Dispossessing Massa: Fugitive Slaves and the Politics of Slavery After 1850.

The article presents a speech by historian R. J. M. Blackett delivered at the British American Nineteenth Century Historians (BrANCH) Conference in September 2008, in which he discussed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, nullification attempts of the law by Wisconsin and Massachusetts, fugitive slaves from slave states which bordered free states, the Underground Railroad, newspaper advertisements regarding escaped slaves, and the legal, political, and social implications of fugitive slaves.