Flight to Freedom

From site:  Slavery, according to historian and sociologist Orlando Patterson, was social death. This was especially so of the slavery practiced in the United States from its very founding as a colonial empire in 1609, to 1865, when ended the bloody struggle which abolished the institution and united the nation. During the three and one-half centuries of slavery's existence, millions of African-descended people were torn from their homes, separated from family and community, and brutally put to the lash for profit.

These Africans resisted. In nearly every conceivable way, they registered their protest against their enslavement. One of the most important ways they resisted was to remove their labor from the reach of their masters. By running away — by "stealing themselves" — they not only deprived their taskmasters of their labor, they escaped the dehumanizing work regime of servitude, and sometimes found new lives in freedom. This website has been designed to capture a sense of that experience.