By 1790, most no1thern states had either abolished slavery or enacted laws to force gradual en1ancipalion. ln response to these laws, many slaves fled to the northern states, where they were free from the horrors of slavery, When the slave states requested assistance from these states to recover their lost “property”, most free states refused. The slave. states were infui1ared. Thus, at the insislence of southerners, in 1793, Congress enacted the first fugitive slave law.

 This law required free states to turn over any fugitive slaves requested by their "masters'' to slave catchers. Al­ though the issue sparked debate over the application of the law to free blacks, the controversy proved short-lived and the law was enacted in part the law has spanned the feats of white southerners throughout the South that runaway slaves would encourage slave revolts. Their fears were fueled by the ongoing Haitian Revolution Southern slaveholders were also concerned about the return of their property, in which they had invested hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars. The law, however, devastated free blacks, who were excluded from the protection of the Constitution. As a result, many free blacks, along with fugitive slaves, were forced into slavery-or, if they were able to, fled further north into Canada, which had abolished slavery in 179 I, or south and west into Spanish Florida and Mexico, out of the legal reach of southern slave catchers.