The Pearl incident was the largest recorded nonviolent escape attempt by enslaved people in United States history. On April 15, 1848, seventy-seven slaves attempted to escape Washington D.C. by sailing away on a schooner called The Pearl. Their plan was to sail south on the Potomac River, then north up the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River to the free state of New Jersey, a distance of nearly 225 miles (362 km). The attempt was organized by both abolitionist whites and free blacks, who expanded the plan to include many more enslaved people. Paul Jennings, a former slave who had served President James Madison, helped plan the escape.
The escapees, including men, women, and children, found their passage delayed by winds running against the ship. Two days later, they were captured on the Chesapeake Bay near Point Lookout, Maryland, by an armed posse traveling by steamboat. As punishment, the owners sold most of the escapees to traders, who took them to the Deep South. Freedom for the two Edmonson sisters was purchased that year with funds raised by Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York.
When the ship and its captives were brought back to Washington, a pro-slavery riot broke out in the city. The mob attempted to attack an abolitionist newspaper and other known anti-slavery activists. Extra police patrolled for three days to try to contain the violence until the unrest ended. The episode provoked a slavery debate in Congress, and may have influenced a provision in the Compromise of 1850 that ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia, although not slavery itself. The escape inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe in writing her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), in which people in slavery dreaded being "sold South", and increased support for abolitionism in the North.
Three white men were initially charged on numerous counts with aiding the escape and transporting the captives; the captains Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayres were tried and convicted in 1848. After serving four years in prison, they were pardoned by President Millard Fillmore in 1852.