The fact that so many of the emotional beats of the narrative seemed unattached to primary sources left me second-guessing every human-related conclusion Dunbar tried to draw.
Maybe Ona wasn't sad to see that fellow slave go back to Virginia maybe she and he never got along and she was glad he was going away! But I found it incredibly uncomfortable to read. Lots of footnotes, lots of "proof" of whatever is being asserted.ĭunbar's tendency, then, to impute feelings or motives to historical figures without any basis in primary sources may be typical of historical biographies-I don't know. To be fair, the history I read tends to be either juvenile/YA or about objects (salt, paper, etc.), so I'm accustomed to a very pared-down just-the-facts-ma'am approach to historical writing. I can say that reading it once would've been sufficient.Īnd then there's the attribution of emotions and motives to the various people populating Ona's story. I can't tell you how many times I had to read that domestic servants' lives in the late eighteenth century were backbreaking and onerous. In addition to delving into what feels like irrelevant historical details, Dunbar tends to repeat herself. Why on earth should I care what the Washingtons' house in Philadelphia looked like? I'm here for Ona Judge! Part of the reason for that is that, while the title, subtitle, and summary promise an exciting pursuit of a daring runaway slave, half the book is actually just historical description of the Washingtons' movements around the country, accompanied by X slaves and living in Y houses and hosting thus and such parties and struggling with this and that health issues. She's clearly a woman of grit, determination, resourcefulness, and strength of belief, and there are far too few women from her time period and experiences known to history.But I did not really enjoy this portrayal of her story. I'm so glad Ona Judge's story is abroad in the world. Impeccably researched, historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked it all to gain freedom from the famous founding father. Yet freedom would not come without its costs.Īt 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. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, the few pleasantries she was afforded were nothing compared to freedom, a glimpse of which she encountered first-hand in Philadelphia. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire.
Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law.
#Ona judge book free#
As he grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn’t get his arms around: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. In setting up his household he took Tobias Lear, his celebrated secretary, and nine slaves, including Ona Judge, about which little has been written.
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, after a brief stay in New York. A startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never Caught is the powerful narrative of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s runaway slave who risked it all to escape the nation’s capital and reach freedom.
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