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Urban Slavery in the Bahamas · Untold Histories of the Atlantic World

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Welcome to Untold Histories of the Atlantic World. I am your host, Tiana
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Mabley. In today's episode, I will be discussing the history of urban slavery
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in the Bahamas during the Loyalist period from seventeen eighty four until eighteen thirty four.
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This episode aims to examine urban slavery in the Bahamas in the context of
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the Atlantic World. Joining me as m a student from the University of Florida,
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Sasha Wells. Allow me to introduce you to Sasha. She is about
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to graduate with her master's in Latin American history the summer, before going on
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to pursue her PhD in Atlantic History at Florida International University. She studies the
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Bahamas in the Atlantic World, with a specific focus on enslavement in the Bahamas
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and the Afro Bahamian experience during the Loyalist period. And without further Ado,
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Welcome to Untold Histories of the Atlantic World. Sasha, thank you for having
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me, of course, thank you so much for joining me. So,
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Sasha, would you mind beginning by sharing your research on urban enslavement in the
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Bahamas. Yeah, So, today I'll be talking about enslaved runaways in an
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urban environment and NASA, New Providence the Bahamas from seventeen eighty four to eighteen
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twelve. I wanted to go up to eighteen thirty four, but lack of
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time for my research has to be only to go up to eighteen twelve.
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But Bahamian historians have not deeply examined enslave runaways in the Bahamas beyond a few
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articles, or look specifically at urban slavery. Instead, there has been a
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blanket look at urban and rural slavery that occurred, providing little distinction between those
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enslaved in the outer islands versus those enslaved in New Providence. And for everybody
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listening right now, the Bahamas is an archipelago of islands, not just one.
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So we have over seven hundred islands and two thousand keys, but thirteen
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to fifteen of those islands would have been inhabited during the Loyalist period. So
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examining the tight community of NASA and more widely New Providence can provide an in
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depth look into what it meant to be a person of color enslaved during the
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Loyalist period and how urban enslaved runaways helped shape the path of Bahamian history.
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Urban slavery and royal slavery needs to be examined separately to see how opportunities for
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enslave people in the Bahamas would have changed based on their location and circumstances.
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The base of my work comes from enslave runaway ads in the Bahama Gazette and
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the Royal Gazette or Bahama Advertiser. The Bahamas Gazette was the first newspaper in
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the Bahamas and it was established by British loyalist John Wells, of which I
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don't know if I'm a relation or not, in eight seventeen eighty four,
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and then the Royal Gazette or Bahama Advertiser was established in eighteen oh four.
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So I've examined two hundred eighty nine ads at the time of this talk,
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and from their two hundred and twenty two ads specifically list Nasa or New Providence
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as the location, and then the other sixty seven ads have the locations as
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ships, the outer islands, or the location is not specifically listed from which
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the enslaved person ran away. The urban environment of Nasau and then largely New
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Providence allows enslave people more opportunities for potential freedom than their Outer Island counterparts.
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There are still several editions of the newspapers that have yet to be examined.
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By myself, I've reached almost three hundred ads, but according to two or
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three other articles I've read, there is over four hundred ads that have been
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examined, and that is also not including the ads that have been lost in
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the newspaper editions that are no longer available to us. Many of the Enslave
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runaways and NASA masqueraded themselves as free persons because there were some more opportunities to
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pass us, such for example and notice and the seventeen eighty six Bahama Gazette
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says that runaways masquerading as free people should not be hired unless they have a
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pass by Cruden or Robert I always hate saying last names Ball and Gal commander
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of claims and they should be turned in or turned themselves in and they should
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not be taken to the French or Spanish Caribbean. This is in effect as
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of September sixteen, seventeen eighty so they made it retroactive to even before the
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Wayless arrival. And then also Sambo often seen in Nassa as an early example
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of this masquerade technique. He called himself a free person and was well known
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in the black community as a Baptist preacher. He actually set up a church
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in the Bahamas that is still running to this day over two hundred years.
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And then Jemmy is another example. He was able to pass for a free
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person with a false pass. The seventeen sixty seven Slave Act required free people
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to have a pass and to wear a badge while they were in the town
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of Nassau. So historian Mercifuente says, cities where sites of venerable terror and
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could serve as stage for the slavehoming elite to display its dominance through ritualised acts
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of disregard for enslave life. Urban violence came through mental abuse, emotional abuse
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as well as the physical violence. Urban slaves would have experienced. The structure
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of a city itself, The layout and the architecture were a reminder of who
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was in charge and who was not. As the main commercial and residential street
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in Nassau, Bay Street was a place to advertise who was in power and
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who was not. Vendue House, which is the place where the site where
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and slave people were sold and the gal were located directly on Bay Street,
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and Vendue House faced George Street, which led directly up to the Governor's House.
