Founded in 1841 and active until the onset of the Civil War, the Boston Vigilance Committee worked to aid formerly enslaved people who lived in or passed through Boston. Among the hundreds of freedom-seekers the Committee helped support were Anthony Burns, Shadrach Minkins, and William and Ellen Crafts. The Committee and its donors provided legal aid, shelter, clothing, medical attention, transportation, funding for various needs, and even weapons to fugitives hoping to secure their freedom. They also monitored the actions of slavecatchers empowered under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 sending alerts throughout their network when sweeps or arrests were imminent. Some took part in violent action to rescue those in danger of being kidnapped away to enslavement. All of these various acts of resistance were against the law.

As the committee's treasurer, Francis Jackson kept careful records of the people benefiting from and supporting the illegal activities of the Committee. These excerpts from his account books are reproduced from the original manuscript in the collection of the Bostonian Society. (Selected pages are available online.) They portray an organization engaged in publicity campaigns, posting handbills warning escaped slaves of the presence of slave hunters, and repaying the expenses of persons who, like William Jackson, lodged and moved fugitives: