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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.
Learn about Thomas Sims, who escaped slavery in Georgia and faced multiple attempts to return him to bondage in Boston. Explore the map, images, and sources that tell his story and the impact of the Fugitive Slave Law.
He was Thomas Sims, a 23-year-old runaway slave from Georgia whom the police had captured nine days earlier. In compliance with the recently strengthened Fugitive Slave Act, part of the controversial sectional Compromise of 1850, the antislavery city of Boston was returning Sims to bondage.
Thomas Sims. (1785-1864) Named after his paternal grandfather, Thomas Sims was born at Llansamlet in Wales, near Swansea, on 23 May 1785, to John and Jemina Sims.
Apr 15, 2013 · Thomas Sims arrived in Boston as Shadrach Minkins left. Born in Georgia and trained as a mason, he fled slavery at the ripe age of seventeen by stowing away on a ship. Like the Crafts, he departed from Savannah.
Thomas Sims was a young man who in 1851 fled slavery at the age of 17 and escaped to Boston. He was arrested on April 4, 1851, under the relatively new Fugitive Slave Act and held at the Boston Courthouse until his trial.
These ominous words were uttered by James W. C. Pennington, a former slave and noted abolitionist, in the wake of Thomas Sims’s infamous trial. Sims had escaped from slavery in Georgia before being captured in Massachusetts in April 1851 and taken to court under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
