Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil War ◽  
North America ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Fugitive Slaves ◽  
Runaway Slaves ◽  
Fugitive Slave ◽  
Black Populations ◽  
The U.S

Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America examines and contrasts the experiences of various groups of African-American slaves who tried to escape bondage between the revolutionary era and the U.S. Civil War. Whereas much of the existing scholarship tends to focus on fugitive slaves in very localized settings (especially in communities and regions north of the Mason-Dixon line), the eleven contributions in this volume bring together the latest scholarship on runaway slaves in a diverse range of geographic settings throughout North America—from Canada to Virginia and from Mexico to the British Bahamas—providing a broader and more continental perspective on slave refugee migration. The volume innovatively distinguishes between various “spaces of freedom” to which runaway slaves fled, specifically sites of formal freedom (free-soil regions where slavery had been abolished and refugees were legally free, even if the meanings of freedom in these places were heavily contested); semi-formal freedom (free-soil regions where slavery had been abolished but asylum for runaway slaves was either denied or contested, such as the northern U.S., where state abolition laws were curtailed by federal fugitive slave laws); and informal freedom (places within the slaveholding South where runaways formed maroon communities or attempted to blend in with free black populations and pass for free). This edited volume encourages scholars to reroute and reconceptualize the geography of slavery and freedom in antebellum North America.

“Design His Course to Mexico”

2018 ◽  
pp. 232-250
Author(s):  
Mekala Audain
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Underground Railroad ◽  
Westward Expansion ◽  
Contested Spaces ◽  
Fugitive Slaves ◽  
Abolitionist Movement ◽  
Runaway Slaves ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fugitive Slave ◽  
The U.S

In the mid-1850s, Texas slaveholders estimated that some 4,000 fugitive slaves had escaped south to Mexico. This chapter broadly examines the process in which runaway slaves from Texas escaped to Mexico. Specifically, it explores how they learned about freedom south of the border, the types of supplies they gathered for their escape attempts, and the ways in which Texas’s vast landscape shaped their experiences. It argues that the routes that led fugitive slaves to freedom in Mexico were a part of a precarious southern Underground Railroad, but one that operated in the absence of formal networks or a well-organized abolitionist movement. The chapter centers on fugitive slaves’ efforts toward self-emancipation and navigate contested spaces of slavery and freedom with little assistance and under difficult conditions. It sheds new light on the history of runaway slaves by examining the ways in which American westward expansion and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands shaped the fugitive slave experience in the nineteenth century.

The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Free Blacks ◽  
Underground Railroad ◽  
White Southerners ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Fugitive Slaves ◽  
The North ◽  
Runaway Slaves ◽  
Fugitive Slave ◽  
The Law ◽  
Upper South

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, although in effect less than two decades, was one of the nation’s most controversial federal laws. Designed to provide southern slaveholders with greater assistance in the return of runaway slaves, it angered northern whites and blacks, divided communities, and yet still failed to assuage slaveholders’ concerns. Designed to calm sectional tensions as part of the Compromise of 1850, the law propelled the nation closer to war. Both the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 affirmed the rights of slaveholders to claim enslaved people who escaped into free states or territories. But enslaved people continued to seek freedom, and over time the number of those willing to aid them grew, eventually developing into the loosely organized network known as the Underground Railroad. Slaveholders, especially in the Upper South, annually lost an untold number of slaves to escape. Not all freedom-seekers were successful, but the costs were great nonetheless. To slaveholders, every escaped slave who made it North represented a loss of hundreds of dollars, and perhaps more importantly, spurred others to follow in his or her footsteps. Often associated with states’ rights ideology, white southerners demanded and eventually got what some scholars have called the greatest exercise of federal power before the Civil War. The enhanced federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 expanded on the earlier law in several important ways. It created a new position of commissioner who was appointed, not elected, and was paid ten dollars each time he sent an accused fugitive into slavery, only five dollars if he found the claim to be insufficient and ordered the accused released. The act also strengthened the penalties for helping fugitives escape or interfering with rendition; it explicitly stripped all rights from the accused; and stated that bystanders could be called upon to assist in slave recapture. Response to the law varied. Enslaved people continued to escape bondage. Fugitives living in the North and even free blacks felt threatened and organized for self-defense; thousands left for Canada. Abolitionists, black and white, protested in writing and speeches; some engaged in bold rescues of individuals claimed as fugitives. Many white northerners abided by the law, although for others the idea of being turned into de facto slave catchers pushed them toward opposition. Rather than settle the issue of fugitive slaves, the Law served to divide the nation further.

Freedom Interrupted

2018 ◽  
pp. 251-274
Author(s):  
James David Nichols
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Fugitive Slaves ◽  
Runaway Slaves ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

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.

Seeking Freedom in the Midst of Slavery

2018 ◽  
pp. 116-136
Author(s):  
Damian Alan Pargas
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Political Geography ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Free Blacks ◽  
The Political ◽  
Antebellum South ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Fugitive Slaves ◽  
Runaway Slaves ◽  
The U.S

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.

Freedom and Citizenship

2020 ◽  
pp. 168-196
Author(s):  
Aston Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Black People ◽  
American Art ◽  
African American Art ◽  
American Military ◽  
Fugitive Slaves ◽  
Visual Landscape

The sixth chapter analyzes the technological revolutions that influenced representations of black people during the Civil War. Illustrated periodicals visually cataloged the war and depicted the trauma and uncertainties experienced by African Americans. At the same time, black photographers advanced their own views and ideas about the possibilities of emancipation, citizenship, and African American military service. Their images ran counter to racial stereotypes that dominated the visual landscape at the start of the Civil War. The production of these views coincided with numerous black leaders planning a national exhibition of African American art and industry. They proposed an unprecedented display of black artistic and mechanical production to convince people of all races of black intellect and to improve race relations. The exigencies and opportunities seized by fugitive slaves and enlisting black men created by the Civil War appeared in the visual production of African American activists.

Fugitive Slaves in Britain: The Odyssey of William and Ellen Craft

1978 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. M. Blackett
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Frederick Douglass ◽  
Fugitive Slaves ◽  
Fugitive Slave

Early on a December morning in 1848, long before anyone else stirred, two slaves, a man and woman, made their bid for freedom from a plantation, just outside Macon, Georgia. She, almost white, was dressed as a slave master, he as her valet. In four days they were in Philadelphia; three weeks later they moved to the safer city of Boston where they remained until the passing of the infamous Fugitive Slave Bill in September 1850 forced them to flee to England. Nineteen years were spent under the “ mane of the British lion ” free from the “ claws of the American eagle.” Finally, after the Civil War they returned as farmers to their native Georgia. Their bold odyssey in 1848 brought them fame and renown. It was a story of love, determination and resilience, the virtues of frontier America, conquering all odds. No other escape, with the possible exception of Frederick Douglass' and Josiah Henson's, created such a stir in ante-bellum America as did the Crafts'.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lurie
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
War Photography ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
The Media ◽  
The U.S

This book concludes by relating its discussion of visualizing history to the media and the public response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It shows their overly mediated depiction to have a precedent in Civil War photography, and it avers the shared impulse to visualize attending each of these epochal historical events. The Conclusion reads Toni Morrison’s Beloved as offering a salutary “forgetful remembrance” of history in the novel’s model of “rememory” and as an alternative to historicist criticism, as well as to U.S. culture’s visual archiving of a supposedly accessible and remediable past. The discussion also links Morrison’s work to post-9/11 poetry and to contemporary and recent African-American cinema, which, like Beloved, shows the occasion and the need for a willful look forward for both racialized subjects and for the U.S. polity generally in a postdigital age.

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