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The gal served as a holding place for runaways as well as a place
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for public punishment. Also, the regulated public market place was situated right next
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to Vendue House on the waterfront. The marketplace was regulated and set up next
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to Vendu House. As of seventeen eighty nine, Black people selling their wares
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would have been right next to the place where their fellow black people were being
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sold. Black inhabitants of NASA would have seen symbols of colonial power wherever they
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turned on social hierarchy in urban NASA. Here is a letter that I would
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actually like to talk about from mister Stone, giving an account of seventeen eighty
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eight a disturbing incident between some loyalists and some free black people. The incident
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occurs because some of the loyalists were trying to retrieve free black people who were
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manumitted under Lord Dunmore's seventeen seventy five proclamation during the American Revolutionary War that freed
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all people of color who would fright for the British Crown. A number of
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black Loyalists came with the white Loyalists to the Bahamas, where they were free,
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but they were also subsequently being re enslaved by the white loyalists. During
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that time, the ringleaders claimed they had searched the dwellings for runaways because they
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suspected that the free people of color were helping harbor them. There was no
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fear of repercussion for the violence perpetrated against those free black people, as the
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issue of enslaved runaway people was used as an excuse to break into their homes.
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It's explicitly stated that several black women were wantedly wounded. This incident can
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be related back to cities being a stage for which white slaveholders can display their
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dominance and the precedence of social hierarchy, among other things. In Nassau,
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the outnumbered white authorities used people of color to police other people of color.
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In eighteen o five, the Police Act was issued to guard against dangers arising
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from fire and nightly meetings of negroes and other disorderly persons. Instead of authority
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having a totally white face, now authority was being shared with blacks to help
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disseminate possible feelings of unity within the general Black community and new providence. Urban
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environments provide a space for creating connections. One of the most common phrases found
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in the runaway ads that I've examined is well known about town. Many of
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the ads that have the phrasing them don't even have a description of the enslaved
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person who ran away. For example, one ad as Kilomere, Tom Bram,
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Joe and Sarah who ran away from William Bradford's plantation westward of Nassau,
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and the ad says d quote they are so well known in this island,
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asked to make a particular description of them unnecessary end quote. From these examples,
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we can begin to see the social connections enslave people were able to create
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a new providence. The fact the masters did not see a reason to provide
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a description of them speaks to how tightly connected and close the urban society was.
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Only urban slave ads have this distinct wording in them. The rural ads
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that I've examined do not. The close working environment of urban Nassa could be
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beneficial. Many women would have labored in the domestic sphere, possibly creating a
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closer relationship with their enslavers. Psibly becoming more humanized in their eyes. One
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ad was placed for a young enslaved woman being held by John Ferguson. She
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is praised for being a good washer and ironer, but is being sold because
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of her unwillingness to go with her master's family to Abaco, which is another
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island in the Bahamas. Of course, we can only guess at the young
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woman's motivations for wanting to stay in NASA. We don't know what they are
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because we're only hearing Ferguson's voice in the notice, But the fact that Ferguson
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would possibly take her feelings into account in moving from island to island is an
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important thing to think about. Knowledge would have also been increased because of these
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social connections. The social networks created in NASA helped enslave people create relationships with
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others who would help harbor them. One ad that I found lists six people
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whose master fears that they are quote being harbored by person or persons who wants
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to leave the country end quote. Or An even better example that I've come
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across is the instant of Charlotte. She ran away twice and her second ad
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list that she is well known about town and is supposed to be harbored by
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some of her numerous acquaintances on the island. Most runaway ads end with a
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warning against those who would possibly harbor or help runaways. There was often a
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greater reward for giving information in those cases for who was helping than actually apprehending
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the runaway. The reward for informing on these people would was generally color blind,
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and this is another way for colonial authorities to help disassemble feelings of unity
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within the black community in Nasa. The majority of ads that I've looked over
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involved male slaves, but the ads surrounding female slaves often use derogatory verbage to
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describe the runaway. One example is Nancy, a Nigra Wench who is known
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about Who's known in Nasa as Free Nancy or Daphne, a young negro Wench
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of the Ebo country, or Patients another negro Wench or Molly another negro Wench.
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A lot more women are listed as being well known about town. Black
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women were especially commodified and dehumanized. The Royal Gazette or Bahama Advertiser reports a
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shocking incident taking place in Nasa which a white apprentice boy took a gun presented
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it at some wenches who were sitting on a corner, shooting and killing one
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of the women. The language shows the writer's perception of the women of color,
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painting it as an incident or a crime of passion. He was acquitted
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or basically he wasn't charged. They said it was an accident. Turning back
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to escaping, a good question to ask is how slaves acquired such knowledge and
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what elements came into planning an escape, especially on a marine route. An
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enslaved person could be very well traveled and fluent in different languages depending on the
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location of their enslavement. Being a skilled tradesman gave enslave people opportunities to run.
