It is quite evident from these laws that kidnapping was a very common crime. It does not appear, however, that they prevented it.
Even as early as 1817 it was estimated by Torrey, who seems to have made a study of the subject, that several thousand legally free persons were toiling in servitude, having been kidnapped.[236]
Free negro children were the ones who were most liable to be kidnapped,[237] for the reason probably that they were easier managed and less likely to have about them proofs of their freedom, though sometimes, indeed, even white children, whether being mistaken for negroes or not, were stolen and sold into slavery.[238]
More than twenty free colored children were kidnapped in Philadelphia in 1825.[239] It is stated that some persons gained a livelihood by stealing negroes from the towns of the North and carrying them to the South for sale.[240] Statements similar to the following are often to be met with in the papers published in slavery times:
"Four negro children, 18, 17, 9 and 5 years respectively—first two girls; last two boys—were kidnapped and carried off from Gallatin County, Illinois, on the evening of 5 ult. The father ... was tied while the children were taken away. The kidnapping gang is regularly organized and is increasing. The members are well known but cannot be punished on account of the disqualification of negroes as witnesses."[241]
"About midnight on the 27th of September a party of 8 or 10 Kentuckians broke into the house of a Mr. Powell, in Cass County, Michigan, while he was absent. They drew their pistols and bowie knives and dragged his wife and three children from their beds, and bound them with cords and hurried them off to their covered wagons and started post haste for Kentucky."[242]
Probably kidnapping was carried on even more extensively in the slave States themselves. "The Liberator," quoting from the "Denton (Md.) Journal" in 1849 says:
"Three free negro youths, a girl and two boys, were kidnapped and taken from the County with intent to sell them to the South.... They had been hired for a few days by Mr. James T. Wooters, near Denton, for the ostensible purpose of cutting cornstalks. After being a day or two in Mr. Wooters' employ they suddenly disappeared.... Enquiry being set on foot, it was, after some days, discovered that they had been secretly carried through Hunting Creek towards Worcester County, thence to Virginia. We learn that the Negroes are now in Norfolk."[243]
They were carried to Richmond where they were sold as slaves, but were finally recovered.[244]
Notwithstanding the harshness of the Delaware laws against kidnapping and the convictions[245] under them, the business of kidnapping seems to have flourished there. A quotation or two will illustrate: