Graves et al v. Indiana

In 1847, three Kentucky men tried to capture Thomas Harris, a fugitive slave, in Bristol, but a justice of the peace ruling freed Harris and he fled. In 1848, the Elkhart Circuit Court convicted the three men of causing a riot in 1847. In 1849, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the Circuit Court based on the 1842 Prigg v. Pennsylvania decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. This incident was an example of local judicial officers countering a pro-slavery federal decision. The Underground Railroad was a widespread network of diverse people in the nineteenth century who aided slaves escaping to freedom from the southern U.S.

Bristol, Indiana · United States