Runaway Slavery Problem

In the meantime, slave owners and slave states had to contend with two growing problems: How to crush possible slave revolts? And what to do about runaway slaves? Actually, these were not new problem. Especially the problem of runaway slaves. In fact, historians point out that slave owners had a hard time holding on to their slaves right from the very beginning of the institution of slavery in the 17th century (Schneider and Schneider, 2000). But after the Revolution, the problem of slave revolts became a greater fear for the South. In response, the southern states passed laws designed to stamp out any likely slave revolts, and to punish disobedience and rebellion with brute force (Friedman, 2005). The best tactic slave owners decided was prevention. Slaves could not own guns. Free persons who incited rebellion would be punished. Incitement to insurrection by free persons became a capital crime in Alabama in 1812; in 1832, Alabama authorized the death penalty even for those who published or distributed …show more content…
Some historians do attempt estimates of the number of slaves who fled to Northern states or to Canada, but these estimates are just very rough and inexact estimates (Schneider and Schneider, 2000). What is clearer is that many slaves did try to escape, often doing it on their own, although there were people – both in the North and the South – who aided runaway slaves. Such people were referred to by slave states as “Negro stealers” (Schneider and Schneider, 2000). Some of the “Negro stealers” were ex-slaves, like Harriet Tubman and Josiah Henson (Schneider and Schneider, 2000). But it was the thousands of abolitionists and other humanitarians who constituted the “Underground railroad” that helped so many slaves to get away from their owners. In the free states, the Underground railroad usually originated among free blacks, who opened their homes to fugitive slaves, and often passed them off to other