Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America by Karen Cook Bell

Abstract

Reviewed by: Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America by Karen Cook Bell Jessica Blake Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America. By Karen Cook Bell. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. viii, 248. $24.95, ISBN 978-1-108-83154-3.) In 1770, an enslaved "mulatto" woman named Margaret Grant fled her enslaver in Baltimore, only to be recaptured and resold. She escaped again while pregnant in 1773, before disappearing from the historical record, perhaps as a free woman. In Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America, Karen Cook Bell contends that "Black women … built a culture and a politics of resistance to slavery" through running away in the late eighteenth century (p. 161). Drawing on runaway advertisements, court cases, and abolitionist narratives, Cook Bell reframes women's flight as defiance against the institution of slavery. Foundational work by Sylvia R. Frey and Gary B. Nash focuses on the contributions of Black men and women who fought and labored during the American Revolution. Building on scholarship by Deborah Gray White and Stephanie M. H. Camp, Cook Bell considers the unique obstacles that women faced when trying to secure their freedom. Unlike men, enslaved women had fewer opportunities to travel and thus to break free. Motherhood further limited women's mobility, leaving them unable to move rapidly when pregnant or with young children in tow. Women had to collaborate with other enslaved people and members of society to plan their escape carefully. In five chronological chapters centered on the experiences of women around the American Revolution, Cook Bell explores individual portraits of escape. Chapter 1 focuses on how reproduction and motherhood made it more difficult for enslaved women to flee. Chapter 2 centers on the flight and recapture of Margaret Grant, a pregnant enslaved woman from Baltimore, Maryland. In chapters 3 and 4, Cook Bell pivots to other women, such as Elizabeth "Bett" [End Page 544] Freeman, who sued for her freedom by drawing on the revolutionary ideals expressed in the Massachusetts state constitution (1780), which declared all men "born free and equal" (p. 113). Chapter 5 follows enslaved women's refuge in countryside locations such as the Dismal Swamp of Virginia and the bayous of lower Louisiana. Cook Bell makes a compelling case that Black women took political action through flight and emancipation lawsuits. Elizabeth Freeman's use of the Massachusetts constitution most explicitly demonstrates Black women's adoption of new legal arguments, or to use the framework of Cook Bell, it reveals a new "radical consciousness" (p. 4). As much as Cook Bell interweaves rich storylines, she refrains from quantifying how many enslaved women escaped slavery, from where they escaped, and how their numbers changed over the course of the Revolution. Cook Bell offers captivating narratives of daring women, but she avoids discussion of whether the Revolutionary era inspired a larger or broader demographic group of women to run away. For example, by tracking fluctuations in runaway advertisements, Cook Bell could make a more persuasive claim about the widespread nature of enslaved women's politicization. In a more intriguing contribution, Cook Bell demonstrates that enslaved women forged a more revolutionary society through their collaborations with non-enslaved people. Both Grant and Freeman enlisted white men—a British convict and an abolitionist lawyer, respectively—to facilitate their efforts for independence. Likewise, runaways such as Maria exploited imperial discord between the Spanish and the French to build maroon enclaves in St. Malo, Louisiana. Certainly, enslaved women leveraged an awareness of colonial politics, but they also fostered relationships across race and class lines. In all, Cook Bell deftly pieces together engrossing stories of escape to draw out a larger, vibrant portrait of Black female resistance. Jessica Blake Austin Peay State University Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association