Aiming for Pensacola : fugitive slaves on the Atlantic and Southern frontiers / Matthew J. Clavin.

"Before the abolition of slavery in the United States, Pensacola, Florida, was the site of extensive and enduring interracial resistance to slavery. In times of peace, fugitive slaves running to and from Pensacola encountered free men and women of various races, ethnicities, and nationalities--including farmers, laborers, mechanics, and seamen--who subsisted on the margins of society and had no vested interest in maintaining slavery or white supremacy. In times of war, they confronted soldiers and sailors who tried to demolish the foundation of slavery entirely. As a result, interracial resistance to slavery survived and often thrived in Pensacola in the century before the Civil War, and when the shockwaves of that revolutionary sectional conflict reverberated across the city, they proved vital to the institution's destruction"--Provided by publisher.