65 pages • 2 hours read
Erica Armstrong DunbarNever Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 2-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “New York-Bound”
Picking up after the end of the American Revolution, Chapter 2 begins within the context of the fledgling United States, with George Washington returning home from the war tired and lacking faith in the country he’d helped to get started. Washington is elected president unanimously and he and his family prepare to move to New York, then the site of the new nation’s capital.
Dunbar emphasizes Washington’s ties to Virginia, his deep desire to return there after the war, and his reluctance to leave once elected president. From Washington’s perspective, the desires are rooted in a yearning for family and rest; from Dunbar’s perspective, Washington’s deep ties to Virginia inform his attitudes regarding slavery even as other parts of the country–where he would have to live as president–were pulling in other directions. George leaves for New York, leaving Martha to tie up matters in Virginia before joining him. Dunbar carries George’s ties to the South forward to Martha, who is even more reluctant to leave and entrenched in her beliefs regarding slavery.
In Chapter 2, Dunbar also lays the seeds for her book-long discussion of Black freedom and its history, beginning by comparing attitudes in the North to those in the South. She speculates that the prospect of going north with the Washingtons may have been exciting for the enslaved individuals, who may have viewed it as a potential opportunity for escape sometime in the future. These tentative ideas are the beginnings of how the free Black community and its white supporters helped shape Judge’s life.
Dunbar rounds out the picture of the Washingtons’ new life by describing each of the six enslaved people (in addition to Judge) that were taken to New York during the first move. She wraps up by introducing Philadelphia as a stopping point on Martha (and Judge)’s journey to New York, a location that ends up being critical to Judge’s story as well as to the abolitionist movement.
Chapter 3 Summary: “New York in Black and White”
Chapter 3 begins with a look at abolitionist sentiments in New York in the period leading up to the Washingtons’ arrival. Dunbar relates the story of Molly, a woman who escaped slavery and was saved by the New York Manumission Society: white men who supported putting an end to slavery and who helped support the free Black movement in New York. She later adds to her account of New York’s tendencies away from slavery with descriptions of religious groups and political leaders who believed that slavery should end—if not immediately, then at least in the future.
Once Martha arrives in New York, Judge becomes one of the most “high-profile bondwomen in the new nation” (36), acting as Martha’s primary support and providing a range of domestic services. The Washingtons’ grand new estate necessitates hiring white indentured servants, who then share living quarters with the Black enslaved people. Dunbar points out that Judge likely had never spent so much time living so closely with white people.
As they adjust to life in New York, the Washingtons become more accustomed to their new position, holding social and political gatherings. Though the preparation for these gatherings is taxing, they also afford Judge some personal free time, something she would never have had at Mount Vernon. Judge is also spared much of the most arduous work typically assigned to enslaved Black women due to her status as the first lady’s personal bondwoman.
As Judge becomes acquainted with the North, she must also navigate further difficulties in the Washington home. George falls gravely ill but recovers, the entire household relocates to a larger home, and George falls gravely ill once again. Judge must handle all of Martha’s distress and worry before the Washingtons return to Mount Vernon for a visit.
Chapters 2-3 Analysis
Many of the text’s main themes begin developing in Chapters 2 and 3, coinciding with the Washingtons’ and Judge’s exposure to life in the North. Much of the chapters focus on George and Martha’s states of mind dealing with George’s new position and their shared reluctance to leave Virginia. Dunbar leans on the Washingtons’ affinity for the South as a possible explanation of—but not excuse for—their adherence to slavery well after other parts of the country were moving in another direction, highlighting the theme of Freedom and the Myth of the “Noble” Enslaver. Perhaps more importantly, Martha’s displeasure with moving continues Dunbar’s depiction of her as a moody and difficult boss, which contributes to Judge’s precarious position and illustrates Martha’s unconscious hypocrisy in believing that she treats her “favored” slaves well. This portion of the novel illustrates how this country’s major institutions were constructed and managed by enslaved labor, which emphasizes the text’s theme of The Need to Reexamine History and how the US has developed in the 200 years since its founding.
Chapters 2 and 3 also introduce Northern attitudes toward slavery and the specific societies, personnel, and actions that helped push for abolition. Molly’s story introduces the New York Manumission Society, highlighting the efforts of white Northerners in the abolition movement. The New York Manumission Society was established in 1785 to promote the abolition of slavery and the manumission, or freeing, of enslaved African Americans in New York State. It was founded amid the changing attitudes toward slavery in the post-Revolutionary War era and played a pivotal role in the early abolitionist movement. The principles of liberty and equality espoused during the American Revolution inspired a growing number of white individuals to question the morality and justice of slavery. This ideological shift, coupled with the influence of religious groups like the Quakers, laid the groundwork for abolitionist organizations.
This section introduces the presence of white indentured servants and how their roles differed from and overlapped with the roles of the Washingtons’ enslaved Black workers. Both white indentured servants and enslaved Black laborers were subject to harsh working conditions and exploitation, and both performed physically demanding work on plantation farms and in households. Both suffered from a lack of bodily autonomy and physical punishment, but their statuses also differed in significant ways. The main difference was that white indentured servants entered their contracts voluntarily to avoid imprisonment or to gain passage to America. The latter group was mainly poor European immigrants for whom indentured servitude was their only means of getting to the United States. Legally, indenture was temporary, whereas Black enslavement was hereditary. Contracts for indentured servitude lasted several years, and those contracted often earned income they could keep when their period of indenture ended. Enslaved Black people, on the contrary, had no legal rights and were their enslavers’ property; their children inherited their enslaved status, and buying freedom for oneself or one’s family was rare. Enslaved Black people had few personal possessions, and even if they gained freedom, they still faced significant barriers to autonomy and wealth, whereas white indentured servants could more easily integrate into society after their servitude. Describing Judge’s experience of living alongside white indentured laborers in the Black enslaved quarters highlights the differences in their situations even though these groups seem similar on the surface.
This section highlights other intersections of Black and white individuals. Judge’s survival after her eventual escape depended on the assistance of free Black people and white supporters of emancipation. Including historical information and anecdotes about free Black persons with those who escaped enslavement allows Dunbar to establish a juxtaposition between the entrenched South (represented by the Washingtons) and the more progressive North, a difference of opinions that would, nearly 100 years later, lead to the US Civil War.
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