The Story of the Runaway Slave Who Helped End the Fugitive Slave Act

On this episode of Our American Stories, The Fugitive Slave Act made all Americans accomplices in the practice of slavery. Here's the story of how its end began.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Here again to
tell another great story is the Jack Millicenter's editorial officer
and historian, Eliot Trego. The Jack Millicenter is a trusted
partner of our American stories, and there are a nationwide
network of scholars and teachers dedicated to educating the next

(00:30):
generation about America's founding principles and history. Take it away, Elliott.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
In the heart of Philadelphia, a runaway mother desperately held
her infant son close as she matched wits with a
ruthless slave catcher. The mother, born Betsy Galloway, escaped from
her enslavement in Maryland in eighteen forty five with the
help of a free man named William Thompson. Galloway soon
married Thompson, changed her name to Catherine Thompson, and eventually

(01:00):
settled in Burlington County, New Jersey, where she gave birth
to a son, Joel in eighteen forty seven. The Thompson
family lived in relative safety in New Jersey, though the
thought of her prior enslavement must have haunted her, for
black Americans across the North often felt prey to determined enslavers,
ruthless kidnappers, and unflinching slave catchers, Catherine Thompson was far

(01:25):
from safe. Two years later, a black man named James
Frisbee Price appeared at the Thompson's doorstep, claiming that he
was a lost hunter. Taking pity on the man, the
Thompsons welcomed him into their home and made fast friends
with Price. A few weeks later, Catherine Thompson received an
invitation from Price to visit him and his wife in Philadelphia,

(01:46):
but when she arrived at the Price household, she realized
Price's ruse and found herself face to face with the
notorious slave catcher, Philadelphian George Alberti. Junior Black Americans life,
Catherine Thompson faced a precarious freedom living in the Annebellum North.
Despite its history of abolitionism, the forces of slavery still

(02:08):
lurked across the state of Pennsylvania. Labeled as quote the
most northern of southern cities by one historian, Philadelphia hosted
street battles over slavery throughout the nineteenth century. These battles
took many forms, from fugitive slave rescues and the kidnapping
of free black Americans to vicious riots that led to
the wanton destruction of black Philadelphia. The tension stemmed from

(02:31):
the seventeen ninety three Federal Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed
in slavers and slave catchers to pursue fugitives from slavery
across state lines. Compounding this issue, states like Pennsylvania passed
legislation that not only promoted freedom, but also sought to
protect free blacks against kidnappers masquerading as quote legal slaveholders.

(02:51):
Ordinary black and white abolitionists protected Black Americans by practicing
what I call street diplomacy, the up close contests over
freedom slavery at the local level in Philadelphia that influenced
politics and politicians at the state and national levels. The
kidnappings of free blacks as well as fugitive slave retrievals,
led street diplomats to pressure Pennsylvania lawmakers to pass liberty laws,

(03:14):
which were pieces of state legislation designed to protect black Americans.
Not only did these laws reflect the intertwined realities of
blacks fleeing southern slavery and the kidnapping of free blacks
throughout the North, but these laws also revealed how some
Americans strive to live up to the promises enshrined in

(03:37):
the Declaration of Independence. While most of these cases began
on the streets of Philadelphia, all of them involved high
profile politicians, from governors to members of Congress to Supreme
Court justices. These struggles in Pennsylvania brought to light the
illusory nature of borders between the free and the slave states,
as well as the inherent tension over freedom and slavery

(03:57):
that eventually led to the Civil War, to the chagrin
of slaveholders. By eighteen fifty, a slew of Northern states
followed Pennsylvania's lead and enacted their own liberty laws. Southerners
believed that they possessed the right to track and capture
black Americans throughout the Union, and viewed Northern states liberty
laws as a threat to maintaining peaceful relationships within the Union.

