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Erica Armstrong Dunbar

Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge Hardcover – February 7, 2017

by Erica Armstrong Dunbar (Author)

4.5 2,517 ratings

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Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction

“A fascinating and moving account of a courageous and resourceful woman. Beautifully written and utilizing previously untapped sources it sheds new light both on the father of our country and on the intersections of slavery and freedom.” —Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Fiery Trial and Gateway to Freedom

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 everything to escape the nation’s capital and reach freedom.

When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation’s capital. In setting up his household he took Tobias Lear, his celebrated secretary and eight slaves, including Ona Judge, about whom little has been written. 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. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire.

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. So, when the opportunity presented itself, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs.

At 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.

With impeccable research, 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.

Print length

272 pages
Language

English
Publisher

37 Ink
Publication date

February 7, 2017
Dimensions

6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1501126393
ISBN-13

978-1501126390
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Review

“A fascinating and moving account of a courageous and resourceful woman. Beautifully written and utilizing previously untapped sources, it sheds new light both on the father of our country and on the intersections of slavery and freedom in the flawed republic he helped to found.”
-- Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Fiery Trial and Gateway to Freedom

"Never Caught is the compelling story of Ona Judge Staines, the woman who successfully defied George and Martha Washington in order to live as free woman. With vivid prose and deep sympathy, Dunbar paints a portrait of woman whose life reveals the contradictions at the heart of the American founding: men like Washington fought for liberty for themselves even as they kept people like Ona Staines in bondage. There is no way to really know the Washingtons without knowing this story." -- Annette Gordon Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello

"A crisp and compulsively readable feat of research and storytelling." ― USA Today

"Totally engrossing and absolutely necessary for understanding the birth of the American Republic, Never Caught is richly human history from the vantage point of the enslaved fifth of the early American population. Here is Ona Judge’s (successful) quest for freedom, on one side, and, on the other, George and Martha Washington’s (vain) use of federal power to try to keep her enslaved.” -- Nell Irvin Painter, author of Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol

"Dunbar has teased out Ona Judge from the shadows of history and given us a determined woman who rejected life as a slave in the comfortable household of George Washington for the risks of freedom . We see Washington -- a man torn by conflicting sentiments about slavery -- in a new and ambiguous light, and plunge with Judge into the teeming cities of the young republic, where for the first time Americans are beginning to grapple with the contradiction between the Founders' ideals and the unyielding fact of slavery. No one who reads this book will think quite the same way about George and Martha Washington again." -- Fergus M. Bordewich, author of The First Congress

"Dunbar brings to life the forgotten story of a woman who fled enslavement from America’s First Family. Her mostly Northern story is a powerful reminder that the tentacles of slavery could reach from the South, all the way to the state of New Hampshire. The surprising part of this true history is not that she achieved her freedom, but the lengths to which George and Martha Washington would go to try to recapture a young woman who insulted them by rejecting bondage." -- Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Dean of Commonwealth Honors College and author of Mr & Ms. Prince

“In this riveting and thoroughly researched account of the life of Ona Judge Staines, historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar carefully and compellingly constructs enslaved life inside The President's House and in the larger urban and rural communities of the time. A true page-turner, readers will come away with a deeper appreciation of enslaved people’s lives and a disturbing portrait of George and Martha Washington as slave owners. This book will change the way we study the history of slavery in the U.S, the history of American Presidents, and especially the burgeoning field of black women’s history.” -- Daina Ramey Berry, Historian at the University of Texas at Austin and author of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh

“With the production of the Tony-award winning play, Hamilton, many Americans have been reminded of the noble actions of the nation’s fathers and mothers in birthing a new country founded on democracy, liberty, and freedom. In Never Caught historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar pulls back the curtain on their individual actions by focusing on Ona Judge, an enslaved woman owned by Martha and George Washington, who stole herself to freedom and refused to be reenslaved. Piecing together the fragments of a life, in vivid prose, Dunbar reminds us of the tremendous toll slavery visited on men and women of conscience and conviction, both black and white. This is a must read for anyone interested in this nation’s long pursuit of perfecting freedom.” -- Earl Lewis, President of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

