Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865) is a historical record of legal cases tried against escaped slaves across the United States of America. The author, Marion McDougall, has drawn together and compared many cases found in obscure sources and made an effort to use the cases as illustrations of principles of how the legislature worked in certain places and certain eras. Her aim was, in some measure, to trace the development of public sentiment upon the subject, in order to prepare an outline of Colonial legislation and of the work of Congress during the covered period.