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Isaac Outon ran away on a Spanish tradership where he was being employed as
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a carpenter while it was in Nassas Harbor. His master notes, Isaac spoke
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Spanish very well. Multilangual slaves were a threat to colonial authorities because of their
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wider ability to transmit ideas of freedom. Cuba was a continued popular destination for
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enslaved people who ran away in the Bahamas. While I was homing through the
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newspapers, there was multiple notices about enslave people running away to Cuba or the
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Spanish speaking Caribbean, and even the French speaking Caribbean as well. There was
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specifically one letter that a master posted in the newspaper thanking the Commander General of
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Cuba for returning his slaves. Eight of them had run away and he was
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able to get seven of them back. The Haitian Revolution helped played a part
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in the transnational network of influences in the Bahamas. People were on the move,
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such as sailors and runaways, challenged the social control. The proximity of
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Haiti to the Bahamas caused many to be very fearful of the ideas of freedom
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that could be spread. Fear of Haitians heightened in seventeen ninety five and seventeen
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ninety seven when it was discovered that French negroes were plotting to loot and burned
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down Nassau. The Haitian Revolution caused ideas of freedom and independence to spread throughout
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the Caribbean. People of color and Nassa would have been very aware of new
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news in Haiti. In any, ideas of freedom and Haiti would have been
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spread by the communication networks and new providence enslave people in New Providence would have
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had Haiti in mind as a destination when they sell freed. The most southern
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island of the Bahamas, the Inauguas is I want to say, only sixty
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miles away from Haiti, So a lot of times people from those islands would
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actually go in trade in Haiti because it was closer than going all the way
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to Nassau. There was a loose maroon community in the interior of New Providence.
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Former Attorney General Sean mcqueeney writes that the Blue Hills area was thought by
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colonial authorities to harbor runaway slaves in larger numbers. According to Bahamian historians Gale
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Saunders and Michael Creighton, Lookout Farm, located in the Blue Hills, became
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a semi official maroon hunting outpost. From the ads I've reviewed, it's apparent
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that Lookout Farm captured many enslave persons. Joseph Smith, who was the owner
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of Lookout Farm, advertised multiple times about new negroes stumbling onto his property and
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that were being taken care of by his enslaved persons. The Blue Hills are
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low ridges in the center of New Providence due south of Nassau. A G
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mcqueeney is right in the assumption of a Maroon community. There are four successive
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proclamations that I've read and seen in the newspapers, starting from seventeen nineties spanning
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to eighteen hundred, that are specifically related to runaways in the interior of New
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Providence. The proclamations make clear that the Maroons in New Providence alarmed the colonial
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authorities greatly. The volume of runaways were constant enough and troublesome enough for the
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government to try and entice them with free pardons, and to try and entice
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others to turn them in for a reward. A Maroon community was in Nassa
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by at least seventeen ninety, though some newspaper notices that appear before that would
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make it seem that it was earlier than that, and it does appear to
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be a continual problem to the establishment past. Then, in eighteen twenty three,
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the Royal Gazette reports that the West the second West Indian Regiment, came
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across five men, one of whom was instantly recognized as a runaway. The
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five men ran away, but being armed, shot up the soldiers. The
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soldiers were not armed, and they had to give up pursuit. The newspaper
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continues that at least twenty of these desperados quote unquote lived in the interior of
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New Providence and were headed by a self freedman named Jem Matthews. The movement
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of runaways, in conjunction with international news outside of the colony caused political and
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legal shifts to take place. The movement of self freed people caused the establishment
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to become even more wary of the social atmosphere and New Providence and the colony
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at large. Studying enslavement is about re empowering those who were oppressed and telling
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their stories as much as possible through their eyes. Slavery in the Bahamas was
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not pretty and it was not safe, and people resisted in many different ways,
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and one of the ways in which they did was to extricate themselves from
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enslavement entirely. Studying the Bahamas at this point in its history shows how the
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social, cultural, and political trajectory have been shaped by the urban environment.
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The addition of studying urban enslavement in the Bahamas is a very valuable contribution to
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Bahamian history and historiography. Thank you Sasha so much for sharing about your very,
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very fascinating research. So one of the questions that I have for you
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is what prompted your interest in urban slavery in the Bahamas. Yeah. So
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I was reading different Bahamian history books. Like I said, Bahamian historian Gail
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Saunders has a lot of work on the Loyalist period, but it was really
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Christopher Curry's book Freedom and Resistance, A Social History of Black Loyalists in the
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Bahamas. And then Keith Tinker. He has about three books that I've read
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of his so far that really centered black Bahamians in their narrative. That really
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got me thinking. But I wasn't totally when I first came into school,
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I wasn't totally sold on like studying the Loyalist period because I was like,
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Okay, a lot has already been done on that or enslavement in general.
