Slavery's Exiles

November 4, 2013
Diouf (Servants of Allah) tackles a subject that many may not be familiar with: the slaves who escaped from bondage to live free in the wilds of the American South known as maroons. Because direct accounts of these slaves’ lives are rare, where they exist at all, the author takes her information from court records, newspaper articles, and other outside sources. This cobbling together of accounts makes for an uneven narrative, with important pieces missing. Whether a slave lived or died, or was successful as a maroon, is often not revealed. In other instances, the narrative is interrupted by a glut of specifics. Where fact and narrative blend in balance, however, the stories are riveting. Readers will become familiar with colorful characters like Captain Cudjoe of Jamaica or the man nicknamed “Forest” for his skill at hiding, and they will learn surprising facts about maroons’ participation in trade and defense, along with horrific details of punishments. The plight, motivations, and survival methods of the maroons are also covered in their varying modes. This work is best suited for an academic audience, as Diouf tends to assume some familiarity with the history of the maroons, but it’s a notable document for its treatment of the subject.

December 15, 2013
A curator at the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture reconstructs the lives of blacks who sought freedom and self-determination on the margins of an American slave society. Whether newly arrived from Africa or already acculturated to the demands of servitude, whether they fled to the hinterlands to live in secluded swamps or in the mountains, or to the borderlands, close by farms, plantations or towns, the maroons ran away intending to stay away, seeking autonomy even at the price of unspeakable danger. Most were captured and suffered barbaric whippings or brandings, some died of exposure or hunger, some were killed by the militia, the slave patrols and dogs--a memorable passage here details the various repellents the slaves devised to throw bloodhounds off the track--set after them. But many survived for weeks, months and even years, offering hope to their enslaved companions and a powerful rebuke to the white power structure. From the colonial era to the 1860s, Diouf (Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America, 2007, etc.) explains how the maroons lived, the skills and protective strategies they developed, how they sheltered themselves and traded in the underground economy, how they hunted, gathered and even raised crops, how they stole necessary clothing, tools and livestock, and how they depended on the complicity of their enslaved companions for survival. She tells the story of a few large communities, most notably that of the Great Dismal Swamp, and briefly examines the marronage subgroups of bandits and insurrectionists, but the triumph here is the author's portrait of the day-to-day precariousness of maroon lives, the courage and resourcefulness required for survival, and the terrible price they paid for trying to recover their freedom. A neglected chapter of the American slave experience brought sensitively and vividly to life.

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March 1, 2014

When reading about the men, women, and children who escaped slavery, general readers may first think of the Underground Railroad, which helped slaves to make their way north. But there were also maroons, slaves who instead escaped captivity by fleeing into the Southern wilderness, whether mountains or swamps. They formed their own communities or, more commonly, lived almost entirely in isolation "from the borderlands to the hinterland," operating with occasional risky crossings between the worlds of untamed wilderness and of what they left behind. Historian Diouf (Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas) delves into the lives of the maroons and explores marronage (the different states of flight and survival) itself, from Louisiana to Virginia, through deep research in primary and secondary sources. Because maroons stayed in the South, they also stayed out of most documentation covering the escapes and rights of slaves who headed north. The author also notes the distinguishing features of these slaves' existence compared to that of the earlier maroons of South America and the Caribbean. VERDICT In writing that is deeply informative, with vivid anecdotes when available, including the horrors of punishment enacted when maroons were captured, this book is recommended to those wishing to pursue the study of American slavery beyond more general texts.--Sonnet Ireland, Univ. of New Orleans Lib.

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