Shadrach Minkins: From Fugitive Slave to Citizen

by Gary L. Collison

On February 15, 1851, Shadrach Minkins was serving breakfast at a coffeehouse in Boston when history caught up with him. The first runaway to be arrested in New England under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, this illiterate Black man from Virginia found himself the catalyst of one of the most dramatic episodes of rebellion and legal wrangling before the Civil War. In a remarkable effort of historical sleuthing, Gary Collison has recovered the true story of Shadrach Minkins’ life and times and perilous flight. His book restores an extraordinary chapter to our collective history and at the same time offers a rare and engrossing picture of the life of an ordinary Black man in nineteenth-century North America.

As Minkins’ journey from slavery to freedom unfolds, we see what day-to-day life was like for a slave in Norfolk, Virginia, for a fugitive in Boston, and for a free Black man in Montreal. Collison recreates the drama of Minkins’s arrest and his subsequent rescue by a band of Black Bostonians, who spirited the fugitive to freedom in Canada. He shows us Boston’s Black community, moved to panic and action by the Fugitive Slave Law, and the previously unknown community established in Montreal by Minkins and other refugee Blacks from the United States. And behind the scenes, orchestrating events from the disastrous Compromise of 1850 through the arrest of Minkins and the trial of his rescuers, is Daniel Webster, who through the exigencies of his dimming political career, took the role of villain.

Webster is just one of the familiar figures in this tale of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances. Others, such as Frederick Douglass, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet Beecher Stowe (who made use of Minkins’s Montreal community in Uncle Tom’s Cabin ), also appear throughout the narrative. Minkins’ intriguing story stands as a fascinating commentary on the nation’s troubled times―on urban slavery and Boston abolitionism, on the Underground Railroad, and on one of the federal government’s last desperate attempts to hold the Union together.

Genres: History, Biography

304 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 1997

Reviews

[Danoota]

This is a non-fiction book about a fugitive slave who made his way to Boston. He was captured in Boston and taken into custody for return to enslavement, but a group of abolitionists stormed the courthouse and took him away, hid him on Beacon Hill, and shunted him via the underground railroad to Canada. President Millard Fillmore himself ordered an indictment against 9 Boston abolitionists, and a trial ensued. This is a wonderful story, very readable. The kind of book that makes you want to go to the present day scene and travel the paths described in the book. Which is what I did.

[Dan Dundon]

In reading about the history of slavery, one tends to forget the efforts some slaves made to be free rather than waiting for the Civil War. However, Gary Collison's book about Shadrach Minkins is a good reminder of just how difficult it was for slaves to escape the plantation and make a life for themselves in the North or in Canada. Collision does a great deal of research to illustrate not only the life of Shadrach Minkins' but also the struggles of many other slaves who wanted a better life. I was especially interested in his portrayal of how the Fugitive Slave Act worked in Boston and how many residents decided to actively resist the law and aid in the escape even at the risk of prison for themselves. It illustrated to me how some laws will be ignored when they run counter to moral principles of citizens. I was somewhat disappointed, however, that so many of the events in Minkins' life were speculated about by the author rather than being derived from records. Understandably that was not the author's fault but more attributed to the secrecy surrounding his life in the North.

[William]

Great historical story of perseverance and courage in a brutal time.

[Brandon]

I read this book as part of my graduate thesis, and I'm very glad it did. It tells the story of Shadrach Minkins, a freedom seeker from Norfolk, VA, who is arrested and tried in Boston before being resuced and sent to Canada. For those who aren't familiar with his story, it's a biography rich in details which are often unaccountable in narratives for enslaved people - a product of their subhuman status in the system of American slavery. For those who enjoy biography as a genre, this is a great one.

My favorite sections of the book related to Minkins' time in Boston. This is due in part to the fact that I live in Boston, so I was able to better envision the places he lived, worked, and experienced. It is also due in part to my research focus on Thomas Simms, who would later escape to Boston and whose trial was profoundly impacted by Minkins' rescue. But I also think Collison assembled a really great narrative regardless of these factors - one that sheds light on the Black abolitionists who are often forgotten about when authors write of the Vigilance Committees and The Liberator. Collison's details regarding Lewis Hayden were especially eye opening for me.

Along a similar vein, I thought Collison's larger arguments about Daniel Webster's impact on the case, and on Boston politics during the period, opened up an entire new way of thinking about antebellum Boston. Collison does a remarkable job of tracing the political allegiances, betrayals, ideologies, and incentives which informed the process of the trial. Not only did this enrich my understanding of the period, but it also challenged me to reconsider my own research in light of these ideas, and provide a more nuanced accounting in my thesis. I've read a lot for my thesis, and few works impacted my approach as much as this did.

That being said, I do feel like the sections about Norfolk and Canada were a little slower. Both of them did good work in establishing concepts of Black community and important details of Minkins' life, but I thought they had less narrative momentum and weren't as thought-provoking. Of course, I think the meat of the book really makes up for it.

Ultimately, a great biography of a freedom seeker with an eye for both the personal and the national. I think anyone interested in antebellum politics or freedom seekers should read this, perhaps as a starting text. I would recommend it to my friend Stella and my grandfather.

[Lisa]

Published in 1998, the research put into this historical biography, is absolutely astounding. Now, a quick search in ancestry.com will pop up almost all of the Canadian documents referenced by the author, but in the 1990's none of it would have been digitized or searchable. I am humbled by the efforts of pre-computer age historians to seek out the obscure facts needed to bring untold history back to life. Shadrach Minkins deserved better than the justice system in the United States could offer him in the days of the fugitive slave act and it was satisfying to know that he had a free life in Canada. By today's standards it may seem short and difficult, but he was free and that's all he was asking for, the right to personhood and the ability to set his own direction.

Another book in my re-education in history that history class skipped. Having attended high school in the county where the Christiana Resistance occurred (no longer called riot), I was very familiar with that story, but had not heard about Shadrach Minkins.

[Skailer]

This is a thoughtful historical work that reflects on the difficult circumstances of fugitive slaves and tracing the historical journey of Shadrach.

[A.C.E. Bauer]

An interesting reconstruction of the life of a fugitive slave, with perspectives on the life of black citizens and residents in Norfolk, Virginia, Boston, Mass. and Montreal, Canada during the 19th century.