A compilation of 12 first-person accounts of the runaway slave phenomenon spanning eight decades. Told in the voices of the runaway slaves themselves, these narratives reveal the extraordinary and often innovative ways that these men and women sought freedom and demanded citizenship. Also included is an essay by UCLA history professor Brenda Stevenson that contextualizes these narratives, as well as a look into the daily life of a slave. Divided into...

In December of 1850, a faculty wife in Brunswick, Maine, named Harriet Beecher Stowe hid a fugitive slave in her house. While John Andrew Jackson stayed for only one night, he made a lasting impression: drawing from this experience, Stowe began to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin, one of the most influential books in American history and the novel that helped inspire the overthrow of slavery in the United States. A Plausible Man unfolds as a historical detective...

Uncle Tom, the hero of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, is generally viewed as a humble, even obsequious character, symbolizing African-Americans' internalization of their oppression. But, as anti-human trafficking activist Brock's vivid biography shows, Josiah Henson, on whom Tom was based, liberated not only himself but many of his fellow slaves. Born on a Maryland plantation in the late 18th century, Henson becomes an overseer...

"This title examines the life and death of Shields Green"-- Provided by publisher.

Philadelphia, 1825. Five young, free black boys are lured onto a small ship with the promise of food and pay. They are instead met with blindfolds, ropes, and knives. Over four long months, their kidnappers drive them overland into the Cotton Kingdom to be sold as slaves. Determined to resist, the boys form a tight brotherhood as they struggle to free themselves and find their way home. Their ordeal shines a spotlight on the Reverse Underground Railroad,...

"Separated from his mother when their master sold her, Joseph Godfrey grew up in bondage serving Minnesota's fur-trade elite. Escaping his masters' beatings, Godfrey sought refuge among the Dakota Indians who had befriended him as a child slave. Conscripted to join Dakota warriors in the U.S. Dakota War of 1862, Godfrey became the first of hundreds of men tried by a military court when the six-week war ended. Commander Henry Sibley, who created the...