Aspects of Slavery and Freedom Seeking in North Carolina Main Menu Creative Commons License Preface and Acknowledgements ArcOnline Maps and ArcStory Maps Additional Project Components Introduction Earth Wood Fire Water Wind Escaping Network to Freedom Underground Railroad Locations Maps and Additional Resources Resources Brian Robinson 351175f8b63e375b96b75c26edde5534c94e8162 Torren Gatson 9cd3f098d43ed240801c35d1d0fd0737b5602944 Rhonda Jones 4c7a2610c10c17f5b487bcebc8abbbf64c221aa6 Arwin Smallwood 329b2d587e93ceaac77a3b3e316b5ce377128ac0 Self-Publish
Crossing the River on Horseback at night
1 2021-12-01T18:27:50+00:00 Brian Robinson 351175f8b63e375b96b75c26edde5534c94e8162 3 2 plain 2021-12-15T16:33:16+00:00 Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. "Crossing the river on horseback in the night." New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed December 15, 2021. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-79a3-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 Brian Robinson 351175f8b63e375b96b75c26edde5534c94e8162This page is referenced by:
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Absconding-Easy to Run but Hard to Leave
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"Freedom without beloved kinsman was a meaningless deliverance."
The effects of absconding were immediate. They at once challenged the slaveholders' control and the standards of the slave society, and they cost the slaveholders not only in terms of labor power and psychological unease but also resulted in the missing, worry, fear, and joy of the slave community and the enslaved people's family and loved ones. Moreover, "Slave runaways by their actions compounded the burden of bondage felt by other slaves while heightening a sense of the possibility of escape."
The power in escaping is realized in the form of laws, punishments, national reactions [fugitive slave law], and resources used or employed to prevent and capture freedom seekers.
Despite the laws, patrols, sheriffs, bounty hunters were created to support slaveholders' prevention of absconding. As a result, hundreds of thousands of attempts were made to flee slavery temporarily or permanently during the historical period of slavery.
In running, we gain a glimpse into how enslaved people negotiated reality by weighing the repercussions or negative consequences with what they valued most and/or what they desired to avoid.
The following is a short list of reasons for freedom-seeking:
Fear of being sold in the south or sold at a great distance away from family, home, and all that they were familiar with.
Hired out at a great distance or lacking opportunities to visit family.
Escape punishment or cruelty by slaveholding households. One historian noted, "The threat of punishment was cited most often as the reason blacks ran away."
In the most basic sense, the desire to be free is accessible in various ways. Freedom often meant, free to choose or select one's course in life or reap true rewards and punishments of one's decision or indecision.
Discontent in the form of "frustration born of self-worth and knowledge of the inherent limits of slavery."
Desire to see family or provide for their family.
General dislike of labor and a disdain for slavery.
Annoyance with the slaveholders.
One had lost their welcome in the slave community or escaped intra-community punishment.
