The "Jerry Rescue" (1851)
Wed Oct 01, 1851
Image: A monument to the Jerry Rescue
On this day in 1851, arrested fugitive slave William "Jerry" Henry was broken out of jail by hundreds of abolitionists in Syracuse, New York. Jerry and prominent members of the rescue fled to Canada afterward.
Earlier that year, the pro-slavery Secretary of State Daniel Webster had warned that the new Fugitive Slave Act (passed in 1850) would be enforced even "here in Syracuse in the midst of the next Anti-Slavery Convention." The arrest was considered a message that the locally-unpopular law would be enforced by federal authorities.
The abolitionist Liberty Party was holding a state convention in Syracuse and, when Jerry's arrest became known, several hundred abolitionists broke into the city jail and freed him. The event came to be widely known as the "Jerry Rescue".
Jerry himself was hidden in Syracuse for several days, then was taken to the Orson Ames House in Mexico, New York, and from there to Oswego, before crossing Lake Ontario into freedom in Canada. Many of the prominent members of the jailbreak also fled to Canada, including Reverend J.W. Loguen and Minister Samuel Ringgold Ward.
- Date: 1851-10-01
- Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.nyhistory.com, www.cnyhistory.org.
- Tags: #Abolitionism.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org