Erica Armstrong Dunbar

It’s very hard to write history of people who were deliberately kept out of history/only reported on by the people who had a vested interest in disrespecting their humanity. Dunbar has to do a lot of speculating about what Judge would have seen and felt, but it’s still a powerful story, emphasizing that the Washingtons not only enslaved people but specifically schemed to ensure that bringing their enslaved people to Pennsylvania—a free state—would not lead to their freedom. And show more George Washington used his power as President, then former President, to continue to search for Judge and try to get local officials to help bring her back. show less

At the same time as the American Revolution was being fought and the Constitution being written and signed, the abolition movement was growing, as was the divide between Northern and Southern states. As George and Martha Washington reluctantly left their Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon, to spend time in New York and Philadelphia, the enslaved "servants" they brought with him got to see a world that looked different from their own, and were exposed to new ideas and new possibilities. Ona show more Judge, who was Martha's personal slave and seamstress, learned that if she stayed in Philadelphia for six months, she could be freed; but the Washingtons made sure all of the slaves they'd brought north with them made regular visits back to Mount Vernon to avoid this. Yet when Ona learned that Martha planned to give her to Martha's "spoiled brat" granddaughter Eliza Custis Law as a wedding present, she decided the risk of running away was worth it - and she succeeded. The cost was high - she never saw her family members again, she lived in poverty for most of her life, and she outlived her husband and children - but she had no regrets.

Front matter includes a timeline; back matter includes the newspaper interview with Ona, and a selected bibliography.

Quotes

The president and his wife had been brought up as children to believe that owning people of color was okay, just as it was acceptable that it was easier for them to achieve prosperity because they had been born into a prosperous family. What a child believes, however, often changes as new experiences and new people are encountered. (59)

To be a slave - even the favored slave of the wife of the president of the United States - was to be seen as inhuman. To be free was to be given your humanity back. (73)

Freedom did not erase racism. In fact, it could make racism worse. (124)

Ona's very escape proved that the idea of the "benevolent slave owner" was a lie. Enslavement was never preferable over freedom... (170) show less

I finished this in one day, which is saying something because reading has been difficult for me lately. But this is a conversational and engaging book. We have it in our adult collection at the library, but I would absolutely say it's a good fit for high school and even middle school readers. It's got plenty of detail about aspects of Tubman's life that I'd never heard about previously, as well as a style that manages to make her story feel almost intimate. I don't really know how to show more describe it well, but the author's style manages to challenge that pedestal we put certain historical figures onto that can make even the most fascinating or heroic of actions dry to read about. It's a page turner! And the art throughout is really excellent. Highly recommend, because if you're anything like me you'll definitely learn at least one or two things about this amazing woman's life and work. show less

I went to a reading last night at the Harvard Bookstore to hear this historian and scholar discuss her book. She stumbled across the protagonist, Ona Judge, while researching "free Blacks" in Philadelphia, her hometown. On Ona hangs such a tale! Why did she run? Why were the First President and his wife so determined that Ona be captured? Where and how did she go? Dunbar has pieced together a story largely based upon two interviews Ona Judge gave in the 1840s, when she was in her 70s. Every show more element of this history was new to me: the persistence of slavery in the North, the fact that Black men took to the dangerous life of a seaman so frequently, once they were free, how the enslaved women were always at the mercy of the sexual urges of each white man in their household, and how being a "house slave" put NO ONE on easy street. If anyone white ever stupidly says to you, "Well, my family never owned any slaves", just give them this riveting chronicle. If it doesn't wake them up, let them go. show less