Freedom Seekers: Fugitive Slaves in North America, 1800-1860

Description

In this fascinating book, Damian Alan Pargas introduces a new conceptualization of 'spaces of freedom' for fugitive slaves in North America between 1800 and 1860, and answers the questions: How and why did enslaved people flee to - and navigate - different destinations throughout the continent, and to what extent did they succeed in evading recapture and re-enslavement? Taking a continental approach, this study highlights the diversity of slave fight by conceptually dividing the continent into three distinct - and continuously evolving - spaces of freedom. Namely, spaces of informal freedom in the US South, where enslaved people attempted to flee by passing as free blacks; spaces of semi-formal freedom in the US North, where slavery was abolished but the precise status of fugitive slaves was contested; and spaces of formal freedom in Canada and Mexico, where slavery was abolished and runaways were considered legally free and safe from re-enslavement.

Damian Alan Pargas is Professor of North American History and Culture at Leiden University and director of the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies in Middelburg, the Netherlands. He is the author of two books, The Quarters and the Fields (2010) and Forced Migration in the Antebellum South (Cambridge, 2014).

'Expertly drawing upon seminal works and recent advances in secondary scholarship, and using a rich array of primary sources, Pargas has crafted an engaging and timely contribution to the historical literature on fugitive slaves. Masterfully unveiling the antebellum landscapes confronting freedom seekers, he captures details and nuances that shaped decisions of courageous men and women navigating the contradiction of slavery in an American republic founded upon the principle of liberty. He adeptly places fugitive slaves at the very center of the American narrative and geopolitics of the North American continent.' Gordon S. Barker, author of Fugitive Slaves and the Unfinished American Revolution 'Damian Pargas has written a masterful, deeply researched study of enslaved flight in the Age of the Revolution. The first study to encompass fully North American dimensions of enslaved flight, his book is a must-read for all early American historians. While elevating scholarly discussion, the book is beautifully written and constructed, making it valuable for classroom use at any university level.' Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Colgate University and author of David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City 'Finally, we have a book that frees fugitive slave studies from the trappings of conventional national and regional frameworks. Damian Pargas' attention to various spaces of liberty as a continental phenomenon transforms our understanding of slavery and freedom in nineteenth century North America. The result is a paradigm-shifter.' Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie, author of Rebellious Passage: The Creole Revolt and America's Coastal Slave Trade