The New World

Enslavement and Resistance

Slavery

Sugar Cane Workers

22 x 24 x 11" ~ Portfo # 137

Today when most people think of slavery in the New World they think of cotton and tobacco plantations. But sugar plantations were the biggest users of slave labor. According to Robert W. Fogel*, between 60 to 70 percent of Africans who survived the Atlantic voyages ended up in a New World sugar colony. In the 1700s sugar was the single most important internationally traded commodity on the world market. At one point sugar accounted for one fifth of all English imports and was also an important crop for French and Dutch held countries in the New World.

*Without Consent Or Contract, Robert W. Fogel, WW Norton & Co. NY,1989

Auction

Maroon Soldier
H. 12" W. 12" D. 11" Portfo # 113

Maroon was a name given to so called "wild and unruly" runaway slaves who escaped into remote areas of Brazil, Surinam and Jamaica where they established free communities.

A Runaway Finds Refuge
Wire & Alum. 37 x 30 x 24 inches, 1995, Portfolio #118

In spite of efforts of European colonials to promote hatred between Indians and Africans, thousands of African slaves had found safe harbor within the Indian communities by the time of the Revolutionary War.

The Seminole and Apalachee Indians of Spanish Florida were known to welcome runaways.

The Tuscarora also gave refuge. When war broke out between the Tuscarora and the colonials in 1711 many Africans fought with the Tuscaroras. One named Harry was said to have designed a Tuscarora fortress on a tributary of the Neuse River.

In 1725 a South Carolina slave holder complained the African slaves were becoming too well acquainted with the hill country of the Cherokee and were becoming not only fluent in English but also in the Cherokee language.

The Creeks also harbored some runaway slaves. In 1725, a Spanish delegation arrived in the principle town of the lower Creeks with an escaped Carolina slave who acted as interpreter between the Creeks and Spanish. Still another runaway slave was an interpreter between the French and the Creeks during this period.

Not all relations between the two groups were peaceful however. The Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw and Creek nations became slave owners themselves. Although they would sometimes adopt African runaways freely into their tribes, they also kept many runaways as their own slaves. Other times they would return them to the colonialists; while others returned only enough of them to satisfy white demands and still other Indians hunted the Africans down for the bounty.

Source: Red, White, And Black, Gary B. Nash, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1982

Runaway with Iron Collar

THE SLAVE IN THE DISMAL SWAMP
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1842

In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp
The hunted Negro lay;
He saw the fire of the midnight camp,
And heard at times a horse's tramp,
And a bloodhound's distant bay.
Where will-o'-the-wisps and glowworms shine,
In bulrush and in brake;
Where waving mosses shroud the pine,
And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine
Is spotted like the snake; --
Where hardly a human foot could pass,
Or a human heart would dare,
On the quaking turf of the green morass
He crouched in the rank and tangled grass,
Like a wild beast in his lair.
A poor old slave, infirm and lame;
Great scars deformed his face;
On his forhead he bore the brand of shame,
And the rags, that hid his mangled frame,
Were the livery of disgrace.
All things above were bright and fair;
All things were glad and free;
Lithe squirrels dared here and there,
And wild birds filled the echoing air
With songs of Liberty!
On him alone was the doom of pain,
From the morning of his birth;
On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth!