Before the fugitive slave act, they were caught and either killed or tortured in a public display to scare the other ones. Either a fine and the loss of property or a short jail sentence was given to the white people or the free black people that helped the slaves escape in the north. In 1850 the penalties became a lot steeper with a lot more jail time. In the South anyone who assisted a slave could get death for it. If a slave was caught trying to escape to the north, the punishment was very severe. The runaways would be sold "south", this means that they were sold to someone who lives further than maryland because it would be harder to run away because the distance that they would have to go to get north would be a lot greater than before. Sometimes, the runaways would be beaten and have to do super hard work. They were either sold to a different owner that lived close or just taken back to the owner to keep doing work. A lot of the slaves who failed to escape the first time tried again and succeeded in doing so. If you got caught helping slaves escape to freedom, you would get either killed, fined or put into jail.