Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction
A startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never
Caught is the powerful story about a daring woman of
“extraordinary grit” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
When George
Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his
beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of
the nation’s capital. In setting up his household he brought along
nine slaves, including Ona Judge. As the President grew accustomed to
Northern ways, there was one change he couldn’t abide: Pennsylvania
law required enslaved people be set free after six months of
residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to
circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down
south just as the clock was about to expire.
Though Ona Judge
lived a life of relative comfort, she was denied freedom. So, when
the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in
Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New
England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. At just
twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt
led by George Washington, who used his political and personal
contacts to recapture his property.
“A crisp and
compulsively readable feat of research and storytelling” (USA
TODAY), historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and
offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked
everything to gain freedom from the famous founding father.