Fugitive slaves and their options

CAUTION: I have not read this book. I found it noted in the Legal History Blog.


Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America was recently published by the University Press of Florida; it's edited by Damian Alan Pargas, a professor of history at Leiden University. According to the publisher, the book aims to provide

"a groundbreaking continental view of fugitive slave migration, moving beyond the usual regional or national approaches to explore locations in Canada, the U.S. North and South, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Using newspapers, advertisements, and new demographic data, contributors show how events like the Revolutionary War and westward expansion shaped the slave experience."

Obviously this is not genealogy, but it might provide useful leads as well as historical and geographical context.

WorldCat shows it in many college and university libraries, where it can be viewed before deciding to lay down $90 for your own copy. 

Joel Thrall is back . . .

. . . in the fall issue of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register for the second and concluding installment, now visible to NEHGS members on line at American Ancestors and to patrons of good genealogy libraries.

His unlikely trajectory -- from pioneer/fugitive from justice to farmer to teacher to doctor to an early death in 1827 -- is not quite complete yet. His great-grandchildren scattered across the continent, but they had to be cut from the journal for space reasons. They will appear, most likely on line, in good time -- as will Joel's dozens of nieces and nephews. He was the oldest of ten children, all of whom have multiple descendants.


" 'Faultless Could I Love Him Less?' Joel S. Thrall and His Descendants in Vermont, Quebec, Ohio, and Texas," parts 1 and 2, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 172, Summer 2018:248-56, Fall 2018:341-52.