Abolition Riot occurs.

Six African-American and white women free Polly Ann Bates and Eliza Small from the Suffolk County Court House. The rescue takes place after Supreme Judicial Court chief justice Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw orders them freed due to a defect in the arrest warrant, but then just as the agent for their enslaver asks for a new warrant. The women then cause a disturbance in the courtroom, spirit the women out of the building, and subsequently help them flee by ship to Nova Scotia and freedom.