Biography
Thomas Sims was a Black man held in Boston federal custody under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 after escaping enslavement in Georgia. The first major fugitive-slave rendition in Massachusetts under the 1850 Act; the courthouse was wrapped in chains by U.S. Marshals to prevent rescue by the Boston Vigilance Committee. Defended by Richard Henry Dana Jr. and Robert Rantoul Jr. Returned to Savannah on April 12, 1851, where his enslaver had him publicly whipped. Freed in 1863 during the Civil War; later worked at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, DC under President Grant.
In his 1873 Police Records and Recollections, Boston police officer Edward H. Savage describes guarding the fugitive-slave prisoner he calls Thomas Semmes during the 1851 proceedings. He recounts a nine-day trial under police guard and an armed escort at about four in the morning on April 12, down State Street to Long Wharf, where the prisoner was put aboard a schooner bound for Savannah. This is the Thomas Sims rendition already recorded here, not a separate prisoner or a release into freedom. Savage places the disclosure to the police on April 3 and says the arrest occurred the previous night; that chronology differs from the April 4 arrest and admission dates in this record. The discrepancy is preserved pending corroboration, without changing the existing dates or eight-day counter. Savage’s personal accusations against the captive are not treated as independently established facts.
Edward H. Savage, Police Records and Recollections (1873), printed pages 375–380, PDF pages 407–412.
