Runaway Slaves

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhaustive study of American runaways that uses a wide variety of often ignored archival material.

This great book details the reasons, the places, the profiles, the strategies, and the objectives of some of the tens of thousands of people who, each year, left the plantations behind. They included Free Blacks who had been kidnapped and managed to get away.

There is quasi nothing on Maroons but, to my delight, Franklin and Schweninger show that contrary to popular belief, most runaways did not attempt to go North but remained in the South, close to their families, or… show more.

Because White citizens outmanned and outgunned Black people in the antebellum South, enslaved people revolted far less frequently than their counterparts in other times and places; nevertheless, as Franklin and Schweninger demonstrate, these people continually resisted their captivity by taking flight. Whether securing a short respite from a vicious overseer, temporarily reuniting with loved ones, or seeking permanent freedom in a distant place or region, fugitive slaves subverted the slave society that comprised the antebellum South and thus helped put the republic on the path toward civil war.