Anthony Burns

For other people named Anthony Burns, see Anthony Burns (disambiguation).
A bust portrait of the twenty-four-year-old Anthony Burns, "Drawn by Barry from a daguereotype [sic] by Whipple and Black," is surrounded by scenes from his life.
Events leading to the American Civil War
  1. Northwest Ordinance
  2. Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
  3. End of Atlantic slave trade
  4. Missouri Compromise
  5. Tariff of 1828
  6. Nat Turner's Rebellion
  7. Nullification crisis
  8. End of slavery in British colonies
  9. Texas Revolution
  10. United States v. Crandall
  11. Gag rule
  12. Commonwealth v. Aves
  13. Murder of Elijah Lovejoy
  14. Burning of Pennsylvania Hall
  15. American Slavery As It Is
  16. United States v. The Amistad
  17. Prigg v. Pennsylvania
  18. Texas annexation
  19. Mexican–American War
  20. Wilmot Proviso
  21. Nashville Convention
  22. Compromise of 1850
  23. Uncle Tom's Cabin
  24. Recapture of Anthony Burns
  25. Kansas–Nebraska Act
  26. Ostend Manifesto
  27. Bleeding Kansas
  28. Caning of Charles Sumner
  29. Dred Scott v. Sandford
  30. The Impending Crisis of the South
  31. Panic of 1857
  32. Lincoln–Douglas debates
  33. Oberlin–Wellington Rescue
  34. John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
  35. Virginia v. John Brown
  36. 1860 presidential election
  37. Crittenden Compromise
  38. Secession of Southern states
  39. Peace Conference of 1861
  40. Corwin Amendment
  41. Battle of Fort Sumter

Anthony Burns (May 31, 1834 – July 17, 1862) was an African-American man who escaped from slavery in Virginia in 1854. His capture and trial in Boston, and transport back to Virginia, generated wide-scale public outrage in the North and increased support for abolition.

Burns was born enslaved in Stafford County, Virginia. As a young man, he became a Baptist and a "slave preacher" at the Falmouth Union Church in Falmouth, Virginia. He was frequently hired out by his master and learned to read and write in his various assignments. In 1853, he escaped from slavery and reached the free state of Massachusetts. He started working in Boston.

The following year, he was captured under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and tried in court in Boston. The Fugitive Slave Act was despised and fiercely resisted in Boston, and Burns's case attracted national publicity, including large demonstrations, protests, attacks, and violence. Federal troops were used in the city to ensure Burns was transported without interference to a ship sailing to Virginia post-trial.

Burns was eventually ransomed from slavery, with his freedom purchased by Boston sympathizers. He was educated at Oberlin Collegiate Institute and became a Baptist preacher. He was called to a position in Upper Canada (Ontario), where an estimated 30,000 refugee African Americans, both enslaved and free, had fled to, to gain or retain their freedom. He lived and worked there until his death.