Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers

Abstract

This fine monograph joins many other recent works in putting the Gulf South at the center of slavery's rise and fall. It differs, however, by taking an unusually long view of what might be called the world fugitive slaves made. Matthew J. Clavin is interested in slave resistance and in the persisting “liminality” of the South at its borders (p. 5). Pensacola, because it passed back (and forth) between empires, was a port town, had strategic significance, and was accessible both to and from native communities, became known as a refuge for fugitives and a place that slaves could flee from. The first two chapters, less original than the others but thoroughly researched, on the colonial period and the War of 1812, culminate in the bold resistance of the maroons at Negro Fort. Clavin keeps the focus on the conditions in and around Pensacola and makes creative use of court records and, for the later period, newspapers. While the U.S. acquisition of West Florida meant that a different racial and slave regime was imposed on Pensacola, what strikes Clavin is continuity. Typical attributes of urban slavery, including racial mixing and self-hiring, intensified in Pensacola, as did brutality against slaves, which provided more incentives for Pensacola's bondspeople, many of whom worked for U.S. government projects, to risk flight.