Welcome to The Runaway Chronicles - a weekly web journal exploring fugitivity and related notions to launch on Monday, May 13th of 2024.
A published flyer containing the text of the Fugitive Slave Law with a reminder at the top of the flyer to freemen of Massachusetts that Representative Samuel A. Eliot of Boston voted for the law. Courtesy of the Atlanta University Center, Robert Woodruff Library
Read and Ponder
Why would anyone flee enslavement accompanied by an 80-year-old man?
Why is Charles Waddell Chesnutt’s name almost impossible to spell correctly?
What was a muslin manumission?
What can birds of the Francis Beidler Audubon Sanctuary teach us about the Maroon communities in South Carolina?
What had Moses done beyond just escaping, that so enraged his enslaver, T. J. Pickens?
What was really at stake in the Reverend Alexander Crummell’s disgust with John C Calhoun?
What was a “Sherman Cutloose”?
“The Runaway Chronicles” will be a series of explorations into notions of fugitivity, as befits the title. In this collection, I will share some of the oddities, imponderables and small moments that illuminate bigger issues in the field of inquiry - questions about how we imagine the Underground Railroad, how to parse a runaway advertisement, and speculations about particular men and women whose precise histories elude me. Some reflections on how these stories challenge us for our current times. Sometimes I’ll just share something marvelous.
The series title also references ideas which were ones that, well…they ran away from me: anecdotes which ended up on the cutting room floor might land here, as well as incidents which I may have written about in other iterations but which deserve a new showcase in this different kind of public context. Some may be ideas that I want to run with further. Some may be ideas I hope to put out in the world so that someone else can run away with them.
It is hard to open up one’s thinking with all of its foibles and shortcomings to the public, but I am a great believer in the kindness of my comrades out there. I’ll aim to update this series four-five times a month at least through to 2025.
If you’re intrigued by any of my speculations, please let me know! If you’re inspired or have ideas we can puzzle through together, do tell. And if you use my ideas, please cite them (note the handy citation info below each post).
Best (or as I’ve often typed), Beset,
Susanna Ashton
PS: To cite, try this Chicago-style format
Ashton, Susanna. "The Runaway Chronicles - a web journal series exploring fugitivity and related notions to launch May 13th of 2024." The Runaway Chronicles. Squarespace. 2/18/2024 https://susannaashton.com/the-runaway-chronicles/preview
A Plausible Man, by Susanna Ashton