Fugitive Harbour: Labour, Community, and Marronage at Antigua Naval Yard

Historical research reveals that the Antigua Naval Dockyard served as a hub for fugitive activity, where enslaved individuals successfully collaborated to escape slavery aboard Royal Navy warships. This multi-year effort involved 'King’s Negroes' and other Black Antiguans, demonstrating collective resistance against British crown slavery. The study, based on original dockyard records, shipbuilding labor analysis, and built environment examination, sheds new light on petit marronage and naval labor dynamics while highlighting tensions between slavery as a labor system and property. It challenges conventional views by framing fugitive activity as inherently communal.

Snow, H. (2021). Fugitive Harbour: Labour, Community, and Marronage at Antigua Naval Yard. Slavery & Abolition, 42(4), 803–826. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039x.2021.1910470