The Delta swamps served as safe havens for enslaved runaways. Not only did they find refuge, but the Arkansas bayous, marshes and woods served as places for religious gatherings, plentiful sources of meat, fish, vegetables, medicinal herbs and roots along with the healing therapy of “The Runaway Blues.”
In the 1800s, runaway slave notices saturated the newspapers in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Enslaved runaways exercised their resistance to slavery, planning and strategizing daring escapes. Runaways usually hid in remote and inaccessible areas, making the Delta region’s swampy terrain a perfect route in their race to freedom.
Runaways came from as far as Florida and neighboring states like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, giving the lower Delta of Southeast Arkansas a unique legacy in the history of enslaved runaways. Men and women risked life and limb under the most terrifying circumstances to gain their liberty. Sometimes they were caught. Sometimes they weren’t. But unmistakably embedded in them was “The Runaway Blues.”
From 1840 to 1860, the slave population in Jefferson County, Arkansas, grew exponentially as cotton demand increased. Jefferson County also served as a trading hub because of its strategic location on the Arkansas River and Bayou Bartholomew, which connected Arkansas to states like Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.
In 1860, Pine Bluff, the capital of the Arkansas Delta and Southeast Arkansas, had a population of 1,396. In 1863, at the height of the American Civil War, over 3,260 runaways flooded into Pine Bluff from Arkansas’ surrounding territories after Union forces captured the city. Before the Civil War brought an end to slavery, large numbers of the enslaved freed themselves by escaping to Union lines instead of waiting to be emancipated. Many of the formerly enslaved even put on Union uniforms to fight against their former masters.
According to historians, two to four contraband camps to house thousands of runaway slaves were set up by Union troops. Along with shelter, these camps provided food and medical attention to runaway slaves on the former Roane plantation, now known as Regional Park and the former Cockrill Plantation located where the Cotton Belt Yard is today.
In 1863, 300 black men from the contraband camps fought among the Union troops to secure Pine Bluff against a Confederate attack. On July 2, 1864, the soldiers of the 64th Colored Infantry in Palmyra Bend, Mississippi, fought against hostile Confederate forces while stationed in Pine Bluff. Among the three other African American regiments stationed in Pine Bluff during the Civil War, none were more famous than the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry, the first black unit to fight during the Battle of Island Mound, Missouri, in 1862. Along with the Jefferson County Courthouse, these sites where major chapters as “The Runaway Blues” were born by combining God-given rights as humans and the inalienable longing to be free.
To read more about this historic period in Pine Bluff’s history and the numerous runaway slave notices, visit the Delta Rhythm and Bayous Virtual Museum entitled “Runaway Blues” at www.explorepinebluff.com - Runaway Blues Virtual Museum.
Sources:
Cunningham, Donna & Cuningham Jr., Jimmy. African Americans of Pine Bluff and Jefferson County. United States, Arcadia Publishing, 2013.
Written by: Ninfa O. Barnard
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