Pub Date : 2018-09-18DOI: 10.5744/FLORIDA/9780813056036.003.0012
J. Kerr-Ritchie
In November 1841, the U.S. slaver Creole transporting 135 slaves from Richmond to New Orleans was seized by nineteen slave rebels who steered the ship to the British Bahamas, where all secured their liberation. Drawing from this well-known story as a point of departure, this chapter examines the understudied maritime dimensions of British free soil policies in the nineteenth century, with a particular emphasis on how such policies affected the U.S. domestic slave trade and slave revolts at sea. In contrast to the more familiar narrative of south-to-north fugitive slave migration, this chapter sheds light on international south-to-south migration routes from the U.S. South to the circum-Caribbean.
{"title":"The U.S. Coastal Passageand Caribbean Spaces of Freedom","authors":"J. Kerr-Ritchie","doi":"10.5744/FLORIDA/9780813056036.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5744/FLORIDA/9780813056036.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"In November 1841, the U.S. slaver Creole transporting 135 slaves from Richmond to New Orleans was seized by nineteen slave rebels who steered the ship to the British Bahamas, where all secured their liberation. Drawing from this well-known story as a point of departure, this chapter examines the understudied maritime dimensions of British free soil policies in the nineteenth century, with a particular emphasis on how such policies affected the U.S. domestic slave trade and slave revolts at sea. In contrast to the more familiar narrative of south-to-north fugitive slave migration, this chapter sheds light on international south-to-south migration routes from the U.S. South to the circum-Caribbean.","PeriodicalId":398877,"journal":{"name":"Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128707968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Freedom Interrupted:","authors":"J. D. Nichols","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvx06x80.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvx06x80.16","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":398877,"journal":{"name":"Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123105892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"List of Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvx06x80.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvx06x80.18","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":398877,"journal":{"name":"Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128228766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Revisiting “British Principle Talk”:","authors":"Gordon S. Barker","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvx06x80.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvx06x80.8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":398877,"journal":{"name":"Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126773091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-08-10DOI: 10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0003
Gordon S. Barker
This chapter explores the meaning of fugitive slave freedom in Canada West during the antebellum and Civil War era by examining the legal framework relating to slavery and race that emerged in what is now modern-day Ontario. Changes in statutory law, jurisprudence, and British free soil diplomacy will be addressed, revealing the evolution of Canada West as a safe haven from which few fugitive slaves were taken by slave catchers or state-sanctioned extradition. The chapter discusses what freedom on the ground meant for early black Canadians in terms of political rights, access to courts, education, landownership, employment, religious worship, participation in the militia, and the enjoyment of public places and services. Particular attention is given to the agency exercised by fugitive slave refugees and other black Canadians in shaping their own freedom and building new lives for themselves and their children, in sustaining Canada West as a beacon of freedom for others still enslaved in the American South, and in combatting race prejudice, which at times differed little from that prevailing south of the border.
{"title":"Revisiting “British Principle Talk”","authors":"Gordon S. Barker","doi":"10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explores the meaning of fugitive slave freedom in Canada West during the antebellum and Civil War era by examining the legal framework relating to slavery and race that emerged in what is now modern-day Ontario. Changes in statutory law, jurisprudence, and British free soil diplomacy will be addressed, revealing the evolution of Canada West as a safe haven from which few fugitive slaves were taken by slave catchers or state-sanctioned extradition. The chapter discusses what freedom on the ground meant for early black Canadians in terms of political rights, access to courts, education, landownership, employment, religious worship, participation in the militia, and the enjoyment of public places and services. Particular attention is given to the agency exercised by fugitive slave refugees and other black Canadians in shaping their own freedom and building new lives for themselves and their children, in sustaining Canada West as a beacon of freedom for others still enslaved in the American South, and in combatting race prejudice, which at times differed little from that prevailing south of the border.","PeriodicalId":398877,"journal":{"name":"Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126476321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Back Matter","authors":"","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvx06x80.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvx06x80.20","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":398877,"journal":{"name":"Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126539148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Black Self-Emancipation, Gradual Emancipation, and the Underground Railroad in the Northern Colonies and States, 1763—1804","authors":"G. Hodges","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvx06x80.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvx06x80.7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":398877,"journal":{"name":"Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America","volume":"361 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115925843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-08-10DOI: 10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0006
Damian Alan Pargas
Slave flight in the antebellum South did not always coincide with the political geography of freedom. Indeed, spaces and places within the U.S. South attracted the largest number of fugitive slaves. From the forests that bordered plantation districts (where slaves remained hidden and maintained by local slave communities) to southern cities (where slaves attempted to pass for free blacks), a majority of fugitive slaves strove for freedom by disguising themselves within the slaveholding states rather than risk long-distance flight attempts to formally free territories such as the northern U.S., Canada, and Mexico. This chapter examines the experiences of fugitive slaves who fled to southern cities between 1800 and 1860. It touches upon themes such as the motivations for fleeing to urban areas (e.g., slave families dodging forced migration), the networks that facilitated such flight attempts, and the ways in which runaway slaves navigated sites of “informal freedom” after arrival in urban areas. Whereas some scholars have approached this group of runaways mainly as “absentees” or “truants” (temporary runaways), this chapter argues that throughout the South, many fugitive slaves who hid out in towns and cities were in fact permanent refugees from slavery—at least by intent, and often by outcome.
