abolitionist
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newspapers covered the events, as did general circulation (and pro-slavery) newspapers like the Herald.
Cornish’s Colored American followed the case in detail and printed background information, such as minutes
from the Committee of Vigilance meetings, letters written by Ruggles about the case, notice of public meetings,
etc.
Show Solidarity.
The mob scene that resulted in Dixon’s brief escape — and imprisonment and worse for Kezia Manning and
Jesse Harrod — was certainly not a tactic Samuel Cornish would have recommended. David Ruggles, however,
may have helped to keep people informed about the court proceedings and focus their anger. He may have promoted a large gathering in the park without necessarily suggesting that the crowd attack or carry weapons. The
massive show of resolve was surely meant as a warning to New York’s white powers.
Find Witnesses.
A number of people, black and white, were willing to testify convincingly – lie, in some cases – that Dixon had
been in the North well before 1832 and therefore could not possibly have been Allender’s slave. This tactic may
have seemed fair play, given how often false witnesses had appeared in Riker’s court on the side of the kidnappers.
Raise Money.
This required the usual donations of a penny a week that women raised to support the Committee of Vigilance,
but it also included specific fund-raising events and loans. Putting together William Dixon’s $500 bail was not
easy.
Provide Escape.
When Dixon was out on bail, the Committee of Vigilance feared that he would be kidnapped outright and taken
to slavery in the South. They sent him to Canada for his safety, probably using Ruggles’s Underground Railroad
connections to avoid the slave catchers Boudinot and Nash.
Help New Fugitives.
As Dixon’s case was being considered, fugitives continued to arrive in New York City. Frederick Bailey, who
later renamed himself Frederick Douglass, had been free less than two days when he met Dixon on the street.
Frightened of what his old acquaintance might say, Dixon still gave him important warnings about how to
remain safe in New York. Later, a sailor directed Douglass to David Ruggles, who sheltered him and helped him
escape to New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Sources: Fergus M. Bordewich, Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America (New York: HarperCollins
Publishers, 2005); Leslie M. Harris, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2004. Special thanks to James Folts, Head of Reference Services, New York State Archives, who helped trace the case of William Dixon through the New
York State Court System and offered valuable perspective on the case. Thanks as well to Leonora Gidlund, Director of the Municipal Archives, City of
New York, and Bruce Abrams, Archivist, New York County Clerk’s Office.
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Postscript
George Thompson.
In two long articles published in the spring of 1840, the Colored American brought readers up to date on the
case of fugitive slave George Thompson. After he was returned to the South, Thompson was tried and convicted
of stealing the master’s boat many years earlier in order to flee with 17 other runaways. Thompson had admitted
the theft and the escape when first captured in New York. He was punished by being “whipped, and burnt in the
hands.” Slave catcher Daniel Nash, who had brought Thompson back to his owner, witnessed the whipping and
applied the burning iron to Thompson’s hands himself. This detail was probably not known in the early days of
William Dixon’s case.
Winning the Right to Jury Trial.
With the support of anti-slavery Governor William Seward, the New York State Legislature passed a law in 1840
granting a jury trial to all persons claimed as fugitive slaves. One of many personal liberty laws passed by northern states to counteract the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law, it contained a number of clauses that made legally taking a
runaway from New York State almost impossible. It gave New York blacks some of the greatest legal protections
available anywhere in the country.
Southern Retaliation.
Because the new law protected blacks in New York, and because so many runaway slaves were in New York
City, the Commonwealth of Virginia fought New York’s trial-by-jury law. It threatened to disrupt commerce by
requiring an inspection of every New York ship leaving Virginia unless the law was repealed. Governor Seward
refused. The conflict between the two states escalated, both sides warning that the Union was endangered. And
beyond this two-state battle, North and South came to bitter dispute over northern states’ personal liberty laws.
The South pressured Congress for stronger measures to protect slave owners’ rights, resulting in the 1850
Fugitive Slave Law.
Losing the Right to Jury Trial.
New York’s jury trial law was never repealed, but it was weakened by an 1842 U.S. Supreme Court decision
(Prigg v. Pennsylvania) that found Pennsylvania’s personal liberty law unconstitutional. It was overruled entirely
in 1850 by the new federal Fugitive Slave Law, which strengthened the terms of the 1793 law and explicitly
denied alleged fugitive slaves in any state the right to a jury trial. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Law also made kidnapping in the North a bigger problem than ever, established the faraway Canadian border as the new promised
land, drove the expansion of the Underground Railroad, radicalized and enlarged the anti-slavery movement, and
contributed to the outbreak of Civil War.
New fugitive slave cases.
With the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law in effect, abolitionist lawyers throughout the North returned to the writ de
homine replegiando as the best strategy for winning the release of blacks who had been captured as fugitive
slaves.
Richard Riker.
In 1865, James McCune Smith wrote a profile of Henry Highland Garnet in which he described an 1829 kidnapping attempt on the Garnet family. Garnet’s sister had been brought before Recorder Riker but was released after
presenting a credible, though false, alibi. Smith referred to Riker as “one who genially squinted toward the liber-
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ty of the captive, and who was a friend to the colored people generally.” His perspective on Riker could hardly
be more different from that of the members of the Committee of Vigilance or others who followed the Dixon
case as it made its way through the courts. Of course people differ in their judgments of human behavior. But in
understanding Dr. Smith’s comment, it is worth noting that he was writing 25 years after Riker’s retirement, that
the Garnet family seizure predated the period of the Kidnapping Club, and that Dr. Smith was attending medical
school in Scotland when New York’s kidnapping problem became most acute. It is also possible, as Richard
Riker’s life story suggests, that Riker was a complicated man whose motives and actions were not always
straightforward.
Sources: Paul Finkelman, “The Protection of Black Rights in Seward’s New York,” Civil War History, Vol. XXXIV, No. 3, Kent State University Press,
1988; “The Alleged Fugitive From Justice,” The Colored American, April 8, 1837; “Slave Case – No. 3,” The Colored American, May 9, 1840; “Slave
Case – No. 3, Continued,” The Colored American, May 16, 1840; James McCune Smith, introduction to A Memorial Discourse, by Henry Highland
Garnet (Philadelphia: Joseph M. Wilson, 1865).
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