The Jerry Rescue

The Jerry rescue refers to the 1851 liberation of William Henry, an escaped enslaved man who had been captured by authorities in upstate New York with the intent of returning him to slavery in the South. Henry, who went by the name Jerry, had been living in Syracuse, New York, since 1849. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 gave federal officials the right to detain and return escaped enslaved people, local police and US marshals came to arrest Jerry in 1851. As he was being held in a local jail, a crowd of abolitionists stormed the jail and freed Jerry, helping him escape to Canada. The event, known as the Jerry rescue, was celebrated by abolitionist forces in New York and was commemorated with a monument in Syracuse in 1990.

Background

While slavery was initially legal in most of the thirteen British American colonies, it eventually came to divide the colonies, and later, the United States, along geographical lines. The Southern states relied on an agricultural economy and used slavery to drive its economic engine. The Northern states were mostly industrialized and had no need for a large force of agricultural workers. By 1804, all the Northern states had abolished slavery, while technological improvements increased demand for enslaved labor in the South.

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, tensions between Northern and Southern states began to simmer over the issue of slavery. The two sides forged a number of political compromises to keep a balance of slave and free states, ensuring that neither would have a legislative majority in the US Senate. At each step, the compromises provided only a temporary fix, with the problem pushed along for future lawmakers to deal with.

With its victory over Mexico in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), the United States acquired a great swathe of land in the Southwest, stretching from Texas to California. The new lands reignited the issue of slavery, leading Northern and Southern lawmakers to hammer out yet another compromise. As part of this compromise, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Laws requiring the return of escaped enslaved people had been passed before, but they were generally ignored in most parts of the North. This law mandated that local authorities in the North assist in the capture and return of escaped enslaved people.

Overview

William Henry was born into slavery in North Carolina about 1810. He was likely given that name by his enslaver, but called himself Jerry. By 1843, he was enslaved in Missouri when he escaped captivity and eventually made his way to Syracuse about 1849. Jerry was a skilled woodworker and found jobs as a cabinet maker and a barrel maker. Despite his freedom, Jerry still faced some harassment and was arrested several times on theft charges. However, he was immediately released each time, suggesting the charges were false.

Upstate New York was staunch abolitionist territory and Syracuse was considered one of the nation’s leading abolitionist cities. Syracuse, like many Northern cities, had groups of people who would watch out for trackers seeking escaped enslaved people and would report their presence to abolitionist leaders. In late September 1851, the city was host to an abolitionist convention, which attracted thousands of anti-slavery protestors.

Although Jerry had escaped enslavement in Missouri, under that state’s law, he was still considered “property,” and was sold to a new enslaver in absentia. That enslaver tracked Jerry and sent a neighbor to New York State to bring him back. On October 1, 1851, a group of US marshals and local law enforcement arrested Jerry and escorted him toward a local commissioner’s office for a hearing. A member of an abolitionist group witnessed the arrest and reported it to attendees of the abolitionist convention meeting at a local church. Soon, a crowd of people gathered outside the office. Among the crowd were prominent abolitionists Gerrit Smith, the Reverend Samuel May, and the Reverend Jermain Loguen, himself an escaped enslaved person from Tennessee.

Members of the crowd briefly helped Jerry escape, but he was soon recaptured, beaten, and forcibly dragged to a local jail. His brutal treatment at the hands of his pursuers galvanized many in the crowd to call for his release. As May met with a distraught Jerry, abolitionist lawyers raised numerous objections at his hearing in an attempt to delay the proceedings. The crowd outside the jail swelled to about 2,500 to 3,000 and people began throwing rocks at the building, prompting the judge to adjourn the proceedings until the next day.

As night fell, members of the crowd began to bring axes, iron poles, other weapons, and a battering ram. At about 8:30 p.m., a church bell rang, giving the crowd the signal to rush the jail and batter down the door. The US marshals guarding Jerry were overwhelmed and allowed the crowd to take him. He was quickly pushed into a carriage and taken to a safe house, where he was hidden for a few days before being smuggled to safety in Canada. Jerry lived in Kingston, Ontario, where he died a few years after arriving in Canada.

Twenty-seven people were arrested and charged in the escape attempt, but only one was convicted and on a minor charge. Among those who provided bail for the suspects was William Seward, the senator from New York who would later go on to be President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State. Loguen feared he would be sent back into enslavement and briefly fled to Canada, but he was able to return safely to Syracuse. Eventually, all charges were dropped at the onset of the Civil War (1861–1865).

The Jerry rescue, as it came to be called, was a badge of honor for the Syracuse abolitionist movement. In the coming years, residents of the town would mockingly call out, “Where’s Jerry?” and declared October 1 to be Jerry Rescue Day. The city named a building in downtown Clinton Square the Jerry Rescue Building in the 1850s. Although that building no longer exists, Syracuse erected a monument to the Jerry rescue on the square in 1990.

Bibliography

Brockell, Gillian. “An Angry Mob Broke into a Jail Looking for a Black Man—Then Freed Him.” The Washington Post, 1 Oct. 2022, www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/10/01/jerry-rescue-syracuse-slavery/. Accessed 6 June 2023.

Connors, Daniel. “Today in History: The Jerry Rescue.” Onondaga Historical Association, www.cnyhistory.org/2014/10/jerry-rescue/. Accessed 6 June 2023.

“Fugitive Slave Act, 1850.” Bill of Rights Institute, 2023, billofrightsinstitute.org/activities/fugitive-slave-act-1850. Accessed 6 June 2023.

Iannella, Lilli. “171 Years Later, Jerry Rescue Day Sparks Local Attention Toward Social Change.” The Daily Orange, 29 Sept. 2022, dailyorange.com/2022/09/171-years-later-jerry-rescue-day-local-attention-social-change-syracuse/. Accessed 6 June 2023.

“The Jerry Rescue.” New York History Net, 2014, www.nyhistory.com/gerritsmith/jerry.htm. Accessed 6 June 2023.

“The Jerry Rescue and Its Aftermath.” Syracuse University Libraries, 2023, www.etymonline.com/word/enthymeme. Accessed 6 June 2023.

Murphy, Angela F. The Jerry Rescue: The Fugitive Slave Law, Northern Rights, and the American Sectional Crisis. Oxford University Press, 2014.