60199616-flight-to-freedom-african-runaways-and-maroons-in-the-americas

272 Flight to Freedom
serve as auxiliaries against the Maroons revealed their alienation and subordination,
and the lack of group consciousness among them in confronting
their servile condition. It is certain that, especially in the early slavery period
in the Americas, the Whites were far more united in their efforts to deal with
the social realities emanating from slavery and marronage than were the
Blacks, though that unity would be increasingly fractured as more liberal and
revolutionary ideas began to permeate European minds from the late eighteenth
century.
Relations between Slaveholding States
As noted before, flight to other colonial jurisdictions was an important facet
of the runaways’ quest for freedom. In the early years of colonization, fugitives
from Barbados and other southern plantation colonies fled to the largely
uncolonized islands of St Vincent, Grenada, Dominica, St Lucia and Tobago.
There they joined the indigenous peoples, sometimes being enslaved by them
and at other times interbreeding with them, notably in St Vincent where they
became known as Black Caribs. But as the French and British increasingly
colonized these islands, especially from the mid-eighteenth century, they
became a less popular destination. For a long time Puerto Rico offered sanctuary
for Maroons from the British and Danish Caribbean; the Dominican
Republic for those from Haiti and later those from Puerto Rico; Trinidad for
those from Barbados and occasionally the Dutch Guiana colonies; Yucatán,
Guatemala and Honduras for those from Belize; 7 Haiti, after achieving independence,
for those from Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Cuba and elsewhere;
Paraguay and French Guiana (the latter after emancipation) for those from
Brazil; Cuba for those from Jamaica; Argentina and Brazil for those
from Paraguay; Venezuela (sometimes called Orinoco at the time) for
those from Grenada and the Dutch Guiana colonies; Florida for those from
South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama; and, later, Mexico for those from
Texas after that territory fell under US sovereignty. After the northern
United States abolished slavery, many enslaved persons sought freedom in
New York and other northern states, sometimes continuing into Canada.
Throughout the Americas, states in which slavery was abolished from the
early nineteenth century became increasingly attractive for runaways from
states in which the institution remained intact. Slaveholding states that