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Never caught, the Washingtons' relentless pursuit of their runaway slave, Ona Judge, Erica Armstrong Dunbar

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-240) and index

individual biography

genealogical tablesillustrations

index present

non fiction

Never caught

bibliography

Erica Armstrong Dunbar

the Washingtons' relentless pursuit of their runaway slave, Ona Judge

When George and Martha Washington moved from Virginia to Philadelphia, then the seat of the nation's capital, they took nine enslaved people with them. Slavery, in Philadelphia at least, was looked down upon and there was even a law requiring slaveholders to free their slaves after six months. George Washington thought he could outwit and circumvent the law by sending his slaves south every six months, thereby resetting the clock. Among the slaves to figure out this subterfuge was Ona Judge, Martha Washington's chief attendant. Having interacted with Philadelphia's sizable free black community, Ona Judge longed for liberation. Risking everything she knew, leaving behind everyone she loved and had known her entire life, she fled. Never Caught examines the life of an eighteenth-century fugitive woman and provides a new look at George Washington's relationship to slavery

adult