The 250th anniversary of American independence in 2026 provides us with an opportunity to think about what freedom meant to different people in early America. This project is a growing resource of short stories of enslaved people who attempted to seize their own freedom by escaping, many in revolutionary America but others in the British Caribbean, Canada, and Great Britain itself between the mid-seventeenth century and the end of the revolutionary era in about 1815. These short essays are all based on original research and analysis, and potential contributors are invited to write and submit their own stories for possible publication on this website.
Escaping slavery and declaring freedom was incredibly dangerous. Those who attempted to liberate themselves risked violence, mutilation and even death, and an uncertain future often far from family and friends. Yet in almost all cases we know very little about most of those who escaped, and in many cases all that survives are the newspaper advertisements describing the freedom seekers and offering rewards for their capture and return. These advertisements are usually short with few details, and they do not present the freedom seeker as he or she understood themselves. Instead, they provide the biased, racist view of an enslaver who regarded the freedom seeker as property.
However biased and incomplete these advertisements may be, they offer hints and suggestions about the people who challenged their enslavement. It is presumptuous to think that hundreds of years later we can truly know who these people were, the ways in which they made sense of their lives, their beliefs, hopes and dreams, or even precisely why they escaped and what they hoped to achieve. But with both research and careful writing we can imagine possible explanations and stories behind some freedom seekers. This is why the short essays featured in this project are called “stories,” for although they are carefully documented, we can never be sure about the actions and inner lives of the freedom seekers who are cursorily described in centuries-old newspaper advertisements. We hope that by researching and imagining in this careful fashion we can encourage readers to think about the people who so desperately sought freedom.