The Case of the Slave-Child, Med: Free Soil in Antislavery Boston

Karen Woods Weierman

The Case of the Slave-Child, Med: Free Soil in Antislavery Boston
Format
Hardback
Publisher
University of Massachusetts Press
Country
United States
Published
15 August 2019
Pages
184
ISBN
9781625344755

The Case of the Slave-Child, Med: Free Soil in Antislavery Boston

Karen Woods Weierman

In 1836, an enslaved six-year-old girl Named Med was brought to Boston by a woman from New Orleans who claimed her as property. Learning of the girl’s arrival in the city, the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) waged a legal fight to secure her freedom and affirm the free soil of MassachuSetts. While Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled quite narrowly in the case that enslaved people brought to MassachuSetts could not be held against their will, BFASS claimed a broad victory for the abolitionist cause, and Med was released to the care of a local institution. When she died two years later, celebration quickly turned to silence, and her story was soon forgotten. As a result, Commonwealth v. Aves is little known outside of legal scholarship. In this book, Karen Woods Weierman complicates Boston’s identity as the birthplace of abolition and the cradle of liberty, and restores Med to her rightful place in antislavery history by situating her story in the context of other writings on slavery, childhood, and the law.

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