Freedom on the Horizon: Transmarine Marronage and the Abolition of Slavery in Dominica, Martinique, and St. Lucia, 1824-1848

Abstract

Great Britain's 1833 abolition of slavery created an opportunity for enslaved men and women living on Caribbean islands that were within reach, and view, of one another, to secure liberty through relatively short journeys across the sea. “Freedom on the Horizon” explores the cross-imperial movement of French fugitive men and women in Martinique in the wake of the British abolition of slavery and seeks to reconstruct their conceptions of refuge and freedom. Focusing on Dominica, Martinique, and St. Lucia, this dissertation illuminates the complex geopolitical landscape of the Lesser Antilles during a period of staggered abolition processes and examines the consequences that the escapes of Martinique’s fugitives across the sea had on slavery, emancipation, and then apprenticeship in the British and French colonies.“Freedom on the Horizon” argues that marronage by sea was a critical part of processes of emancipation in Dominica, Martinique, and St. Lucia. The mobility of enslaved men and women’s escape practices, in Martinique merged the worlds of intra- and inter-island flight as groups of fugitives combined navigational expertise and geopolitical knowledge to organize their escapes to Dominica to the north and St. Lucia to the south. Successful escapes depended on these fugitives’ ability to escape the surveillance of French and British colonial authorities, and therefore on a deep knowledge and strategic use of waterways and coastal towns. The first half of this dissertation closely examines the rural coastal landscapes of Martinique which served as the primary locations of group escapes. Enslaved men and women of Martinique, often with the aid of free and enslaved men employed in maritime labor, transformed rural shorelines into sites of departure as they boarded canoes and other small sea craft to transport themselves and their families to freedom as refugees of the French empire. Having reconstructed the social geography and routes of escape that Martinique’s fugitives used to pursue freedom in Dominica and St. Lucia, this dissertation explores their experience of liberty in these two colonies under British rule. The presence of Martinique’s fugitives in Dominica and St. Lucia in the midst of complex emancipation processes created a set of legal challenges and bureaucratic conundrums that are well documented in the British archives. In search of refuge, these fugitives made various requests to British authorities, seeking to navigate the possibilities of a changing legal and political environment towards freedom. While some fugitives voluntarily returned to Martinique, others remained in Dominica and St. Lucia, where they experienced the apprenticeship system set up there during the 1830s and influenced the cross-sea escapes of British apprenticed laborers who were also in search of economic opportunities elsewhere in the region. Ultimately, I argue, the actions of Martinique’s fugitives helped to shape the political and legal landscapes around slavery and emancipation in both the British and the French colonies.