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I actually wanted to study more like the migration of different people groups throughout the
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Bahamas. But it was a class last spring with Fernanda Bertona's Lane Comparative Slavery
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that really just struck my interest and made me think about how many things that
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have yet to be examined in Bahamian history in regards to enslavement, and one
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of those is urban slavery. That definitely makes sense. A slightly related question
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that I have is what does accessible education mean to you? Honestly, it
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means everything. I believe that all Bahamians as well as everyone else, should
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have access to educational materials that suit their interests. Part of the reason why
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I'm studying history and doing what I'm doing is to help make education more accessible
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for people. I want to re empower students and let them know that they
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can achieve whatever they desire in whatever field, and to go above and beyond
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what they can see in the regular society. How I was educated made me
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realize that like a lot of people only see school as a means to an
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end, and then like there's a lot of stoppage for them. And I
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just would like to change people's mindset on that. And then what resources can
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people turn to if they are looking to learn more about this history. So
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for people who are not in the Bahamas or New Providence, the Digital Library
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of the Caribbean, they have a whole bunch of resources regarding the Bahamas.
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Sometimes I'll just go on rabbit holes on that website, and I've downloaded like
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numerous like Bahamian history books and other things where I've been like I didn't even
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know this existence or that I could access it online. If you are in
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the Bahamas or a new providence, or if you ever get a chance to
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visit there, then the NASA public Archives that are available for anybody to go
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into you do have to as of right now, you do have to sign
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up still because they're on COVID protocol, but you can access anything that they
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have available. Also, Pointsiana paper Press is free library which is in NASA
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off a village road. They have a whole bunch of Bohemian history books in
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their library that is accessible for anybody to go in there and read. And
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then also reaching out to me personally on my socials, which I think you'll
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talk about at the end. I am always down to share anything I have
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access to, or to go ahead and scan books that I have or books
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that I have access to in the library and then send them to people.
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As this podcast is called Untold Histories of the Atlantic World, in what way
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is this history overlooked or untold? Well, Bahamian history, I feel like
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it's kind of overlooked in general in the Atlantic or a Caribbean history like overview.
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And I think this is a layered reason, partly because the Bahamas was
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a poor colony for Great Britain, so it just didn't get as much attention.
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As well as Bahamian history is a little bit newer. The first that
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actually comprehensive Bahamian history book was in nineteen fifty nine, and from then on
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like it's started to come into shape, especially by the nineteen eighties, but
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it's still a newer thing. And then as well, the Bahamas wasn't a
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plantation society, I would it's been coined more of like a society with plantations,
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So enslavement wasn't as strong isn't the right word I'm looking, but wasn't
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as straw Like if you were compared the Bahamas to Barbados, the societies would
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not have been the same. Also, studying Marinage in the broad age of
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the Revolution in the Atlantic allows historians to see the transnational influence and connections that
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occurred that occurred in the Atlantic world. And it's during the age of the
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Revolution that the loyalist came to the Bahamas. Though the Bahamas has been excluded
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from this exchange of thought. It played an important part the geographical location of
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the Bahamas to Cuba, Haiti, and the United States, as well as
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the old Bahama Channel, which would have been a major like shipping lane,
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would have made it a plausible port stop for many ships traveling around the Caribbean.
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The Bahamas is a location where enslaved people escaped too from their enslavers from
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various parts of the Atlantic world. There's numerous articles and primary sources about the
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Bahamas being a destination or a stop on the underground Salt Railroad. NASA was
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a location for the Saltwater Railroad. The Bahamas was also a popular location for
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liberated Africans to be resettled to and forcefully relinquished slave ships to take refuge.
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Studying the Bahamas adds another layer of enslave resistance to the historiography of Marinage.
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Is it all right if I ask an additional question? Yeah, so you
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mentioned the Saltwater Railroad. I've actually never heard of that, and I doubt
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that most of the listeners have. Would you be able to elaborate more on
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that history. I'm not sure who coined the term, but it's something that
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I've come across while studying enslavement in the Bahamas, and I think specifically a
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lot of enslaved people in Florida would have and even in the higher up South
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would have made their way on like ships or on their own boats to the
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Bahamas or to the Caribbean at large. There's one specific story that I read
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in an article that talks about an enslaved man making his way from Florida down
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through the Florida Keys to the Bahamas, where he was actually able to take
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refuge Like the I think he had killed a few people on his way down
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and so the authorities wanted him back, but the British authorities he were like,
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he's free, gotcha. Thank you so much for that additional information to
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my listeners. If you are interested in finding out more about the history of
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urban slavery in the Bahamas, please visit my website for a list of recommended
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sources. To learn more about my wonderful guest, Sasha. Her instagram at
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Sashi or Baja Reads can be found on my website as well. Thank you
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again so much for joining me today. Thank you propping me. Tune in
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next time for more Untold histories of the Atlantic world. Where were where were