"Pretends to Be Free": Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey

by Graham Russell Gao Hodges (Editor), Alan Edward Brown (Editor)

Overview

Republication on the twenty-fifth anniversary of "Pretends to Be Free" recognizes the signal importance of its sterling presentation of northern self-emancipation. Today, even more than a quarter-century ago, these fugitive slave notices are the best verbal snapshots of enslaved Americans before and during the American Revolution. Through these notices, readers can discover how enslaved blacks chose allegiance during our War for Independence.

Replete with a preface by Edward E. Baptist, the leading scholar of slavery and capitalism and director of a massive project aimed at digitalizing every escape notice, and with a new Introduction and teacher's guide by Graham Hodges, this new edition makes this documentary study more relevant than ever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823282159
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	01/08/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Graham Russell Gao Hodges (Edited By)
Graham Gao Hodges is George Dorland Langdon Jr. Professor of History and Africana and Latin American Studies at Colgate University.

Alan Edward Brown (Edited By)
Alan Edward Brown is an attorney in Minneapolis and Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations............................................................ vii

List of Tables in Appendix 1.............................................. ix

Acknowledgments ............................................................. xi

Introduction ..................................................................... xiii

A Note on the Text ............................................................ xli

A Note on Colonial and Revolutionary Newspapers...... xliii

Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition ..... xlvii

Teacher’s Guide to “Pretends to Be Free”........................ liii

Foreword by Edward E. Baptist........................................ lix

Runaway Slave Advertisements.......................................... 1

Appendix 1: Tables ......................................................... 305

Appendix 2: Hues and Cries ........................................... 321

Glossary .......................................................................... 329

Selected Bibliography..................................................... 335

Subject Index .................................................................. 345

Name Index..................................................................... 351

Editorial Reviews

Important documents, and painstaking scholarship, become more significant over time. 'Pretends to Be Free' was a revelation two decades ago, and it remains one today. The first slave narratives were the ones told by the master class, but they are no less informative for that--especially when collected with such care and contextualized with recent and sympathetic scholarship.---David Waldstreicher, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

From the Publisher

Important documents, and painstaking scholarship, become more significant over time. ‘Pretends to Be Free’ was a revelation two decades ago, and it remains one today. The first slave narratives were the ones told by the master class, but they are no less informative for that—especially when collected with such care and contextualized with recent and sympathetic scholarship.

David Waldstreicher