R. J. M. Blackett, Vanderbilt University, has published The Captive's Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery with Cambridge University Press. From the publisher:
"I don’t use the word 'magisterial' lightly, but it is exactly the right description for Richard J. M. Blackett’s The Captive’s Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery. There is no better, deeper, or more comprehensive discussion of the struggle of fugitive slaves in the antebellum era." -Steven Lubet
"The Captive’s Quest for Freedom is the most important, thorough, and revealing study ever written of fugitive slaves in American history. The book is timely; it demonstrates in depth the nature and meaning of America's first great refugee crisis and the explosive politics that followed in its wake. May the whole of our reading public finally understand the significance of the Fugitive Slave Act in 'our history and our heritage'. It resonates still as a watch warning in our own time." -David W. Blight
"Richard J. M. Blackett’s epic new history of the Fugitive Slave Law is both a brilliant analysis of the politics of disunion, and a compelling argument for the centrality of African American resistance to the great national unraveling of the 1850s. At the heart of the book, though, are the human beings whose decision to escape slavery prompted slaveholders to demand the Law in the first place, and whose determination to keep risking everything even after its passage pushed the United States towards a terrible and necessary reckoning." -Nicholas Guyatt
Further information is available here.
Praise for the book:This magisterial study, ten years in the making by one of the field's most distinguished historians, will be the first to explore the impact fugitive slaves had on the politics of the critical decade leading up to the Civil War. Through the close reading of diverse sources ranging from government documents to personal accounts, Richard J. M. Blackett traces the decisions of slaves to escape, the actions of those who assisted them, the many ways black communities responded to the capture of fugitive slaves, and how local laws either buttressed or undermined enforcement of the federal law. Every effort to enforce the law in northern communities produced levels of subversion that generated national debate so much so that, on the eve of secession, many in the South, looking back on the decade, could argue that the law had been effectively subverted by those individuals and states who assisted fleeing slaves.
"I don’t use the word 'magisterial' lightly, but it is exactly the right description for Richard J. M. Blackett’s The Captive’s Quest for Freedom: Fugitive Slaves, the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and the Politics of Slavery. There is no better, deeper, or more comprehensive discussion of the struggle of fugitive slaves in the antebellum era." -Steven Lubet
"The Captive’s Quest for Freedom is the most important, thorough, and revealing study ever written of fugitive slaves in American history. The book is timely; it demonstrates in depth the nature and meaning of America's first great refugee crisis and the explosive politics that followed in its wake. May the whole of our reading public finally understand the significance of the Fugitive Slave Act in 'our history and our heritage'. It resonates still as a watch warning in our own time." -David W. Blight
"Richard J. M. Blackett’s epic new history of the Fugitive Slave Law is both a brilliant analysis of the politics of disunion, and a compelling argument for the centrality of African American resistance to the great national unraveling of the 1850s. At the heart of the book, though, are the human beings whose decision to escape slavery prompted slaveholders to demand the Law in the first place, and whose determination to keep risking everything even after its passage pushed the United States towards a terrible and necessary reckoning." -Nicholas Guyatt
Further information is available here.
