Never Caught Themes

In Never Caught, historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar tells the story of Ona “Oney” Judge Staines. Born into slavery at George and Martha Washington’s Mount Vernon plantation, Ona was the daughter of one of Martha Custis Washington’s slaves and a white indentured servant. Throughout the book, as Dunbar explores the ravages of slavery and the devastating effects of a life lived in bondage, she also shows how slaveholders cruelly and wrongly used the…

In Never Caught, historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar seeks to tell the story of Ona “Oney” Judge Staines, one of George and Martha Washington’s slaves. As an enslaved Black woman, Ona was denied freedom, agency, and autonomy throughout her entire life, even after she escaped from bondage and began living as a “free” woman in New Hampshire. Throughout the book, Dunbar attempts to restore what was lost of Ona’s story. As Dunbar uses…

For centuries, American slaveholders used the rhetoric of paternalism and benevolence to justify the maintenance of the institution of slavery—especially as Northern states began to push back against the strict, unjust laws that held Black people in bondage for life. Throughout Never Caught, historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar shows how the growing free Black communities in New York, Philadelphia, and New Hampshire aided Ona Judge Staines in her quest for liberty, helping her to realize…