Person:Thomas Sims (12)

Notes

• born a slave of rice planter James Potter of Colerain Tweedside Plantation ; exact date of birth is unknown
• worked as a bricklayer
• married and had children with a free black woman
• 1851 - age 23 - escaped by stowing away on the M&JC Gilmore, but was discovered and locked in a cabin from which he escaped again
• stayed several weeks in Boston in a boarding house for black sailors before he was arrested by Potters' men and the Boston police, one of whom was stabbed during the ensuing struggle
• tried in a Boston court which garnered much attention and public outcry, yet he was sent back to Georgia under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
• publicly whipped 39 times in Georgia and sold for $1200 to an undisclosed buyer
• papers falsely reported he was transported to Cuba after the sale, but researchers believe he was sent to Mississippi
• 1863 - age 32 - escaped again and returned to Boston
• appointed to a position in US Department of Justice

1. ↑ Thomas Sims, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia
   last accessed Sep 2022.

   Thomas Sims was an African American who escaped from slavery in Georgia and fled to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1851. He was arrested the same year under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, had a court hearing, and was forced to return to enslavement. A second escape brought him back to Boston in 1863, where he was later appointed to a position in the U.S. Department of Justice in 1877.[1] Sims was one of the first slaves to be forcibly returned from Boston under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The failure to stop his case from progressing was a significant blow to the abolitionists, as it showed the extent of the power and influence which slavery had on American society and politics. The case was one of many events leading to the American Civil War. ...