"So Far to Leeward": Eliza Moore's Circuitous Caribbean Journey to Liberation

My paper centers on the 1836 freedom petition of Antiguan-born domestic slave Eliza Moore, who used emancipation’s 1834 passage in the British Caribbean to facilitate her self-emancipation from Danish St. Thomas via travel and return “home.” Her owners took her to England around 8 years old & she returned at 13, when she was immediately sold to an estate owner in Danish St. Croix. From there she was sold again to St. Thomas and resold a few more times. She also had 3 sons, the first fathered by her first master in St. Croix, a second freed by his father and a third who remained enslaved with her. In 1836 she simultaneously learned of British emancipation and her owner’s intent to sell her and her son to Puerto Rico. Moore sent a desperate letter to her family in Antigua to obtain the proof of her birth to secure her freedom, which this paper parses. In particular from the details of her travels throughout the Atlantic world,  I hone in on certain forms of duress she only implies that she endured in her lifetime of bondage, namely sexual abuse and the likely complicated relationships to the children that resulted from such violence. Moore’s petition is eventually successful but her experiences raise critical questions about the links between black travel experiences and the desire for liberation during the era of slavery, the particular forms of exploitation at work within women’s enslavement, and the dire consequences for personal safety and family ties resulting from such a rare bid for freedom.