The Fugitive's Gibraltar: Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts
2002; Oxford University Press; Volume: 89; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3092375
ISSN1945-2314
AutoresJohn R. McKivigan, Kathryn Grover,
Tópico(s)Colonialism, slavery, and trade
ResumoWhy did the small New England city of New Bedford, Massachusetts, become the leading refuge for runaway slaves in the immediate pre-Civil War decades? Kathryn Grover contends that New Bedford attracted fugitive slaves because it had a history of racial diversity, welcomed black workers into its primarily maritime economy, and retained strong vestiges of its Quaker founders' antislavery traditions. Grover writes that Native Americans, Cape Verdeans, and Polynesians, as well as African Americans, were well represented in New Bedford from the start of the nineteenth century. This diverse population of color offered welcomed anonymity to escaping slaves. Grover estimates that by the 1840s as many as 40 percent of New Bedford's blacks were runaway slaves. She concludes that southern suspicions were correct that trading ships from New Bedford often spirited runaways from their ports to freedom. Through painstaking research in public records, contemporary newspapers, and correspondence archives, Grover constructs fascinating biographical sketches of over one hundred refugees from slavery.
Referência(s)