Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America

“This superb collection of essays highlights the continent-wide diversity of ‘spaces of freedom’ sought out by fugitive slaves in North America. It brilliantly evokes the motives and strategies, risks and experiences of thousands who ventured routes of refuge beyond the ‘drinking gourd’ that led to the North.”—Sydney Nathans, author of A Mind to Stay: White Plantation, Black Homeland

“Timely and important. A wide-ranging and stimulating set of essays on runaway slaves and geographies of self-emancipation in antebellum North America.”—Douglas B. Chambers, author of Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia

“This anthology is the first to make a conceptual distinction between formal, semiformal, and informal freedom of runaway slaves and the first to examine the plight of fugitives in a broad continental perspective.”—Loren Schweninger, author of Families in Crisis in the Old South: Divorce, Slavery, and the Law

“An original and complex rendering of the phenomenon of slave flight. … Makes an important contribution to the expanding conversation on American slavery.”—Journal of American History

“Moves the discussion of fugitive slaves forward by recognizing that their experiences were as varied as American slavery and should be consulted by scholars of North American slavery at all levels.”—Choice

“The well-researched and wide-ranging essays complicate our understanding of how, when, and where fugitive slaves throughout North America risked life and limb in search of freedom.”—H-Net

“A new primer for scholars searching to complicate the consistently dominant narrative of the Underground Railroad as a singular and secure pathway to racial liberation.”—Journal of Southern History

“Reveals compelling accounts of how freedom changed over time and space. … Encourages us to reconsider what advertisements reveal about the past. … Offer[s] the next generation of scholars a strong foundation upon which to stand.”—Historian

“Sophisticates our understanding of the geography of freedom in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. … A great contribution to the field, as it not only gathers the different directions that slaves took but also brings to light new ones.”—Civil War History

“A stimulating collection. … The essays in this volume range from reevaluations of the historical literature about runaways to presentations of exciting new research.”—North Carolina Historical Review

“Impressive. … A stellar volume that contains several important historiographic interventions and will spur additional research.”—Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research