Biography
Fugitive enslaved person arrested in Detroit on June 14, 1833 under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 after being recognized by a Kentucky slave-hunter. Held in the Wayne County Jail awaiting return to enslavement in Kentucky. The arrest provoked Detroit's Black community — almost entirely refugees from southern slavery — to organize a successful rescue: a group of Black women led by Caroline French and Tabitha Lightfoot smuggled Rutha out by switching clothes; the next day a Black mob freed Thornton from the sheriff during the move to the steamboat dock. Both fled to Canada via the Underground Railroad and lived out their lives as free people in Toronto. The "Blackburn Riots" were Detroit's first major racial unrest and the first major Underground Railroad rescue in Michigan. Smuggled out by clothes-swap rescue led by Caroline French and Tabitha Lightfoot.