Fellow citizens of Massachusetts! : Read and consider

This broadside publicizes the arrest of the fugitive slave Anthony Burns, who escaped from Richmond, Virginia and made his way to Boston where, on May 24th, 1854, he was arrested. While he was awaiting trial for extradition to Virginia, a large crowd of abolitionists and anti-slavery sympathizers stormed the jail in which he was held in an attempt to free him. Federal troops were eventually sent to Boston to support the extradition, and Burns was ultimately returned to Virginia. He was later ransomed from slavery, eventually obtaining an education at Oberlin College and becoming a Baptist minister.
Courtesy of Boston Public Library