Book contents
- Running from Bondage
- Running from Bondage
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 “A Negro Wench Named Lucia”
- Chapter 2 “A Mulatto Woman Named Margaret”
- Chapter 3 “A Well Dressed Woman Named Jenny”
- Chapter 4 “A Negro Woman Called Bett”
- Chapter 5 Confronting the Power Structures
- Conclusion
- Appendix Fugitive Women Émigrés to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 5 - Confronting the Power Structures
Marronage and Black Women’s Fugitivity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2021
- Running from Bondage
- Running from Bondage
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 “A Negro Wench Named Lucia”
- Chapter 2 “A Mulatto Woman Named Margaret”
- Chapter 3 “A Well Dressed Woman Named Jenny”
- Chapter 4 “A Negro Woman Called Bett”
- Chapter 5 Confronting the Power Structures
- Conclusion
- Appendix Fugitive Women Émigrés to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 5 examines the gendered dimensions of maroon communities in America and the wider Atlantic world. Fugitive women joined maroon societies with their husbands and other family members. Runaways were a constant source of anxiety and fear. In the Caribbean and places such as Georgia, Florida, and the Gulf Coast and along the perimeter of the Virginia and North Carolina border in an area known as the Great Dismal Swamp, they were successful in establishing maroon societies. Such societies maintained their cohesiveness for many years. Given that the woods and swamps were spaces where the enslaved could exercise more autonomy than the fields and other open spaces on the plantation, fugitive women had more freedom in these spaces. The Revolutionary War not only prompted an increase in the number of runaways, but also provided the impetus for marronage.
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- Information
- Running from BondageEnslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America, pp. 137 - 159Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021