Editing Underground Railroad (section)

===Maroons===

[[File:Maroons preparing to ambush a convoy.jpg|thumb|Maroons]]

The majority of [[freedom seekers]] that escaped from slavery did not have help from an abolitionist. Although there are stories of black and white abolitionists helping freedom seekers escape from slavery, many escapes were unaided.<ref name="auto2"/><ref name="NPS What Is" />

Other Underground Railroad escape routes for freedom seekers were [[Maroons|maroon communities]]. Maroon communities were hidden places, such as wetlands or marshes, where escaped slaves established their own independent communities. Examples of maroon communities in the United States include the [[Black Seminoles|Black Seminole]] communities in Florida, as well as groups that lived in the [[Great Dismal Swamp maroons|Great Dismal Swamp]] in Virginia and in the [[Okefenokee Swamp|Okefenokee swamp]] of Georgia and Florida, among others.{{sfn|Hudson|2015|pp=143–144}}<ref name="NPS Telling Stories">{{cite web |title=The Underground Railroad in American History |url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/tellingallamericansstories/upload/UndergroundRailroad.pdf |website=[[National Park Service]] |access-date=22 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240930211640/https://www.nps.gov/subjects/tellingallamericansstories/upload/UndergroundRailroad.pdf |archive-date=2024-09-30 }}</ref> In the 1780s, Louisiana had a maroon community in the [[bayou]]s of [[Saint Malo, Louisiana|Saint Malo]]. The leader of the Saint Malo maroon community was [[Jean Saint Malo]], a freedom seeker who escaped to live among other runaways in the swamps and bayous of Saint Malo. The population of maroons was fifty and the Spanish colonial government broke up the community and on June 19, 1784, Jean Saint Malo was executed.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Allen |first1=Diane |title=Living Freedom Through the Maroon Landscape |url=https://placesjournal.org/article/the-maroon-communities-and-landscapes-of-louisiana/ |journal=Places Journal |date=2022 |issue=2022 |doi=10.22269/220922 |access-date=19 September 2024|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Palmer |first1=Lue |title=Juneteenth & Jean Saint Malo: How New Orleans is celebrating justice and freedom on June 19 |url=https://veritenews.org/2023/06/15/juneteenth-jean-saint-malo/#:~:text=According%20to%20Creole%20legend%2C%20Jean,against%20French%20and%20Spanish%20slaveholders. |access-date=19 September 2024 |agency=Verite News |date=2023}}</ref> Colonial [[Province of South Carolina|South Carolina]] had a number of maroon settlements in its marshland regions in the [[South Carolina Lowcountry|Lowcountry]] and near rivers. Maroons in South Carolina fought to maintain their freedom and prevent enslavement in [[Ashepoo River|Ashepoo]] in 1816, [[Williamsburg County, South Carolina|Williamsburg County]] in 1819, [[Georgetown, South Carolina|Georgetown]] in 1820, Jacksonborough in 1822, and near Marion in 1861. Historian [[Herbert Aptheker]] found evidence that fifty maroon communities existed in the United States between 1672 and 1864.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Fitzgerald |first1=Catherine |title=Maroons |url=https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/maroons/#:~:text=The%20typical%20South%20Carolina%20maroon,away%20more%20on%20their%20own. |website=South Carolina Encyclopedia |publisher=University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies |access-date=22 September 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Silkenat |first1=David |title=An Inhospitable Refuge |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/41417/chapter-abstract/352738020?redirectedFrom=fulltext |website=Oxford Academic |date=2022 |pages=123–148 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780197564226.003.0007 |isbn=978-0-19-756422-6 |access-date=22 September 2024}}</ref> The history of maroons showed how the enslaved resisted enslavement by living in free independent settlements. Historical archeologist Dan Sayer says that historians downplay the importance of maroon settlements and place valor in white involvement in the Underground Railroad, which he argues shows a racial bias, indicating a "...reluctance to acknowledge the strength of black resistance and initiative."<ref>{{cite web |title=Deep in the Swamps, Archaeologists Are Finding How Fugitive Slaves Kept Their Freedom |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/deep-swamps-archaeologists-fugitive-slaves-kept-freedom-180960122/ |website=Smithsonian Magazine |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |access-date=20 September 2024}}</ref>