Alternate Geography

by Sasha Wells

Published on Friday, June 14, 2024

The gallery down below has the ability to sort by location!

Unlike the ‘browse’ section which is a wide search, you can do a narrow search here. By sorting through the locations of runaway slaves you will be able to see certain patterns emerge among those who chose to run away. Enslaved men and women continually strove to create a “rival geography,” featuring “other kinds of spaces that gave them room and time for their families, for rest from work, and for amusement.”¹ Flight, or absenteeism, not only secured time for rest or for visits to family members, it represented resistance to the spatial strictures enforced by overseers, passes, and slave patrols. It can be argued that the geography of each island and The Bahamas, as a whole, was perceived differently by White people versus people of colour in the colony.