“Pretends to Be Free:” Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey

Important documents, and painstaking scholarship, become more significant over time. ’Pretends to Be Free’ was a revelation two decades ago, and it remains one today. The first slave narratives were the ones told by the master class, but they are no less informative for that—especially when collected with such care and contextualized with recent and sympathetic scholarship.—David Waldstreicher, The Graduate Center, City University of New York