{"title":"Seeking Freedom in the Midst of Slavery","authors":"Damian Alan Pargas","doi":"10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Slave flight in the antebellum South did not always coincide with the political geography of freedom. Indeed, spaces and places within the U.S. South attracted the largest number of fugitive slaves. From the forests that bordered plantation districts (where slaves remained hidden and maintained by local slave communities) to southern cities (where slaves attempted to pass for free blacks), a majority of fugitive slaves strove for freedom by disguising themselves within the slaveholding states rather than risk long-distance flight attempts to formally free territories such as the northern U.S., Canada, and Mexico. This chapter examines the experiences of fugitive slaves who fled to southern cities between 1800 and 1860. It touches upon themes such as the motivations for fleeing to urban areas (e.g., slave families dodging forced migration), the networks that facilitated such flight attempts, and the ways in which runaway slaves navigated sites of “informal freedom” after arrival in urban areas. Whereas some scholars have approached this group of runaways mainly as “absentees” or “truants” (temporary runaways), this chapter argues that throughout the South, many fugitive slaves who hid out in towns and cities were in fact permanent refugees from slavery—at least by intent, and often by outcome.","PeriodicalId":398877,"journal":{"name":"Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133177828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-08-10DOI: 10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0007
V. Müller
As antebellum Virginia became the main point of departure for the domestic slave trade and enslaved people increasingly ran the risk of being sold and deported to the Deep South, the free black population of Richmond, Virginia, was substantially augmented by an influx of fugitive slaves from the surrounding countryside who attempted to escape slavery by illegally passing themselves off as free. At the same time, the city became an important industrial site, stimulating an incessant demand for factory workers (both men and women) and domestic servants in the households of the growing white merchant class, thereby significantly expanding employment opportunities for black residents. These developments provided opportunities for slave refugees to hide amongst the free black population, pass for free, and find work in the booming labor markets of the city. Following up on the previous chapter, this chapter zooms in on a specific case study and focuses on the residential and economic integration of slave refugees in the Antebellum South, the interdependence of free blacks and fugitive slaves, and the intermingling of the lower classes within the bustling urban environment of Virginia’s capital city. Drawing from police registers, runaway slave ads, and court documents—all of which reveal illuminating details about the lives of runaway slaves and their interactions with the free black population—it reveals how fugitive slaves navigated an informal freedom in ways similar to the migration experiences of today’s illegal immigrants.
{"title":"Illegal but Tolerated","authors":"V. Müller","doi":"10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813056036.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"As antebellum Virginia became the main point of departure for the domestic slave trade and enslaved people increasingly ran the risk of being sold and deported to the Deep South, the free black population of Richmond, Virginia, was substantially augmented by an influx of fugitive slaves from the surrounding countryside who attempted to escape slavery by illegally passing themselves off as free. At the same time, the city became an important industrial site, stimulating an incessant demand for factory workers (both men and women) and domestic servants in the households of the growing white merchant class, thereby significantly expanding employment opportunities for black residents. These developments provided opportunities for slave refugees to hide amongst the free black population, pass for free, and find work in the booming labor markets of the city. Following up on the previous chapter, this chapter zooms in on a specific case study and focuses on the residential and economic integration of slave refugees in the Antebellum South, the interdependence of free blacks and fugitive slaves, and the intermingling of the lower classes within the bustling urban environment of Virginia’s capital city. Drawing from police registers, runaway slave ads, and court documents—all of which reveal illuminating details about the lives of runaway slaves and their interactions with the free black population—it reveals how fugitive slaves navigated an informal freedom in ways similar to the migration experiences of today’s illegal immigrants.","PeriodicalId":398877,"journal":{"name":"Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America","volume":"109 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126697860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-08-10DOI: 10.5744/FLORIDA/9780813056036.003.0011
J. D. Nichols
Scholars have long suggested that nineteenth-century runaway slaves turned the U.S.-Mexico border into a line of freedom. However, as this chapter argues, such an interpretation of the border is somewhat problematic. A closer examination of the history of northern Tamaulipas explains why. From 1820 onward, African Americans began to arrive to that region in search of freedom and a changed racial milieu, but this process was deeply fraught. U.S. American jurisprudence could continue to affect Mexican space formally and informally from the outside, greatly troubling Mexican sovereignty and its foreign relations in the process. Hence, the freedom found by African Americans in Mexico—guaranteed by Mexican law—was never particularly secure in practice. This chapter builds upon the previous chapter and provides an in-depth analysis of a specific case study of fugitive slaves’ struggles for freedom in the Texas-Mexico borderlands.
{"title":"Freedom Interrupted","authors":"J. D. Nichols","doi":"10.5744/FLORIDA/9780813056036.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5744/FLORIDA/9780813056036.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars have long suggested that nineteenth-century runaway slaves turned the U.S.-Mexico border into a line of freedom. However, as this chapter argues, such an interpretation of the border is somewhat problematic. A closer examination of the history of northern Tamaulipas explains why. From 1820 onward, African Americans began to arrive to that region in search of freedom and a changed racial milieu, but this process was deeply fraught. U.S. American jurisprudence could continue to affect Mexican space formally and informally from the outside, greatly troubling Mexican sovereignty and its foreign relations in the process. Hence, the freedom found by African Americans in Mexico—guaranteed by Mexican law—was never particularly secure in practice. This chapter builds upon the previous chapter and provides an in-depth analysis of a specific case study of fugitive slaves’ struggles for freedom in the Texas-Mexico borderlands.","PeriodicalId":398877,"journal":{"name":"Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134083096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}