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African-Americans & the Black Experience: Antebellum Era

Slavery in America

Free African Americans

Free Black Community - In the post-revolutionary era, the free blacks remaining in the United States sought greater liberty for themselves and enslaved African Americans. 

Maroon Societies - Runaway slaves that blended with free-born Africans.

 

Runaway slaves known as “maroons” established independent settlements in remote areas of Jamaica—pictured here in the early 1900s—and throughout the Americas. Some communities survived for centuries. (©Royal Geographical Society, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library)