p2107 -
Freedom Movement: The Phenomenon of Return Migration among Former Fugitive Slaves after Emancipation
After the Civil War ended, abolishing the institution of slavery, some former fugitive slaves returned home to the U.S. South. While the effect of fugitive flight on black anti-slavery resistance is well documented, little attention has been paid to the influence of fugitive return on the post-emancipation black political agenda. Thus, this paper explores the trajectory of black flight from and return to the U.S. South through the “free zones” of the Midwest, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean with two questions in mind. First, what political lessons and infrastructures did black people develop and utilize in this movement for self-emancipation; and second, how were these lessons implemented in the post-emancipation political transition to freedom? This paper moves away from interpretations of the Underground Railroad as having a single destination that was both geographically and politically defined as freedom toward a vision of the circulations and movements of freedom-seekers through variously changing political and social terrains. Using narratives of escape generated by vigilance committee agents, governmental investigative committees and fugitives themselves, this paper establishes an additional significance of fugitive slaves’ contributions to the southern political landscape: Unlike unidirectional narratives of escape on the Underground Railroad, black self-emancipation and migration narratives are not always linear, but rather circular and recursive with return migrants carrying their expectations and experiences with them and bringing them to bear on the new political and social context of freedom.