The Kidnapping Club

Although slavery was outlawed in the northern states in 1827,the illegal slave trade continued in the one place modern readers would least expectthe streets and ports of America’s great northern metropolis: New York City.0In The Kidnapping Clubhistorian Jonathan Daniel Wells takes readers to a rapidly changing city rife with contradictionwhere social hierarchy clashed with a rising middle classBlack citizens jostled for an equal voice in politics and cultureand women of all races eagerly sought roles outside the home. It is during this time that the city witnessed an alarming trend: a number of free and fugitive Black menwomenand children were being kidnapped into slavery. 0The group responsibleknown as the Kidnapping Clubwas a frighteningly effective network of judgeslawyerspolice officersand bankers who circumvented northern anti-slavery laws by sanctioning the kidnapping of free Black Americans-selling them into markets in the SouthSouth Americaand the Caribbeanfor vast sums of wealth. David Rugglesa Black journalist and abolitionistworked tirelessly to bring their injustices to light-risking his own freedom in the process and ultimately exposing the vast system of corruption that made New York City rich.0A searing and dramatic historyThe Kidnapping Club upends the myth of an abolitionist North at odds with a slavery-loving South. It is a powerful and resonant account of the ties between slavery and capitalismthe deeply corrupt roots of policing in Americaand the strength of Black activism.