Boston (MA) Evening Transcript, "Slave Stampede," September 25, 1849

SLAVE STAMPEDE.  A Baltimore correspondent of the New York Tribune says: “I mentioned a few days since, the fact of so large a number of slaves absconding from their masters. There appears to be a regular stampede among the negroes, not only of Maryland, but of Virginia also, for they are running off in droves. Scarce a country paper from this State, or northern or western Virginia, but is full of rewards for the apprehension of runaways or accounts of their recapture–in some instances not without serious rencontres [reencounters] with the pursuers, in which serious wounds have been given or received, and in one or two instances lately, lives lost. The effect of this stampede has been to cause many owners to dispose of their slaves to Southern dealers. The slave population from these two causes will greatly diminish and I am much mistaken if the next census does not show a considerable decrease.”