Unclaimed Runways in Colonial Haiti: Law, Liberation, and Re-Enslavement in the Atlantic World

Abstract:The 1685 Code Noir defined marronage (running away or self-liberation) in France's Caribbean colonies, but its authors in France did not anticipate that runaways would go unclaimed. In colonial Haiti, unclaimed runaways were known as nègres épaves. Various eighteenth-century regulations addressed the imprisonment, reporting, use of labor, and advertising the sale of unclaimed runaways. Runaways who remained unclaimed risked reenslavement. However, for unclaimed runaways, their flight did not end with recapture. Advertisements for unclaimed runaways in the Affiches Américaines reveal how the enslaved continued to resist. Colonial authorities relied upon the enslaved to provide all non-visible identifying information. This meant they could provide a name, ethnicity, and age other than what would be listed on a plantation registry, as well as misleading details about their enslavers. In this way, the enslaved had the power to claim an identity that could reflect their true selves, prevent an enslaver from reclaiming them, delay their reenslavement, and possibly improve their circumstances.