Never Caught: Ona Judge, the Washingtons, and the Relentless Pursuit of Their RunawaySlave

As President George Washington's second term was coming to a close, one of his household slaves escaped to freedom, never to return. Oney "Ona" Judge (1773–1848) was born into slavery and worked as a dressmaker and attendant for First Lady Martha Washington. Her story is remarkable for its daring, success, and what it reveals about the personal lives and beliefs of the Washingtons. Judge fled to New Hampshire where she lived for nearly another half century as a freewoman, despite repeated attempts by an angry Washington to capture and return her to his plantation. Dunbar (history, Univ. of Delaware) has the difficult task of reconstructing a slave narrative when few facts are from Judge herself. Other than a handful of interviews given at the end of her life, Judge's experiences were never recorded, leaving Dunbar to build the account from the extensive record of the Washington family's domestic life, filling in likely details from other slave autobiographies.