Gilbert Horton was a free-born African American who was captured with the intent of being sold into slavery.[1] Horton had worked on a ship known as The Macedonian after his father had worked for years to purchase his freedom.[2] When The Macedonian docked in Norfolk, Virginia, Horton traveled to Georgetown in Washington D.C., where he was arrested on the assumption that he was a runaway slave.[2]

Background

In August 1826, a local business owner in Croton Falls, New York, named John Owen noticed an advertisement in The National Intelligencer[3] describing Horton. Owen brought this to the attention of William Jay, who was the son of John Jay, in order to express concern over the capture of a free citizen.[4]

Relief from capture

Through the efforts of Jay and Owen, Governor DeWitt Clinton wrote[5] a letter on behalf of Horton's freedom, to then President John Quincy Adams.

The work of Governor Clinton and Senator Henry Clay[6] ultimately secured Horton's release.

References

  1. ↑ Wilson, Carol (2015). Freedom at Risk: The Kidnapping of Free Blacks in America, 1780-1865. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 73–74. ISBN 978-0813149790.
  2. 1 2 Jackson, Kellie Carter (2021-06-16). "The United States' First Civil Rights Movement". ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 2021-06-29.
  3. ↑ William Jay and the constitutional movement for the abolition of slavery. 1894.
  4. ↑ William Cooper Nell (1855). The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution. pp. 331–333.
  5. ↑ An inquiry into the character and tendency of the American colonization, and American anti-slavery societies. 1835.
  6. ↑ Clay, Henry (2015). The Papers of Henry Clay: Secretary of State 1826, Volume 5. ISBN 9780813162461.
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