The Anti-Slavery Record, Volume 1, No. 7

This 1835 volume of an abolitionist newspaper offers a stark glimpse into the human cost of slavery in the North. It opens with the harrowing case of Stephen Downing, a fugitive seized by a Virginia planter and held in New York’s Bridewell for eighteen months. The report details the legal maneuvering that kept him imprisoned and the desperate appeal to higher courts, exposing the corrupt practices that denied him liberty.

The second narrative follows Francis Smith, a free‑colored man who, after a brief taste of freedom, is captured by a slave‑catcher and dragged back into bondage. His desperate escape attempt, the violent confrontation on a steamboat, and the brutal punishment he endures illustrate the everyday terror faced by those fleeing servitude. Interwoven with a passionate declaration that slavery is a sin, the pages convey the moral urgency driving early anti‑slavery activists.