escapism

Examples of escapism in the following topics:

• The First Emancipation

  • Within a month, about 800 formerly enslaved African Americans had escaped to Norfolk, Virginia to enlist.
  • During the war, tens of thousands of slaves escaped, causing a substantial economic effect on the American South.
  • An estimated 25,000 slaves escaped in South Carolina; 30,000 in Virginia, and one-quarter of the almost total slave population in Georgia.
  • Slaves also escaped in New England and New York, often joining the British forces occupying New York for freedom.
  • By December 1775 the regiment had nearly 300 blacks, including its most famous member, an escaped slave called Titus, then known as Tye.

• Slavery and Liberty

  • Freedom for slaves could only be obtained through manumission by their owner, or through dangerous escape.
  • As further protection for slavery, Section 2 of Article IV prohibited citizens from providing assistance to escaping slaves and required the return of chattel property to owners.
  • The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by black slaves to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause.
  • One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the "Railroad" .
  • Penalties were imposed upon marshals who refused to enforce the law or from whom a fugitive should escape, and upon individuals who aided black people to escape .

• The Contraband Camps

  • Contraband was a term commonly used to describe an escaped slave during the Civil War.
  • The status of African Americans, including escaped slaves from the South, was an issue in flux while the Civil War was being fought.
  • By August of the same year, Congress determined via the Confiscation Act that the U.S. would not return escaped slaves to their former Confederate masters.
  • Word spread quickly among southeastern Virginia's slave communities regarding Butler’s actions and Congress’ decision not to return escaping slaves.
  • The day after Butler's decision, many more escaped slaves found their way to Fort Monroe and appealed for contraband status.

• The Underground Railroad

  • The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by nineteenth-century slaves to escape to free states and Canada.
  • One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the "Railroad."
  • The escape network of the Underground Railroad was not literally underground or a railroad.
  • Southern newspapers of the day were often filled with pages of notices soliciting information about escaped slaves and offering sizable rewards for their capture and return.
  • Estimates vary widely, but at least 30,000 slaves, and potentially more than 100,000, escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad.

• Anti-Slavery Resistance Movements

  • Tens of thousands of slaves joined British forces or escaped to British lines during the American Revolution, sometimes using the disruption of war to gain freedom.
  • It was suppressed by volunteer militias and a detachment of the United States Army, who killed 66 black men in the battle, executed 16, and 17 escaped and/or were killed along the way to freedom.
  • It almost succeeded, had it not been for Brown's delay, and hundreds of slaves left their plantations to join Brown's force, and others left their plantations to join Brown in an escape to the mountains.

• Slavery during the Revolution

  • Hundreds of slaves escaped to join Dunmore and the British Army.
  • Tens of thousands of slaves escaped during the war and joined British lines; others simply escaped on their own to freedom without fighting.
  • Many who escaped were later enslaved again.

• The Treaty of Ghent

  • Britain also promised to return the freed black slaves they had encouraged to escape to British territory.
  • In addition, at least 3,000 American slaves escaped to British territories because of Britain's offer of freedom—the same offer Britain had made during the American Revolution.
  • Many other slaves simply escaped in the chaos of war and achieved freedom on their own.

• Conclusion: The State of Slavery before the War

  • Some resisted by inciting rebellions or plotting escape.
  • The Underground Railroad, formed in the early nineteenth century as a network of abolitionists and sympathizers who provided safe passage to escaping slaves, is one such example of resistance.
  • One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the Railroad.

• Smallpox

  • The outbreak spread deep into the South; many escaped slaves who had fled to the British lines in the South contracted the virus and died.

• African American Migration

  • To escape the Ku Klux Klan, the White League, and the Jim Crow laws, which continued to make them second-class citizens after Reconstruction, as many as forty thousand Exodusters left the South to settle in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado.