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Runnin' and Runnin' in Louisiana The Underground Railroad by Kerri Sullivan Leger

Please click the buttons on the page to access important facts and terminology about the Freedom Seekers in Louisiana that rejected a lifetime of bondage in slavery

Looking at the terrain may seem simple. However, hiding from dogs and slaves catchers proved much more difficult to do.

Louisiana State Park Officer, Bruce Barnes, explains how runaway slaves like Jean St. Malo utilized the swampy environment in Louisiana to keep from being captured and returned to slavery. Click on the videos below.

Harriet Tubman, Black Moses, described herself as the conductor who never lost a passenger. It is documented she rescued over 300 slaves via, the Underground Railroad. Though she never came to Louisiana, Harriet Tubman remains a rockstar in the history of the Underground Railroad.

Found in the Marigny papers was this record of slaves and free people on the plantation. The document does not list names, but rather it list the legal status, slave or free. It also reveals the gender and age range, and whether or not they were born on the plantation. This typical record keeping style is why African Americans have a difficult time finding and following their heritage.

Newspaper ads were another tool owners used to search for runaway slaves which was lawfully their property. As you scroll down, watch the ads to see how the owners almost always advocated for putting their property in jail until they could be retrieved.

The very existence of slavery is often ignored in America because it is an unpleasant memory that compels us to confront the past.

Maroons formed communities and working relationships with other free black people. They also negotiated work with other plantation owners who knew they had ran away and formed communities in the swamp.

Free People of Color flourished in Louisiana during the Spanish colonization. You can read more about that below.

Louisiana Old State Capital

Spoken words from a former slave in Louisiana

"Slaves would run away but most of the time they were caught. The Master would put blood hounds on their trail, and sometimes the slave would kill the blood hound and make his escape. If a slave once tried to run away and was caught, he would be whipped almost to death, and from then on if he was sent any place they would chain their meanest blood hound to him, OCTAVIA GEORGE, enslaved in Louisiana.

A slave named Anthony Chase reveal how heartless belonging to another human being had to be. He pens an open letter explaining his decision to run. Anthony Chase wanted to be free.

"I dont take this step mearly because I wish to be free but because I want to do justice to myself and to others and also to procure a liveing for a family a thing that my mistress would not let me do though I humblely Requested her to let me do so"

Slave auctions was a common way for slave traders, those who forcefully delivered slaves from the continent of Africa, and planters (plantation owners), who needed free labor, to meet to buy and sell other human beings.

St. Louis Hotel Rotunda, New Orleans (Slave Auction)

Nannie Helen Burroughs took this photo in 1879. She was known as the "Changemaker". An educator, orator, civil rights activist, business woman, and feminist.

The map includes some routes the Maroons had to learn well in order to keep their communities safely hidden in the swamps
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Hope wells up

Jean Saint Malo, like Harriet Tubman, refused to accept the position of slave. He continued to rebel against his oppressors.

"So marronage -- the strategy of resistance by which slaves would run away and return -- could keep families together. Which is what this type of resistance was about: taking back what was theirs", Sylviane Diouf.

By Kerri Sullivan Leger with assistance from HNOC, Rachel Gaudry, Kendric Perkins, and Jenny Schwartzberg of the Education Department. Special thanks to the editors, and Research Department at The Historic New Orleans collection.

  • Mcpherson & Oliver, photographer. Escaped slave Gordon, also known as "Whipped Peter," showing his scarred back at a medical examination, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Baton Rouge Louisiana United States, 1863. [Baton Rouge, La.: Publisher not identified, 2 April] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2018648117/.

Images from THNOC collection is as follows:

  1. 00.19_o2.jpg Plantations on the Mississippi River
  2. 00.21 i,ii_o2.jpg New Map of Louisiana
  3. 1939.8_o2.jpg Plan for New Orleans
  4. 1947.10_o2.jpg New Orleans 1720
  5. 2017.0374.8_001_o2.jpg Spanish New Orleans
  • 2019.0058.2_001_o2jpg Spain orders to import more slaves to New Orleans
  • 2019.0058.2_002_o2.jpg 1786 document
  • 1974.25.23.4_o2.jpg Sale of Estates, Pictures and Slaves in the Rotunda, New Orleans
  • 1974.25.23.6.3_o2.jpg Runaway Slave newspaper clippings
  • https://www.merriam-webster.com/
  • https://chrisdier.com/2020/06/19/the-legend-of-jean-san-malo/
  • https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/alt/african2.html
  1. National Humanities Center Resource Toolbox. Runaways: Selections from the WPA interviews of formerly enslaved African Americans, 1936-1938. http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/enslavement/text8/runawayswpa.pdf
  2. Taylor, Michael. Free People of Color in Louisiana: Revealing an Unknown Past. LSU Libraries. https://lib.lsu.edu/sites/all/files/sc/fpoc/history.html#historycontexts
  3. Hoonhout, Bram and Thomas Mareite. Freedom at the Fringes? Slave flight and empire-building in the early modern Spanish borderlands of Essequibo-Venezuela and Louisiana-Texas. Pgs. 61-86. Published online 13 March 2018.
  4. Routes of the Underground Railroad. https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ie=UTF8&t=m&oe=UTF8&msa=0&mid=1-VKGtUsKBNCNsSx8yVedo22vvrI&ll=30.704059368781746%2C-91.70562605010225&z=9
  5. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/what-is-the-underground-railroad.htm
  6. Jackson and Leanne Cantrell. Louisiana State Parks. Fontainebleau State Park. (Tracing the Enslaved: The Federal Census, Slave Schedules, and Mortgages.
  7. https://www.crt.state.la.us/Assets/Parks/parks/fontainebleau/Enslaved_Peoples_of_Fontainebleau.pdf
  8. Goodyear H. Frank. The Scourged Back: How Runaway Slave and Soldier Private Gordon Changed History. American Black Holocaust Museum. https://abhmuseum.org/the-scourged-back-how-runaway-slave-and-soldier-private-gordon-changed-history/
  9. Hoffman, E. Paul. A History of Louisiana before 1813. Baton Rouge : LSU Bookstore, 1996, 90. Louisiana as a Spanish Colony.
  10. Park Ethnography Program. National Park Service.
  11. https://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/FrenchAmA.htm
  12. Kaplan-Levenson, Laine. More Than a runaway: Maroons in Louisiana. Tripod: New Orleans at 300. December 5, 2015. WWNO. https://www.wwno.org/post/more-runaway-maroons-louisiana

Credits:

Created with images by Markus Spiske - "Made with Canon 5d Mark III and loved analog lens, Helios 44M 2.0 / 58mm (Year: 1977)" • Jaume Galofré - "Dry river. Chiloé. Chile. " • jonbilous - "Louisiana's Old State Capitol, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana" • Shawn Ang - "untitled image" • Zulmaury Saavedra - "Desicion of freedom" • Library of Congress - "Nannie Helen Burroughs. Photograph, [Between 1900 and 1920]. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002708615/" • RALLIS KOURMPETIS - "untitled image" • Timo Wielink - "Map " • Mary Hammel - "Royal Street sign on a brick wall"