A man who had come to New York City from another area finds a job as a porter in lower Manhattan. One day, a pair of men deputized by the U.S. government surprise him at his work place, handcuff him, and take him into custody. They claim that the man, who is married and has three children, is here illegally. At a hastily-called hearing, a federal magistrate gives the arrested man little chance to defend himself, and orders him sent back to where he had come from. The man’s wife is not informed of the proceedings.
In response, several members of the arrested man’s ethnic group marched on City Hall, insisting that the mayor take action to prevent such an arrest from taking place again. The mayor promises that New York City police will not participate in future apprehensions of people from out of the area who lead tenuous lives in the city.
The 2020s scenario is from 1850. The arrested man, James Hamlet, was not an “illegal alien” from South America, but a Black man, a one-time slave from Baltimore, Maryland who had come North two years earlier, settling in the city of Williamsburg (present-day Brooklyn), with a large Black population. The mayor was Caleb Woodhull, elected earlier that year as a member of the Whig party.
Just as New York’s status as a “sanctuary city” where people seeking asylum in the United States — often as undocumented residents — is dividing New Yorkers, the city in the decade before the Civil War was split on the issue of protecting or abetting the seizure of fugitive slaves.
The state had banned slavery in 1827 (New York, like the rest of the North, was long complicit in enslaving Black men and women and supporting Southern states that had strong economic ties with businesses here). But, following the passage of the 1850 “Fugitive Slave Bill” by Congress, and its signing by President Millard Fillmore, slave-catchers who traveled here on the trail of Blacks who had fled enslavement often found willing accomplices among New Yorkers.
For reasons of ideology (belief in the slavery system), avarice (enslavers offered generous rewards for the return of their human “property”), or apathy (taking a stand against the arrest of strangers was time-consuming), many white residents of New York were willing to acquiesce in, or to take part in, the identification and apprehension of Blacks who had come here as a safe haven. The abolitionist movement, which had many adherents in the city, especially among the Quaker population, was by no means universally supported.
Hamlet’s arrest was the first under terms of the recently passed Fugitive Slave Law.
Which made Woodhull the first local political leader to take a no-police-arrests-on-my-watch stand. His stance, which he largely followed, lost him support among some New Yorkers — just as former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s non-cooperation-with-ICE policy was controversial, gaining him support in his liberal Democratic base as well as the opposition of many New Yorkers. This is the same political risk that newly-inaugurated Mayor Zohran Mamdani, opposed to NYPD cooperation with ICE, faces.
In 1850, some 13,000 Black people lived in the city; that figure included “free Blacks,” and a substantial number of fugitive slaves, who, as part of the Underground Railroad, existed surreptitiously and were often on their way further North, some to Canada. Similarly, the city’s current population of about 760,000 migrants — including an estimated 500,000 “illegal” ones — constitute an integral part of New York.
The case of Hamlet, about 30 years old — he claimed to be the son of a freewoman but had lost the manumission papers that proved his status — was typical of Black people, and of political officials who faced the same decision-making choices as Woodhull in the North after the approval of the Fugitive Slave Law. The legislation required law enforcement officials to arrest people accused of escaping enslavement, and provided imprisonment and a fine for people who offered aid to fugitives.
Eleven years later, the Civil War began.
Postscript: Several thousand people, both Black and white, gathered at City Hall Park to protest Hamlet’s arrest. They, in cooperation with the National Anti-Slavery Standard newspaper, raised $800 — about $33,000 in 2026 U.S. dollars — to purchase Hamlet’s freedom from his “owners” in Baltimore. A week after his arrest, he was back in New York City, as a free man. Mayor Woodhull, whose action to order the police to not cooperate with the apprehension of fugitive Blacks was unpopular in many circles, lost his race for re-election to City Hall.
Steve Lipman was a staff writer at the New York Jewish Week from 1983-2020
We should be pass that Black and Brown coalition bullcrap We as Native Born Black Americans cannot let folks conflate and equate the struggles of Black Americans with those who have chosen to come here illegally or overstay they visas the nerve of the writer to equate the racism, discrimination and Jim Crow laws that Black Folks faced daily with what is occurring today did Black Folks have the opportunity to vote after Slavery no a large part of the Latino population voted for trump and his policies don’t equate what Black Folks went through with what is occurring today with ICE do you actually believe they were Black Folks in gangs, do you believe they were Black Folks actually committing crimes No they were falsely accused of No MS 13, 18th Street, Latin Kings and Tren de Aqua are actual gangs comprised of Latinos or Hispanics don’t conflate or equate The Hispanics struggles with Native Born Black Americans it is not the same NBBA struggle has always been shouldered by NBBA No one else we owe them nothing they choose to Flee they country return them back now they have the opportunity to repair they homeland they were no Lynching, Town Destroying , Dogs and Firehoses, Businesses Burning. Church Bombing of the Hispanic Community No do not Equate or Conflate the two they were those singing I Will vot for dumold trump now they need to live with the consequences of the Hispanics community supporting trump