The Sketch Book of Nick DeLuca

This essay was originally published on WBUR. You can read the entire piece here.

My former colleague at the National Parks of Boston liked to paraphrase Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.” The ongoing conflict between the Trump administration (specifically U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol) and protestors in Minnesota, very much rhymes with a similarly charged conflict in the 1850s.

The federal presence in Minnesota is part of the administration’s immigration enforcement surge. In it, I see similarities to the Fugitive Slave Act, legislation passed into law in 1850, which empowered U.S. Marshals, bounty hunters, slave catchers — even ordinary citizens — to detain formerly enslaved people, or anyone suspected of being a fugitive slave, and send them back to bondage without due process. Anyone who refused to assist or stood in the way of an arrest could be fined up to $1,000 and receive a six-month imprisonment. The law incentivized judges to return freedom seekers to slavery: for each person arrested, determined to be a fugitive and re-enslaved, judges were paid $10; for each person who was not determined a fugitive, and allowed to remain free, they were paid $5.

The Fugitive Slave Act and the Trump administration’s immigration policies are different of course, but the outcomes of these federal actions – in terms of the pushback and protest they inspired in the American people — are remarkably similar.

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