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

34 Flight to Freedom
passes at all times in all the southern states. In Florida, Georgia and some
other states they were also forced by law to have White persons as guardians.
(Mexico published a similar decree in 1750 [Palmer 1976, 183].) North
Carolina banned free Blacks from moving beyond the county adjacent to that
in which they normally resided, and most southern states prohibited their
free immigration. Failure to observe these laws could lead to a heavy fine and
sometimes to reduction to slavery (Franklin 1980, 160). The list of prohibitions
and restrictions is very long. Franklin (ibid.) declares that a large majority
of free Blacks lived in daily dread of losing the little freedom they enjoyed.
Jordan (1968, 123) adds that White attitudes were based on the assumption
that “free Negroes were essentially more Negro than free”. The truth of this
last observation is borne out by the 1857 legislation in Tennessee that a free(d)
Black possessed the right to re-enslave himself. Texas, Louisiana and
Maryland passed similar laws in 1858, 1859 and 1860 respectively. The ultimate
in absurdity was a law passed in Arkansas in 1859 requiring all free Blacks and
free Coloureds who chose to remain in the state for more than a year to select
guardians who had to post bond guaranteeing not to allow them to act as free
persons (Franklin 1980, 163).
On 17 June 1786 the Saint-Croix Royal Gazette published a proclamation
in the name of the governor general of the Danish West Indies prohibiting
enslaved persons, free Blacks and free Coloureds from wearing certain types
of jewellery and clothing. The proclamation read, in part:
It is expressly forbidden to all and every one of the individuals who compose the
people of colour, free or slaves, to wear jewellery of diamonds, gold or silver,
except in a manner that is hereafter specified. It is likewise forbidden to wear
silk and other clothing enriched with gold or silver, any dyed India cloth, cambric,
muslins, gauze, linen and any kind of fine clothing and bombazine.
(Fouchard 1972, 79)
The proclamation went on to specify restrictions on these same persons in
relation to holding fêtes. Similar ordinances relating to dress were proclaimed
in the French Caribbean in 1740 and 1779 (Fouchard 1972, 77–78).
In the Chocó mining region of Colombia, Blacks were often classified as
unstable persons with an ingrained tendency towards drunkenness and thievery.
Spanish officials reported them as completely untrustworthy and a threat
to White society (Sharp 1976, 149). The pejorative term libre vagabundo (free
vagabond) was used frequently to designate them (Sharp 1976, 150). In 1791