Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave

Never Caught

• Genre: Nonfiction; historical biography
• Originally Published: 2017
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: 13 chapters; author’s note, foreword, epilogue, interviews, and notes; approximately 272 pages; approximately 6 hours, 45 minutes on audio
• Central Concern: Never Caught unveils the story of Ona Judge, an enslaved woman owned by George and Martha Washington, who risked everything for freedom. Erica Armstrong Dunbar illuminates the challenges Judge faced, both in her daring escape and while living as a fugitive. This biography sheds light on the Washingtons’ determined efforts to recapture Judge, offering a critical reexamination of America’s first president and the contradictions of freedom in the nascent United States. Consequently, the narrative is both a personal account and a broader exploration of slavery in the American North and the founding era.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Descriptions of slavery, including the treatment of enslaved individuals and the systemic injustices they faced; racial discrimination; struggle for freedom; references to the deaths of family members; references to and threat of sexual violence including rape

Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Author

• Bio: American historian and academic; often explores African American history and women’s roles within it; work has focused on uncovering the hidden stories of Black women who have been marginalized in historical narratives
• Other Works: A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City (2008); She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman (2019)
• Awards: National Book Award (finalist, 2017); Frederick Douglass Book Award (2018)