Sara Lucy Bagby and the
Fugitive Slave Law
“Slave Auction
at Richmond,
Virginia.”
Courtesy of the
Library of
Congress
What was the Fugitive Slave
Act?
From "The Last Race of the RailSplitter," Broadside, ca. 1861,
Library of Virginia.
Who was Sara Lucy Bagby and
what was her role in the debate over
the Fugitive Slave Law?
What does Fugitive mean?
What does Fugitive mean?
• Adjective. Fleeing, running away
• Noun. A person who runs away or eludes
capture
Fugitive Slave Act
• Strengthened as part of the Compromise
of 1850
• Required citizens to assist in returning
escaped slaves
• Made it easier for slaveholders to make
claims against escaped slaves
• Made it harder for escaped slaves or
legally free African Americans to avoid
capture
Abraham Lincoln Speech
in Cleveland Excerpt
• Have they not all their rights now as they
ever have had? Do they not have their
fugitive slaves returned now as ever?
Have they not the same Constitution that
they have lived under for seventy-odd
years? Have they not a position as citizens
of this common country—and have we any
power to change that position?—(Cries of
"No.")
Extract from speech of George William
Brent in the Virginia Convention
• Secession would relieve the Northern
States from all constitutional obligations of
duty to return our fugitive slaves. It would
relieve the negro-stealer from all legal and
constitutional restraints, and it would give
a secure and safe asylum upon our
borders for the escape of the fugitive. As
has been well said by some member upon
this floor, it would bring Canada down to
our very doors.
Sara Lucy Bagby
Picture taken in 1904,
Forty-three years after her
arrest.
Image Source: Mrs. Lucinda Johnson,
printed in Annals of the Early Settler's
Association of Cuyahoga County,
Ohio. 5 no. 1. (1904): 32.
What would you do?
• Break the law and help Sara Lucy Bagby
escape slavery?
• Obey the law and send Sara Lucy Bagby
back to slavery?
The Fate of Sara Lucy Bagby
• Bagby was sent back to slavery in
Virginia.
• Just a few months later, in June 1861,
when federal troops captured
Wheeling, she was freed.
• She moved North, married, and
eventually settled in Cleveland.