Escaping Servitude

A Documentary History of Runaway Servants in Eighteenth-Century Virginia

By: Antonio T. Bly, Tamia Haygood

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Paperback | 29 August 2016

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456 Pages

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22.6 x 15.2 x 3.2

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Escaping Servitude: A Documentary History of Runaway Servants in Eighteenth-Century Virginia is an edited collection of runaway servant advertisements that appeared in newspapers in eighteenth-century Virginia. In addition to documenting the fugitive in the Chesapeake, it adds to our understanding of indentured servitude and provides valuable insights into an important chapter in American history. Escaping Servitude's contribution to scholarship is threefold. First, it calls new attention to the scant scholarly body of work concerning indentured servitude; specifically, the work pertaining to fugitive servants. Highlighting well over one thousand accounts in which bondsmen and women ran away from their masters in Virginia during the colonial era, Escaping Servitude complements Abbot Emerson Smith's Colonist in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607-1776, Edmund Morgan's American, American Freedom, David W. Galenson's White Servitude in Colonial America, Anthony Parent Jr.'s Foul Means, Don Jordon and Michael Walsh's White Cargo, and others studies of American serfdom. Secondly, considering that there is currently no other documentary history in print for other colonies in British America, Escaping Servitude hopes to inspire similar histories for eighteenth-century Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and the northern colonies. Less known are the life stories of indentures who absconded in other parts of British America. Finally, in its explication of the lives of the unfree, Escaping Servitude hopes to expand the current academic discourse regarding the history of slavery and race.

Industry Reviews

Antonio Bly and Tamia Haygood have provided the first compendium of advertisements for indentured servants who fled bondage in early America. This excellent collection will enable students, laypeople, and historians alike to analyze and uncover the lives of thousands of people who previously have remained relatively unknown. -- Billy Smith, Montana State University
Newspaper notices of fugitive slaves are relatively common fare in history texts and in the broader US historical consciousness. Lesser known are contemporaneous published newspaper notices of runaway servants of mainly European descent who fled to escape bondage. This study by historians Bly and Haygood provides a rich source of primary documents in the form of chronologically arranged transcriptions of all notices of runaway servants appearing in the Virginia Gazette and other newspapers over more than six decades of the 18th century. Although limited to Virginia, the work presents a unique perspective on an era of American history when men and women who were either indentured, apprentices in servitude, or convicts managed to escape their plight. The resultant notices provide rich details about the lives of these bondmen and bondwomen. There is an extensive introduction to the topic of servitude as well as a glossary of 18th-century vocabulary. . . .The authors do provide tables of aggregated data describing various characteristics of the servants. . . .A good addition to all academic libraries. Summing Up: Recommended. Undergraduates through researchers/faculty. * CHOICE *

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