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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 to farms, plantations or towns, the maroons ran away intending to stayaway, 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 that 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. - Kirkus

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 to 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 that 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. -Kirkus With impressive research and vivid prose, Diouf directs our attention to maroons within the United States. From the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia to the frontier regions of Louisiana, she shows, fugitive slaves managed to survive without fleeing to the North. An important addition to our understanding of slave society and black resistance. -Eric Foner,author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery Diouf persuasively captures the quiet heroism of North American maroons. Less dramatic and long-lived than many of the maroon communities in Suriname, Jamaica, or Brazil, those in the southern United States were nonetheless ever present. Diouf demonstrates how much freedom mattered to the enslaved and how, within the limited possibilities open to them, those that set off into the inhospitable swamps and forests managed to forge a new life beyond the authority of whitefolks. -Richard Price,author of Maroon Societies In writing that is deeply informative, with vivid anecdotes when available, including 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,Library Journal Diouf has scoured archives across the United States, examining accounts of fugitives throughout the Slave South to uncover the hidden history of American maroons, and produced a highly readable, original study that deserves a broad scholarly and popular audience. -Journal of the Civil War Era In contrast to the study of slavery elsewhere, six decades of research in the United States has systematically bypassed the issue of marronage. Sylviane Diouf's exhaustive research has not only brought the subject to center stage, it offers a framework for recasting the study of runaway slaves throughout the Americas. This is one of those rare books that is at once of scholarly significance and will engage a wide readership. -David Eltis,Robert W. Woodruff Professor of History, Emory University [T]he 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 ... [I]t's a notable document for its treatment of the subject. -Publishers Weekly Sylviane A. Diouf has made an enormous contribution to our understanding of enslaved people's lives with her study of the maroons in the American South. Slavery's Exiles dispels the myth that maroon communities only existed in places such as the Caribbean and Brazil, firmly placing the maroons of mainland North America within larger discussions of slave resistance. -The North Carolina Historical Review Slavery's Exiles covers an interesting and important topic that few people are aware existed. It is filled with fascinating individuals and remarkable acts of bravery. Hopefully Slavery's Exiles will spur more interest in the subject of American maroons. -Register of the Kentucky Historical Society This extensively and thoroughly researched study brings to light a little-known aspect of slavery in the United States ... a fascinating read. Diouf has done a brilliant job of illuminating a complicated, multifaceted, important, yet little-known piece of black American history. -Annette Madden, The Baobab Tree

The book is clear and easy to read . . . Diouf's book is important because for the first time it really foregrounds marronage in North America . . . Diouf extends the range by demonstrating the ubiquity of marronage in virtually every southern state. It should be required reading for any scholar of North American slavery. -Journal of American Studies This is a very important book that opens a window into an understudied aspect of American slavery. It deserves a wide readership. -American Nineteenth Century History 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. -Kirkus Like other books that Sylviane A. Diouf has written, this one examines a fascinating, though neglected topic in African Diaspora history . . . Diouf advances the discourse by using a landscape perspective to offer an alternative to the grand/ petit marronage dichotomy . . . Her attention to borderland (adjacent to plantations) and hinterland (remote from plantations or cities) conditions and logistics reflects an appreciation of the wider context framing relations between enslaved and free people, which stands in contrast to the dated view of plantations as islands with impermeable boundaries . . . Diouf has produces a well-written and balanced account... She backs her arguments with evidence, illuminates trends, and accounts for contradictions. -American Historical Review Sylviane A. Diouf has made an enormous contribution to our understanding of enslaved people's lives with her study of the maroons in the American South. Slavery's Exiles dispels the myth that maroon communities only existed in places such as the Caribbean and Brazil, firmly placing the maroons of mainland North America within larger discussions of slave resistance. -The North Carolina Historical Review Slavery's Exiles covers an interesting and important topic that few people are aware existed. It is filled with fascinating individuals and remarkable acts of bravery. Hopefully Slavery's Exiles will spur more interest in the subject of American maroons. -Register of the Kentucky Historical Society In a book that is easily accessible yet rigorously researched, analyzed, and argued, Diouf has made a compelling case that scholars of slavery and of early American history must consider the presence of maroons in the U.S. with a sense of renewed urgency. As she so eloquently and brilliantly shows, maroons exhibited a form of self-determined, autonomy-seeking resistance to slavery that complicates our understanding of fugitivity and freedom as they are generally bound up in a North/ South, free/ unfree binaristic imaginary. -Journal of the Early Republic In writing that is deeply informative, with vivid anecdotes when available, including 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. -Library Journal [T]he 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 . . . . [I]t's a notable document for its treatment of the subject. -Publishers Weekly In contrast to the study of slavery elsewhere, six decades of research in the United States has systematically bypassed the issue of marronage. Sylviane Diouf's exhaustive research has not only brought the subject to center stage, it offers a framework for recasting the study of runaway slaves throughout the Americas. This is one of those rare books that is at once of scholarly significance and will engage a wide readership. -David Eltis,Robert W. Woodruff Professor of History, Emory University This extensively and thoroughly researched study brings to light a little-known aspect of slavery in the United States . . . a fascinating read. Diouf has done a brilliant job of illuminating a complicated, multifaceted, important, yet little-known piece of black American history. -Annette Madden,The Baobab Tree Diouf has scoured archives across the United States, examining accounts of fugitives throughout the Slave South to uncover the hidden history of American maroons, and produced a highly readable, original study that deserves a broad scholarly and popular audience. -Journal of the Civil War Era Diouf persuasively captures the quiet heroism of North American maroons. Less dramatic and long-lived than many of the maroon communities in Suriname, Jamaica, or Brazil, those in the southern United States were nonetheless ever present. Diouf demonstrates how much freedom mattered to the enslaved and how, within the limited possibilities open to them, those that set off into the inhospitable swamps and forests managed to forge a new life beyond the authority of whitefolks. -Richard Price,author of Maroon Societies With impressive research and vivid prose, Diouf directs our attention to maroons within the United States. From the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia to the frontier regions of Louisiana, she shows, fugitive slaves managed to survive without fleeing to the North. An important addition to our understanding of slave society and black resistance. -Eric Foner,author of The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery

Author Information

Sylviane A. Diouf is an award-winning historian of the African Diaspora. She is the author of Slavery’s Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons and Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas—named Choice Outstanding Academic Book in 1999—both with NYU Press. Her book Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America received the 2007 Wesley-Logan Prize of the American Historical Association, the 2009 Sulzby Award of the Alabama Historical Association and was a finalist for the 2008 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. She is the editor of Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies and the co-editor of In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience. A recipient of the Rosa Parks Award, the Dr. Betty Shabazz Achievement Award, and the Pen and Brush Achievement Award, Diouf is a Curator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library.

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