Studies lawsuits to gain freedom for slaves on the grounds of their having traveled to free territory, starting with Somerset v. Stewart (England, 1772), Common

Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series Neither Fugitive nor Free draws on the freedom suit as recorded in the press and court documents to offer a c

This volume introduces a new way to study the experiences of runaway slaves by defining different “spaces of freedom” they inhabited. It also provides a gro

In the antebellum South, the presence of free people of color was problematic to the white population. Not only were they possible assistants to enslaved people

Free Soil in the Atlantic World examines the principle that slaves who crossed particular territorial frontiers- from European medieval cities to the Atlantic n