(04:19):
The rise of aggressive abolitionism in the national celebrity of
black Americans like Frederick Douglass, as well as the ongoing
public successes of the underground Railroad, further exacerbated slaveholder's patients.
Southern enslavers and some of their Northern colleagues believed that
only federal legislation could solve the fugitive slave crisis, protect
slave state interests and save the Union. The eighteen fifty

(04:43):
Fuguitive Slave Act fully immersed the federal government in the
process of retrieving fugitives from slavery. This federal slave catching
policy overrode northern state officials bound by either personal conviction
or state law to refuse to become involved in future
to slave cases. Furthermore, slaveholder's testimonies would be valid while
the accused could not testify at all. If the court

(05:06):
ruled in favor of the enslaver, they then had the
power to request that U s marshals hired as many
people as necessary to bring the enslaved person back South.
Most importantly, anyone who interfered with the arrest of an
accused fugitive faced a fine of one thousand dollars and
up to six months in jail. In short, the eighteen

(05:27):
fifty Fugitive Slave Act made all Americans, whether Northern Southern, white, black,
male or female, responsible for assisting slaveholders in their pursuit
of fugitives from slavery. Returning to Catherine Thompson's case, here
we witness how she acted as a street diplomat in
a high stakes game of life and death, slapping handcuffs

(05:49):
on her. Alberti demanded that she leave Joel with the
prices in Philadelphia and that she come with him back
to slavery in Maryland. Catherine Thompson bravely refused Alberti's request
and clung tightly to her child. As a mother, she
would not surrender her son. Yet, as a street diplomat,
she also knew that Alberti would be charged as a

(06:10):
kidnapper under Pennsylvania law if he brought them both back
to Maryland, for Joel was indeed born free in New Jersey.
Although a slave catcher posing as an abolitionist tried to
convince her otherwise, and even after enduring a savage beating
from Alberti, Thompson would not let go of her child.
Alberti relented and agreed to bring Joel to Maryland too,

(06:32):
but not to avoid separating a mother from her child. Instead,
Alberti adopted the heartless logical and legal realities created by
slaveholders and their pro slavery allies, namely that the condition
of slavery followed the mother. Since Joel was the product
of a runaway slave, Alberti reasoned that both he and
his mother could be legally kidnapped and re enslaved down south,

(06:56):
and that's exactly what he did. Alberti brought them back
to Maryland, where Thompson's former enslaver sold them further south,
never to be heard from again. But that is not
the end of the story. Black and white street diplomats,
many of whom acted as agents and conductors of the
underground railroad, convinced Pennsylvania officials to press charges against Albertian

(07:17):
Price for kidnapping Joel, but not his mother. You might ask,
why weren't they charged for kidnapping Catherine Thompson. Here's the
tragic answer. Catherine Thompson was a runaway, and therefore the
slave catchers were within their legal rights to bring her
back to her and slaver. After a lengthy, gripping trial,

(07:38):
the jury found Albertian Price guilty of kidnapping Joel and
sentenced them to prison at the infamous Eastern State Penitentiary.
In a cruel twist of fate, the newly elected Democratic
governor William Bigler of Pennsylvania pardoned the pair the next year,
and both Alberti and Price returned to plying their grim
trade on the streets of Philadelphia. The case of Catherine

(08:02):
Thompson and her infant son, Joel was one in a
plethora of similar events that exploded across the North prior
to the Civil War. Confronted by such cases, white Americans
soon began to chafe over the inhumanity of slavery and
the inhumanity of the Futuitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty,
which charged all Americans with aiding in the return of runaways.

(08:23):
This aid meant ripping families apart, inflicting violence on the innocent,
and condemning their fellow Americans to perpetual servitude each human
being lost to slavery. The efforts of black and white
abolitionists to expose the true nature of aiding the forces
of slavery in all of its gut wrenching intricacies, eventually

(08:44):
bore fruit. In time, Americans increasingly rejected being beholden to
slaveholders who hoped to spread slavery and not freedom, across
the nation. Northerners elected a president in eighteen sixty who
refused to accept the expansion of slavery as the true
mission of the United States. The Civil War reflected the
culmination history diplomacy. The efforts of black and white Americans

(09:06):
who worked together to destroy slavery and bring about a
more perfect union.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
In a terrific job on the editing, production and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to
Elliot Drago who's the Jack Miller Center's editorial officer and
historian the story of Catherine Thompson here on our American
Stories