Jesse Olsavsky is Assistant Professor of History at Duke Kunshan University. This interview is based on his new book, The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835–1861 (LSU Press, 2022). JF: What led you to...
fugitive slaves
The Author’s Corner with Damian Pargas
Damian Pargas is Professor of the History and Culture of North America at Leiden University. This interview is based on his new book, Freedom Seekers: Fugitive Slaves in North America, 1800–1860 (Cambridge University Press, 2021). JF: What led you to...
The Author’s Corner with Jeffrey Einboden
Jeffrey Einboden is Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor at Northern Illinois University. This interview is based on his new book, Jefferson’s Muslim Fugitives: The Lost Story of Enslaved Africans, their Arabic Letters, and an American President (Oxford University Press, 2020)....
The Author’s Corner with Robert Churchill
Robert Churchill is Associate Professor of History at the University of Hartford. This interview is based on his new book, The Underground Railroad and the Geography of Violence in Antebellum America (Cambridge University Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write The Underground...
Sharing the Stories of Fugitive Slaves
Freedom on the Move is a digital project that shares the stories of fugitive slaves. Learn more about it here. Five of the historians involved with the project introduce us to the project in a recent piece at The Washington Post. ...
The Problem of “Reconciling Irreconcilable Values”
Andrew Delbanco‘s new book is titled The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul From the Revolution to the Civil War. While I was on the road last week I listened to Delbanco’s interview with Terry...
Free Blacks as Refugees
Stephen Kantrowitz is the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of History, African American Studies, and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In a recent essay at Boston Review he compares the racial plight of escaped slaves and free blacks in...
The Author’s Corner with Matthew J. Clavin
Matthew J. Clavin is Associate Professor of History at University of Houston. This interview is based on his new book, Aiming for Pensacola (Harvard University Press, 2015). JF: What led you to write Aiming for Pensacola? MC: After receiving my...