E.B. Browning's “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”

When a person is forced to do work they do not want to do, and they cannot fight, what is their alternative? Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” sheds light on what many in positions of exploitive labor feel their only option to fight back is. Written in 1848 and published in 1850, this poem lasts as a visceral journey that a broken mankind forced another to embark upon. Yet what of thus example of a person not wanting to be free and forced labor?

E.B. Browning was a prominent Victorian-era poet. Browning used her literary voice to protest the institution of slavery forced upon black people in America. In her youth, Browning’s family had accumulated wealth through business on English-owned plantations in northern Jamaica. Although raised in England, the wealth generated from forced slave labor in Jamaica shaped her perspective on racism and injustice. It informed her of the issues in the United States and of labor in general.

In this poem, Browning vividly portrays the anguish of slavery through the eyes of a female slave who is running away from her master. The poem’s setting at Pilgrim’s Point, where the Mayflower landed. This setting highlights the stark contrast between the freedoms some, like British settlers, enjoyed and the brutal reality faced by others, like enslaved Africans. The slave woman’s desperate escape from the clutches of slavery underscores the dehumanizing effects of exploitive and forced labor. The speaker starkly calls out the history of how the pilgrims sought freedom, and yet became slave masters. It is these few that own many, it is this exploitation that forces her to embark upon her journey, trying to find freedom. The woman says in the first stanza, “I stand on the mark beside the shore / Of the first white pilgrim’s bended knee, / Where exile turned to ancestor, / And God was thanked for liberty. / I have run through the night….” demonstrating her frustrations against those who forced her to be a slave, providing themselves with free and forced labor, and her with desperateness to be free from this exploitative labor (Browning).

“The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” helps inform people today on the parallels between historical forced slave labor and modern-day exploitative labor practices. Slavery is often thought of as an isolated historical event, yet a form of slavery exists today. Within prison systems, incarcerated workers face exploitation and abuse not too dissimilar to historical American slavery. Many believe the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution abolished slavery completely. Unfortunately, the 13th Amendment has a loophole. This loophole means the 13th Amendment does not abolish slavery, but merely changes the contexts in which it is allowed, single-handedly creating permission for slavery. This form of exploitive labor, not dissimilar to sweatshops, to exist in prisons systems today. This is yet another occurrence in history of top-down justification of coercive labor practices. The slave owners in “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” and those who run prisons alike take advantage of those they control, justifying these actions with claims of providing work to those around them and providing products at an economical value (FPI).

As a result, enslaved and incarcerated individuals lose the right to refuse work, often facing excessive hours, arbitrary assignments, and inadequate protections. During Pre-Civil War slavery, slaves certainly had no rights, hence leading to bold actions like the speaker took of running away. The speaker says she has “I have gasped and run / All night long….” in order to seek freedom from her treatment and laboring (Browning). Despite local labor laws mandating an eight-hour workday and a 40-hour week, many prisoners work long hours for no or minimal pay—sometimes just pennies per hour. Pennies are hardly a pay improvement from the era of Brownings poem. The prison industry benefits from this captive labor force, keeping operating costs low and selling cheap goods to government agencies and private companies (ACLU). Regularly these employees are from a targeted group, being discriminated against due to being part of that group, whether that is being black, working class, or of another group. In the United States, black people are incarcerated at a rate of more than five times the rate of white people (NAACP). Similarly, fast fashion companies like Shein rely on undercompensated labor to produce their clothing lines. Shein’s workers, as seen through many photographs, often are poor Chinese women. This is similar to the demographic targeting seen in American slavery. The speaker of the poem cries in the middle of the poem “I am black, I am black” in her discussion of the treatment of people of her race by other races, the treatment of black people by white people in the Pre-Civil War era (Browning). Slave masters required long hours of working from their slaves. Similarly, Shein’s suppliers have been found to subject workers to excessive overtime, with some staff members working up to 75-hour weeks (Jones). This morphed form of slavery, a form of exploitive labor, is integrated in The United States social and economic spheres. It is unknown to many, yet always known to those who champion justice, have been directly negatively hurt by the system, or those who monetarily benefit from the system (Wybrow p. 6). Browning’s poem also tried to champion justice with her visceral, enlightening poem on the distress of the laborer, the laborer made real and humanized as a young woman and a mother. These practices mirror the exploitation faced by the runaway slave in Browning’s poem, emphasizing the urgent need for ethical labor practices that pay people well, do not coerce them into labor, and do not discriminate against them. The negative effects of discrimination and exploitive labor can be seen in the laments of the speaker when she says “Our blackness shuts like prison bars: / The poor souls crouch so far behind, / That never a comfort can they find / By reaching through the prison-bars.” (Browning).

“The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” serves as an important literary event, as it is a poignant reminder of historical and contemporary struggles against forced labor. Whether in the context of 19th-century slavery or modern-day sweatshops, the fight for fair treatment and human rights remains crucial. Browning’s words continue to resonate, urging all her readers to examine the impact of labor decision-making and advocate for justice.

Works Cited:

ACLU. “Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers.” American Civil Liberties

Union, 15 June 2022, https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploitation-of-inc...

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point.” Poeticous,

www.poeticous.com/elizabeth-barrett-browning/the-runaway-slave-at-pilgri....

BROWNING (ELIZABETH BARRETT) The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point, c.1885;

and Another. https://www.bonhams.com/auction/20136/lot/9/browning-elizabeth-barrett-t...

Jones, Lora. “Shein Suppliers’ Workers Doing 75-Hour Week, Finds Probe.” BBC News, 12

Nov. 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59245708.

Shabazz, Rahiem. “12 Major Corporations Benefiting from the Prison Industrial

Complex.” Malta Justice Initiative, 2021, http://maltajusticeinitiative.org/12-major-corporations-benefiting-from-...

U.S. Constitution. Amend. XIII, Sec. 1.
Wybrow, Caeley. Our Prison System’S Labor. 2021. Indiana University Purdue