Karen Cook Bell
Running from Bondage
Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America
RUNNING FROM BONDAGE
Karen Cook Bell
RUNNING FROM BONDAGE
9781108831543 Hardback
ENSLAVED WOMEN AND THEIR REMARKABLE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM IN
REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA
AUD $35.95 / NZD $38.95 Available July 2021
Karen Cook Bell, Bowie State University
About Running from Bondage tells the compelling stories of enslaved women, who comprised one-third of all runaways, and the ways in which they fled or attempted to flee bondage during and after the Revolutionary War. Karen Cook Bell’s enlightening and original contribution to the study of slave resistance in eighteenth-century America explores the individual and collective lives of these women and girls of diverse circumstances, while also providing details about what led them to escape. She demonstrates that there were in fact two wars being waged during the Revolutionary Era: a political revolution for independence from Great Britain and a social revolution for emancipation and equality in which Black women played an active role. Running from Bondage broadens and complicates how we study and teach this momentous event, one that emphasises the chances taken by these ‘Black founding mothers’ and the important contributions they made to the cause of liberty.
ENSLAVED WOMEN AND THEIR REMARKABLE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM IN
Reviews
‘Karen Cook Bell’s research brilliantly shows that the phenomenon of Black female flight in the period of slavery was not idiosyncratic but was, in fact, pervasive. This pathbreaking and beautifully written work centers the voices of Black women in slavery and abolition. A must-read.’ Anne C. Bailey, Binghamton University
REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA
‘In this new account of the American Revolution, Karen Cook Bell tells the story of how Black women flipped slavery’s geography of containment upside down and redrew it as a treasure map to self-liberation. Her deep dives into fugitive sources bring back amazing stories of women who seized a time of war and disruption as the opportunity to carry themselves and their loved ones out of bondage. After Running from Bondage, no account of this period will be complete unless it shows how Black women’s freedom-seeking brought about revolutionary changes.’ Edward E. Baptist, Cornell University
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