"A startling, well-researched . . . narrative that seriously questions the intentions of our first president." ― Kirkus Reviews

“There are books that can take over your life: Try as you might, you can’t seem to escape their mysterious power. That’s the feeling I had when reading the tour de force, Never Caught.” ― Essence Magazine

"[Dunbar] sketches an evocative portrait of [Ona's] daily life, both before and after her risky escape. For the reader, as for Judge, George Washington the Founding Father takes a back seat to George Washington the slave master. ― Pacific Standard Magazine

"Dunbar weaves an unforgettable story about a courageous woman willing to risk everything for freedom." ― Real Simple

"Erica Armstrong Dunbar combines the known facts of Ona’s life in service to the Washingtons with vivid descriptions of the physical and emotional conditions early American slaves faced." ― New York Post

"Compulsively readible" ― USA Today

“A valuable addition to African-American history, Never Caught pays a triple dividend.” ― Richmond-Times Dispatch

“A story of extraordinary grit.” ― The Philadelphia Inquirer

Never Caught is a gripping story of courage of a black slave woman who sacrificed many things including her family to gain freedom. Never Caught shows freedom is more important than anything else. What makes Never Caught uniquely interesting and important is that this is one of the rare narratives from a black woman slave. It also shines light on the dark corners of American history and the first Family, the Washingtons. ― Washington Book Review

About the Author

Erica Armstrong Dunbar is the Charles and Mary Beard Professor of History at Rutgers University. Her first book, A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City, was published by Yale University Press in 2008. Her second book, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge was a 2017 finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and a winner of the 2018 Frederick Douglass Book Award. She is also the author of She Came to Slay, an illustrated tribute to Harriet Tubman, and Susie King Taylor and is the co-executive producer of the HBO series The Gilded Age.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ 37 Ink; Illustrated edition (February 7, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1501126393
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1501126390
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.08 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #299,669 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #784 in Women in History
- #1,011 in Black & African American Biographies
- #4,161 in U.S. State & Local History

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4.5 2,517 ratings

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Erica Armstrong Dunbar

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Erica Armstrong Dunbar is the Charles and Mary Beard Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University. She was born and raised in Philadelphia, reads all things related to African American History, and loves old school hip-hop.

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James D. Miller

A Fugitive Slave Emerges From The Shadows

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 26, 2023

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Nearly every American knows the basic outlines of United States’ favorite founding father and his wife, George and Martha Washington, the country’s first President and First Lady. From grade school to high school Americans are taught about the rise of George Washington from soldier to president, his trials on the battlefield and tribulations of the presidency. Martha lurks largely in her husband’s historical shadow, and further back in the shadows are the people of color whom the Washington’s enslaved.

One of the Washington’s enslaved emerges from the shadows of her owners and their fame in Erica Armstrong Dunbar’s book, “Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless pursuit of their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge.”

Upon the death of George Washington, Martha burned all of the correspondence between them, only a had full of letters survived, making details of their relationship and what they discussed vanish in a cloud of smoke. The Washingtons placed a couple of “Fugitive Slave” ads in newspapers, and Ona Judge herself gave a couple of very short newspaper interviews. That is the skeleton on which Ms. Dunbar hangs her narrative. What does survive is the Washington’s correspondence with the rest of the Washington & Custis families and those entrusted with the care of Mount Vernon, which gives muscle to the author’s narrative. Ms. Dunbar relies on educated speculation using phrases such as “possibly” or “could have” to clothe the corpse of her subject with skin. And lastly she breathes life into Ona Judge by placing her in the correct historical light, relating the various laws and social mores of the time in which she lived.

My only criticism is the books’ sensationalistic subtitle, “The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge.” After Ona Judge gained her freedom in Pennsylvania, the Washingtons only made two serious and untimately unsuccessful attempts to regain custody of their property and return her to Mount Vernon. I suspect this is at the hands of Ms. Dunbar’s publisher, 37 Ink, as a marketing ploy to sell more books.

