The starting point of this article is the observation that thousands of enslaved people escaped bondage and managed to find refuge in the city of Baltimore between 1800 and 1860. There, they integrated into a large free black community. Given the use of the term “urban marronage” to categorize slave flight to cities in some historical literature, this chapter discusses the concept of marronage and its applicability to the urban context of antebellum Baltimore. It examines individual escapees from slavery, the communities they joined, and the broader slaveholding society to emphasize that the interplay and mutual relations of all three should be considered when assessing the applicability of this concept. Discussing the historiography around marronage and the arguments that speak both in favour of and against applying the concept of urban maroons to Baltimore's runaway slaves, this article ultimately dismisses its suitability for this case. In the process, this examination reveals the core of the concept, which, above all, concerns the aspect of resistance. In this context, it will be argued that resistance in the sense of rejecting the control of the dominant society should be included in the general definition of marronage.

中文翻译：

---

战前巴尔的摩的逃亡奴隶：一种城市形式的 Marronage？

本文的出发点是观察数千名被奴役的人在 1800 年至 1860 年间逃离束缚并设法在巴尔的摩市找到避难所。在那里，他们融入了一个庞大的自由黑人社区。鉴于在一些历史文献中使用“城市流放”一词来对奴隶逃往城市进行分类，本章讨论了流放的概念及其对战前巴尔的摩城市背景的适用性。它考察了从奴隶制中逃脱的个人、他们加入的社区以及更广泛的奴隶制社会，以强调在评估这一概念的适用性时应考虑所有三者的相互作用和相互关系。本文讨论了围绕 marronage 的史学以及支持和反对将城市 Maroons 概念应用于巴尔的摩逃亡奴隶的论点，最终否定了它对本案的适用性。在这个过程中，这个检查揭示了这个概念的核心，它首先涉及阻力方面。在这种情况下，有人会争辩说，拒绝统治社会控制的抵抗应该包含在marronage的一般定义中。