Karen Cook Bell is Associate Professor of History at Boowey State University, with an expertise in slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and women’s history. She is the author of Claiming Freedom: Race, Kinship, and Land in Nineteenth-Century Georgia, and her most recent work, Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America. In this conversation, Bell sheds light on the undertold story of enslaved fugitive women, and the ways in which they risked everything to self-emancipate in the period before and after the Revolutionary War. Bell grounds her analysis around specific female fugitives, including “A Negro Wench Named Lucia” (Chapter One - 18th Century), “A Mulatto Women Named Margaret” (Chapter Two - Pre-Revolutionary Period), “A Well Dressed Woman Named Jenny” (Chapter Three - 1776-1781), and “A Negro Woman Called Bett” (Chapter 4 - Post-Revolutionary Period).

“I dedicate this book to all the nameless women whose stories have yet to be told. I’m hoping that with this book, the agency of Black women will be appreciated and recognized for what it was, and what it is — transformational. “ - Karen Cook Bell

Excerpt from an essay by Karen Cook Bell, via Black Perspectives (https://www.aaihs.org/black-perspectives/):

“During the American Revolution, one-third of fugitives were enslaved women.  Their desire for freedom did not originate with the American Revolution; however, the Revolution amplified their quest for freedom.  Enslaved women’s desire for freedom for themselves and their children propelled them to flee slavery during the Revolutionary War, a time when lack of oversight and opportunity from the presence of British troops created spaces for them to invoke the same philosophical arguments of liberty that white revolutionaries made in their own fierce struggle against oppression...The stories of Margaret, Jenny, and Bett reveal the precariousness of their lived experiences and their resolve for freedom.”

To learn more about fugitive slave newspaper ads, please visit Freedom on the Move at freedomonthemove.org

CONCEPTS/IDEAS/TERMS TO KNOW:

Petit Marronage | Grand Marronage

Lord Dunmore's Proclamation (1775) | Phillipsburg Proclamation (1779)

The Book of Negroes

“Performing Fugitivity” | “Soul Value” (Daina Ramey Berry) http://www.beacon.org/The-Price-for-Their-Pound-of-Flesh-P1367.aspx

COURT CASES / LEGAL ISSUES TO KNOW:

Elizabeth Freeman Case (1781) | Fugitive Slave Law (1793)

PEOPLE TO KNOW:

Phillis Wheatley https://poets.org/poet/phillis-wheatley

Ona Judge & William Lee (Enslaved by George Washington) https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/ona-judge

To connect with Karen Cook Bell, find her on Twitter @kbphd08, or visit karencookbell.com. To purchase Running from Bondage, and to support independent booksellers, please visit our collection at bookshop.org, or visit Cambridge University Press at Cambridge.org. To learn more about our other shows and events, including the first annual Pan-African Food Fest, please visit www.recollect.media.