Kidnapping into slavery in the United States

Kidnapping into slavery in the United States

Tearing up the free-born and manumission papers and kidnapping of a free black, in the U.S. free states, to be sold into Southern slavery, from an 1838 abolitionist anti-slavery almanac
Date	1780–1865
Location	Northern United States and Southern United States
Participants	illegal slave trader kidnappers, police, criminals, and captured free blacks
Outcome	The selling of free negros and forced return of fugitive slaves to Southern slavery, ending with the Union victory at the end of the American Civil War and the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution giving them full citizenship rights.
Deaths	Unknown

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The pre-American Civil War practice of kidnapping into slavery in the United States occurred in both free and slave states, and both fugitive slaves and free negroes were transported to slave markets and sold, often multiple times. There were also rewards for the return of fugitives. Three types of kidnapping methods were employed: physical abduction, inveiglement (kidnapping through trickery) of free blacks, and apprehension of fugitives.^[1][2] The enslavement, or re-enslavement, of free blacks occurred for 85 years, from 1780 to 1865.

Those who used the term Reverse Underground Railroad were angered at an "Underground Railroad" helping slaves escape. Rescues of blacks who had been kidnapped were unusual. The name is a reference to the Underground Railroad, the informal network of abolitionists and sympathizers who helped smuggle escaped slaves to freedom, generally in Canada^[3] but also in Mexico^[4] where slavery had been abolished.