"Pretends to Be Free"

Republication on the twenty-fifth anniversary of “Pretends to Be Free” recognizes the signal importance of its sterling presentation of northern self-emancipation. Today, even more than a quarter-century ago, these fugitive slave notices are the best verbal snapshots of enslaved Americans before and during the American Revolution. Through these notices, readers can discover how enslaved blacks chose allegiance during our War for Independence.Replete with a preface by Edward E. Baptist, the leading scholar of slavery and capitalism and director of a massive project aimed at digitalizing every escape notice, and with a new Introduction and teacher’s guide by Graham Hodges, this new edition makes this documentary study more relevant than ever.

Important documents, and painstaking scholarship, become more significant over time. 'Pretends to Be Free' was a revelation two decades ago, and it remains one today. The first slave narratives were the ones told by the master class, but they are no less informative for that--especially when collected with such care and contextualized with recent and sympathetic scholarship.---David Waldstreicher, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Graham Russell Gao Hodges (Edited By) Graham Gao Hodges is George Dorland Langdon Jr. Professor of History and Africana and Latin American Studies at Colgate University.Alan Edward Brown (Edited By) Alan Edward Brown is an attorney in Minneapolis and Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy