The Film: Interview Transcripts: Loren Schweninger

Loren Schweninger, Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, on
obstacles and heart-wrenching decisions
The obstacles that slaves confronted to make it to the north were great, especially if they ran away from plantations in the lower south of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.  Those who were successful in crossing the Ohio River or crossing the Pennsylvania border were often the most fortunate, the luckiest, the most intelligent, the wiliest and able to disguise themselves and to demean themselves in a way that would fool whites along the way.  We found that often the most skilled slaves were able to make it to the north.  Often, literate slaves were able to make it to the north.  Often, slaves who were of mixed racial origin and who were privileged on the plantation were able to make it to the north.  So, though it’s difficult to generalize about, and the vast majority of runaways were captured and brought back, it is clear that those who were successful were talented, intelligent and courageous in many respects.

The vast majority of slaves wanted to be free and struggled desperately to be free.  Many, many did.  Some, however, found freedom so difficult and so painful that they opted to return to slavery after they had gained their freedom.  A woman in South Carolina, for example, named Lucy Andrews, who was 16 years old and who was going from place to place trying to find work and couldn’t, and had a child, asked the South Carolina legislature if she could become the slave of a farmer named Duncan in 1858.  She explained that she couldn’t find work, that her child that she had carried had died, and that she needed stability.  

She petitioned the state legislature again in 1861 and she asked to become the slave. She was not returned to slavery in 1858, and in 1861, she petitioned again, and this time, she explains that her husband is owned by Duncan and they have two children, one named Allison who was named after her husband and another child, and that she wanted to live with her husband.  So, the question for her and for others, would be… do you want to leave your loved ones? do you want to leave your husband? do you want to leave your children and become free? or do you want to live with them in slavery?  This was a wrenching decision. 

There is another example of a Virginia slave who was freed, who went to Philadelphia who lived for a year in Philadelphia and simply couldn’t live away from his wife, and so he asked the Virginia legislature to permit him to return to Virginia.  The law did not allow him to return to Virginia, to return to Virginia and become a slave so he could be with his wife.  So, family considerations were a main consideration when this was happening. 

The Race and Slavery
Petitions Project

rebels on the plantation

three groups of free blacks

dramatic slave escapes

slavery’s long shadow