Runaway Enslaved Families in Senegal: Mothers, Children, Resistance, and Vulnerabilities, 1857–1903

Between 1857 and 1903, nearly 29,000 enslaved people presented themselves before French colonial officials in Senegal to demand their liberation. These men, women, and children were inscribed in so-called ‘Registers of Liberation’. This article identifies 1,445 children and adults, who together constituted discrete family units, ninety percent of which were headed by women. Analyzing the unique demographic characteristics of these enslaved families, this article explains why and how these families ran away from their enslavers when they did. It then provides five individual case studies that illuminate broader patterns of resistance by enslaved families in nineteenth-century Senegambia. By running away from their enslavers, who had legal rights to both enslaved adults and their children, these families actively resisted enslavement and exploitation. This article memorializes those efforts and highlights the significance of family ties to the slow end of slavery in colonial West Africa.