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The Fugitives

© Meg Greene Malvasi

They would be beaten or whipped. Others might have their Achilles tendon severed or face amputation of a foot or leg. Some might be hung from a meat hook through the ribs, or perhaps just shot to death. These horrible forms of punishment, however, did little to stop African-American slaves from seeking freedom from a life of bondage.

From the seventeenth century, when the first African slaves arrived in North America, until the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century, thousands of slaves, men, women, and children, "stole themselves" by running away from their masters. Many sought refuge in the forests, mountains, and even swamps, anywhere the slave catchers and their dogs could not detect them. In time, these slaves, known as "maroons," formed communities of their own, many of which still exist today.

Between 1672 and 1864 runaway slaves established approximately fifty maroon communities in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. One of the most famous was located in what was known as the Great Dismal Swamp, a remote area along the border of Virginia and North Carolina, where some 2,000 slaves and their descendants lived. Maroon communities existed not only in North America. Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico were just a few of the other countries in which fugitive slaves established maroon communities.

To remain free, maroons needed to make their communities hard to find and easy to defend. Everywhere maroons took great pains to make sure that they escaped the detection of those who sought them. They established their settlements in remote areas that few visited. The maroons, however, could afford to leave nothing to chance. To protect themselves in the event of an attack, they constructed elaborate fortifications made of earth and logs. They also set up booby traps, such as sharp, pointed sticks or pits lines with wooden spikes, which they placed strategically along paths to discourage those who might be too curious about their whereabouts. Because many maroon communities were small, the inhabitants relied on guerilla tactics to defeat and drive away invaders.

Safeguarding themselves against external enemies was only one of the problems that maroons faced. Every maroon community was also troubled by internal political division .One unhappy resident could endanger the entire community. Traitors were thus routinely put to death, while new members were often required to stay within the boundaries of the maroon community for a certain period of time, which, as in the case of Cuba, was as long as two years.

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