A startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never Caught is the powerful story about a daring woman of “extraordinary grit” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation’s capital. In setting up his household he brought along nine slaves, including Ona Judge. As the President grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn’t abide: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire.
Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, she was denied freedom. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property.
“A crisp and compulsively readable feat of research and storytelling” (USA TODAY), historian and National Book Award finalist Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked everything to gain freedom from the famous founding father and most powerful man in the United States at the time. - (Findaway World Llc)
A startling and eye-opening look into America's First Family, Never Caught is the powerful story about a daring woman of 'extraordinary grit' (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation's capital. In setting up his household he brought along nine slaves, including Ona Judge. As the President grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn't abide: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire.
Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, she was denied freedom. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property.
"A crisp and compulsively readable feat of research and storytelling' (USA TODAY), historian and National Book Award finalist Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked everything to gain freedom from the famous founding father. - (Simon and Schuster)
A startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never Caught is the powerful story about a daring woman of “extraordinary grit” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation’s capital. In setting up his household he brought along nine slaves, including Ona Judge. As the President grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn’t abide: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire.
Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, she was denied freedom. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property.
“A crisp and compulsively readable feat of research and storytelling” (USA TODAY), historian and National Book Award finalist Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked everything to gain freedom from the famous founding father and most powerful man in the United States at the time. - (Simon and Schuster)
Erica Armstrong Dunbar is the Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University. Her first book, A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City, was published by Yale University Press in 2008. Her second book, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge was a 2017 finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and a winner of the 2018 Frederick Douglass Book Award. She is also the author of She Came to Slay, an illustrated tribute to Harriet Tubman, and the co-executive producer of the HBO series The Gilded Age. - (Simon and Schuster)
Booklist Reviews
Ona Judge was born into slavery as the property of Martha Washington. She became a favorite house slave, attending to Martha at all hours of the day. When George Washington won the presidency, she joined the First Family in New York and later Philadelphia. At the time, Pennsylvania law declared that slaves must be emancipated after six months in the state. In order to skirt the law, Washington regularly sent his slaves back to Virginia to "reset" their six-month clocks and keep them enslaved. When Martha Washington decided to give Ona to her daughter as a wedding present, Ona escaped to New Hampshire. The Washingtons pursued her for years, refusing to accept that she wanted to be free. In this narrative history, professor Dunbar explores the horrific nature of slavery through the lives of Ona and other slaves in Washington's household. Ona's story provides critical insights into the experiences of slaves and free black people in the antebellum period. Never Caught is an important read for anyone interested in American history. Copyright 2017 Booklist Reviews.
Library Journal Reviews
Judge, a 22-year-old enslaved woman owned by George Washington, escaped in 1796 from the president's temporary home in Philadelphia, then the seat of the new American government, to freedom in New England. (LJ 12/16)
Copyright 2017 Library Journal.
Library Journal Reviews
As President George Washington's second term was coming to a close, one of his household slaves escaped to freedom, never to return. Oney "Ona" Judge (1773–1848) was born into slavery and worked as a dressmaker and attendant for First Lady Martha Washington. Her story is remarkable for its daring, success, and what it reveals about the personal lives and beliefs of the Washingtons. Judge fled to New Hampshire where she lived for nearly another half century as a freewoman, despite repeated attempts by an angry Washington to capture and return her to his plantation. Dunbar (history, Univ. of Delaware) has the difficult task of reconstructing a slave narrative when few facts are from Judge herself. Other than a handful of interviews given at the end of her life, Judge's experiences were never recorded, leaving Dunbar to build the account from the extensive record of the Washington family's domestic life, filling in likely details from other slave autobiographies. VERDICT This work adds new insights into the little-known story of Ona Judge and provides an important look at America's first president from the perspective of a woman he enslaved. Recommended for readers interested in U.S. history.—Nicholas Graham, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Copyright 2016 Library Journal.
Library Journal Reviews
President George Washington's slaves were repeatedly sent home from Philadelphia to circumvent Pennsylvania law requiring that slaves be manumitted after six months of residency. One slave, 22-year-old Ona Judge, risked everything to escape to New England—and freedom. Look for major promotion at ALA.. Copyright 2016 Library Journal.
