(Recently I was at a rally against hate in New Bedford MA. A reporter from the local newspaper saw this sign I was carrying and offered the friendly suggestion that it be changed to "Make New Bedford a Sanctuary City" because it wasn't one yet. I explained to him that it actually was a Sanctuary City and had been so since its founding as is evidenced by its history. I referred to a Massachusetts law passed in 1843 and still on the books. He was not aware of that and asked if I could supply that information which I gladly did as soon as I got home and looked up two previous blogs in which I dealt with the topic of New Bedford as a Sanctuary City and the Massachusetts law. I combined and edited those two blogs and what follows is what I sent to him. For many this will be repetition, but it is worth the reminding)
The movement to make a place like New Bedford a Sanctuary City has been relying on having the city council enact an ordinance to that effect.
However, since from its founding by Quakers and then throughout most of the 19th Century the city of New Bedford was influenced by the beliefs and attitudes of that particular sect and unconsciously many of its beliefs have become embedded in the spirit of the city, I thought an alternate approach would be to research if in the 19th century, in the days before the abolition of slavery, the city of New Bedford had any law on the books supporting aid to fugitive slaves, or, as the practice was wide spread, any ordinance to stop it.
Before it was enacted, there was some wiggle room in New Bedford when it came to fugitive slaves, but with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law that was lost. You were expected by Washington to either obey the federal law, or ignore it at your legal peril.
Prior to the law’s passage, New Bedford was one of the terminal cities of the Underground Rail Road, and it is estimated that prior to its passage there were about 400 fugitive slaves living in the city that had a total Black population of just over 1,000.
Many of the fugitive slaves were at one point housed in the homes of prominent citizens like Thomas Arnold and William Rotch.
By 1840, there was only on average two men of color on each whaling voyage, which meant the majority of the city’s black population worked where they lived on land and saw no need to further escape to the sea.
When the Fugitive Slave Law passed, many escaping slaves only used New Bedford as a stopping off point until passage to the towns established in Canada by escaped slaves could be arranged. And since any Black person could have been rounded up by Southern bounty hunters, those who did not feel safe also moved further north.
I found that during the time fugitive slaves were in New Bedford, even though their protection was an unlawful act, there was no formal ordinance one way or the other that dealt with ignoring the federal law, nor any ordinance, or even action taken, against those who ignored it.
In the early months of 1854 a Norfolk, Virginia, newspaper reported that slaves had been escaping from that port city so regularly as to be a daily occurrence. The suspicion was that their escape was aided and abetted by the ships coming from and returning to New Bedford.
One slave owner, Major Hodsdon, was so perturbed by his loss of slaves that he traveled to Boston to retain a lawyer and to have the Massachusetts Attorney General write to Deputy Marhall Hathaway of New Bedford advising him to keep an eye out for any of Hodsdon’s property.
Although the Attorney General’s order to Hathaway to assist Hodsdon went against the 1843 State law of Massachusetts guaranteeing equality and rights to escaped slaves [General laws: Part 1:Title XV: Section 102. Which states “(a) All persons within the commonwealth, regardless of sex, race, color, creed or national origin, shall have, except as is otherwise provided or permitted by law, the same rights enjoyed by white male citizens, to make and enforce contracts, to inherit, purchase, to lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other] , it was in accordance with the more recent federal Fugitive Slave Law which mandated that local law enforcement had to cooperate in the recapture of runaways.
This law is still on the books
When Hathaway failed to comply, Hodsdon and some other slave owners came to New Bedford to get the job done themselves.
Hathaway informed Hodsdon that he had seen the runaways that he and the others were looking for, but they had left since he saw them. He even gave them the address of a house where he claimed other Black men who knew them lived and could probably help, but that house was actually unoccupied.
Not only did the grapevine spread the word why Hodsdon was in town, but pastors had informed their flocks from the pulpits.
Hodsdon was the target of the Liberty Hall bell that was rung by Rodney French who was never arrested for interfering with the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law on the occasion of Hodsdon’s arrival, nor was Deputy Marshall Hathaway ever disciplined for ignoring the order from the Attorney General.
The practice in New Bedford was to follow the 1843 state law, and, because of the city’s commitment to human equality, ignore the Fugitive Slave law.
The result was that the South began boycotting New Bedford merchants because they were instrumental in aiding and protecting fugitive slaves.
Although the South claimed that the Civil War was fought in defense of states’ rights and not to end slavery, they opposed New Bedford’s supporting the Massachusetts state right over the federal law the South had brought about.
The people’s treatment of the fugitive slaves was obviously based on a firmly held religious belief of the equality of man and the universal citizenship in the world, so to tell a city like New Bedford that it should not remain a sanctuary city is to trample on the religious freedom of its citizens by suppressing or ignoring the city’s firmly held religious belief of equality borne out in practice.