Challenging Slavery in the Chesapeake – Black and White Resistance to Human Bondage 1775–1865

A chronological account of nine decades of antislavery activity in Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia, culminating in the Civil War. Challenging slavery could entail negotiating for freedom by manumission; grasping freedom by flight or insurrection; or uniting with external allies in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, or the Civil War. Free black people also undermined slavery as workers, worshippers, teachers, and writers. Whites who aided black freedom seekers also played their part.