Download or read book The South Bend Fugitive Slave Case of 1850 written by Claire Harvey and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ohio River in the mid 1800s was a busy place for different reasons. The most significant way that it was busy for the Powell family was its Underground Railroad activity. John Norris, a Kentucky slave owner located on the banks of the Ohio River, probably knew this all too well. According to the 1840 United States census, John Norris owned six slaves. He had three males under ten years old, one male between the ages ten and twenty-three, one male between the ages twenty-four and thirty-five, and one female between the age twenty-four and thirty-five. These six slaves made up the Powell family. In 1847, the Powells picked up and fled Kentucky and went to Michigan. They were successful in crossing the Indiana border, possibly going through Cincinnati, Ohio, into Indiana, and eventually on to Michigan. It was not until two years later that Norris would catch up to them and attempt to take his fugitives back to Kentucky. These events are what led to the South Bend Fugitive Slave Cases. The first case was in front of the probate judge of South Bend, Indiana while the second case was in front of the Circuit Court judge in Indianapolis. Both were questioning whether or not the Powells were in fact John Norris’s fugitive slaves. These cases expose the impact of a community’s attitude toward slavery on the outcome of a fugitive slave case. The cases involve two different judges. Each judge looks at the same event and comes up with a completely different conclusion. One case takes place in South Bend in front of the Probate Judge of St. Joseph County, Elisha Egbert. The second case, which was a lawsuit filed by John Norris, took place in Indianapolis, Indiana, in front of the Circuit Court of the United States with Judge McLean presiding over it. I argue that the strong abolitionist views of the community of South Bend affected the outcome of the South Bend Fugitive Slave cases. More specifically, I argue that they affected the destiny of the slave family, the Powells, as well as the earnings and outcomes that John Norris left with.