Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery

Race, Status, and Identity in the Urban Americas

John Garrison Marks

Prior to the abolition of slavery, thousands of African-descended people in the Americas lived in freedom. Their efforts to navigate daily life and negotiate the boundaries of racial difference challenged the foundations of white authority. Black Freedom in the Age of Slavery examines how these individuals built lives in freedom for themselves and their families in two of the Atlantic World’s most important urban centers: Cartagena, along the Caribbean coast of modern-day Colombia, and Charleston, in the lowcountry of North America’s Atlantic coast.

Built upon research conducted on three continents, this book takes a comparative approach to understanding the contours of black freedom in the Americas. It examines how various paths to freedom, responses to the Haitian Revolution, opportunities to engage in skilled labor, involvement with social institutions, and the role of the church all helped shape the lived experience of free people of color in the Atlantic World.