“Never Caught” is meticulously researched and well written. At 272 pages it is a quick and easy read. It fills a void in the history of American slavery, the lives of George and Martha Washington, and of course Ona Judge herself.

One person found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Another Fascinating Read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 26, 2023

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Well written and easy to follow

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Susan Wood

Martha and George Washington

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 17, 2023

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Interesting read. A eye opener to attitudes then and current attitudes, the books cover, which portrayed her as brown when in actually she could pass as White. Martha never freed her slaves. George freed his.

One person found this helpful

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OLD1mIKE

Interesting Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 13, 2022

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Interesting book. Covering not only what is known or can be inferred about Ona’s life, but the cultural and Historical happenings around her. As mentioned by others, the author uses terms like “could have” and “possibly”. But historical and cultural events around us have an influence on our decision making.

Being an amateur genealogist, I know how hard it is to accurately infer causation or reasoning. But, there is a lot of known historical facts about president Washington’s years as president. There is a lot known about cultural issues, such as New York’s acceptance of slave ownership and Pennsylvanias “Gradual Emancipation” laws. Geography and point-in-time play a significant role in decision making. We know George shuffled his slaves to keep them from qualifying for emancipation. We know Ona choose to run away and accept the risks that independence brought. The author is good about separating what is absolutely known and what could have influenced Ona.

2 people found this helpful

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Lionel S. Taylor

A Chapter In The Story of George Washington Most Have Never Heard.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 11, 2018

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I am probably like a lot of people in that i know the general outline of George and Martha Washington's life from what I learned in high school but beyond that I am not too familiar with the details. I knew that Washington was wealthy and made his money from a tobacco plantation but beyond that that is about all we hear about the hundreds of slaves that he owned that created his family's vast wealth. This book goes a long way towards filling in that gap and reveling a part of the Washington's lives that I would imagine most people are not all that familiar with. Ona Judge was one of two of the Washington's slaves that ran away and were successful in not being caught and returned. The author does a great job of telling her story and putting it in the context of what was going on at the time both in the nation and the Washington household. Telling the story of slaves is no easy task since the sources that are available are so thing when it comes to first person accounts of the lives of the enslaved. They are in effect invisible to historians to a certain degree and this allows them to be ignored and the role the played and the hardships they endured to be downplayed. Never Caught pulls back the veil on a small part of that by telling this story. The author has to do a fair amount of speculation about Judge's motivations but makes a convincing case for what she did and why she did it. If I have one criticism of the book I would have liked to have had more of judge's own words in the book as limited as they may have been. This book is a quick and interesting read and would be of interest to anyone wanting to lean more about the early history of this country as well as well as the the lives of out first president and how slavery was an issue even at the beginning of this nations history.

36 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

loulou

Compelling story

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 22, 2017

Verified Purchase

Beyond the story of the runaway. This book dismantles the myth of the plight of the house slave vs the field slave as one status is better than the other,it questions the well fed slave vs the poor and free .what it means to be a enslaved women ,what a compelling and eye opening read finished it in one night

2 people found this helpful

danusiaf

Easy read

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 8, 2020

Verified Purchase

Interesting & informative
Well written , reads almost like a novel , loved it

Caroline

Four Stars

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

It was great as described.

PJ B'ham

Intriguing Read About George Washington’s Conflicted LIfe

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 18, 2022

Verified Purchase

A most intriguing read about Washington’s life as a slave-holder, husband & politician. On the basis of what has been recounted in this book, it is surprising that he made arrangements for the eventual emancipation of all of his slaves upon his death despite his embrace of slavery for most of his life.
Ona Judge’s life: I’m disappointed that so much of what is written is speculative and, whilst understandable in the light of definitive information being available, it inevitably detracts from the authority of the biography.
It is understood that the author has tried to make an honest account of Ona’s life from what information was at hand.

Marilyn

Never caught

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 29, 2022

Verified Purchase

I loved this book. The story of on on a was so inspiring. What great courage she possessed. Her determination to have freedom throughout her life was to be commended. A truly wonderful lady and so well written by Erica. Excellent
Marilyn HInks

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