The Virtue of Human Smuggling: The Underground Railroad in Criminological Perspective

• In Event: Organized Crime at the Intersections of Oppression

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the illicit networks of underworld and upperworld actors engaged in violating the oppressive Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 and the Compromise of 1850. Research is based on secondary and primary source research, including a sample of 649 interviews of men and women smuggled by various illicit networks, criminal and civil court records, and the records of select individuals and organizations operating, funding, or otherwise supporting the enterprise. The vulnerability of the smuggled men, women, and children is addressed, especially as it relates to both the fraud embodied by the reverse underground railroad which sold escaped slaves back into captivity and the corruption of US. Magistrates, U.S. Marshals, and other government officials that would either facilitate or thwart the smuggling enterprise depending on the desire of the highest bidder, be they rescuer or slave owner. Additional emphasis is placed on the largely Christian denominations and anti-slavery organizations engaged in the enterprise which resulted in the irony of devout Christians engaged in the violation of federal law, be it in the forms of human smuggling, corruption, forgery, and "property theft," for the purposes of following what they believed to be a higher, divine law.

Authors

• Gary Neiman, San Diego State University

• Jeffrey S. McIllwain, San Diego State University