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Rating: 
Summary: A seminal work
Review: An excellent work in which the authors look intensely at one aspect of a subject (runaways) to throw light on the whole (i.e., slavery and how terrible it actually was). Very readable, excellent use of primary source materials. A little slow going at first, where there's not much analysis. The problems the first reviewer cited are due to gaps in the primary sources.
Rating: 
Summary: KIND OF HARD TO READ!
Review: Much research went into the writing of this book and the conclusions drawn from that research are interesting. I much enjoyed the book and can see where it would be a good source for further research into the subject. The authors were also kind enough to include a large section regarding their source material. However, I can't exactly say that the writing was of a style that would keep one awake for long periods of time. If you are looking for just entertainment value, look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Much research
Review: Much research went into the writing of this book and the conclusions drawn from that research are interesting. I much enjoyed the book and can see where it would be a good source for further research into the subject. The authors were also kind enough to include a large section regarding their source material. However, I can't exactly say that the writing was of a style that would keep one awake for long periods of time. If you are looking for just entertainment value, look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Provides wealth of details but no context
Review: Six score and 16 years after the end of the Civil War has not dimmed many of the controversies surrounding the events leading up to that epic struggle. In "Runaway Slaves," John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger attempt to counter one of the more insidious images: that slaves working under the plantation system were generally happy, with instances of rebellion few and far between. By quoting from contemporary records -- everything from letters and diaries to newspapers, handbills and petitions to county courts and state legislatures -- Franklin and Schweninger want to show that slaves rebelled against their masters in a number of ways. The scope of rebellion is breathtakingly wide, ranging from a sort of civil disobedience -- complaining, refusing to work, hiding from the overseers, destroying or stealing property, mistreating the animals, to the more serious offenses such as running away, formenting rebellion or murder. Any slaves was capable of running off, from known troublemakers to the most trusted house servants. Even hired slaves, those who had earned their master's trust and were allowed to accept work in the cities and generally left alone, would run away. "Runaway Slaves" spends several hundred pages detailing the various forms of rebellion, and that is the book's greatest strength and weakness. The sheer volume and range of these acts makes it clear what the white overlords were up again, and explains some of the extreme methods used to keep the blacks down. But the book also doesn't give an indication of the extent of black rebellion, and thus it offers a case no more convincing than whites to point out the few blacks who fought for the Confederacy. It would have been far more effective to look at a particular county over a year and examine what went on there during that time. By cross-referencing diaries, newspapers, memoirs and other accounts, it may be possible to discover just how deep resistance to whites ran. But for those looking for details of who ran, why, and how they were captured and punished, "Runaway Slaves" offers a wealth of details and a few choice insights.
Rating:
Summary: Provides wealth of details but no context
Review: Six score and 16 years after the end of the Civil War has not dimmed many of the controversies surrounding the events leading up to that epic struggle. In "Runaway Slaves," John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger attempt to counter one of the more insidious images: that slaves working under the plantation system were generally happy, with instances of rebellion few and far between. By quoting from contemporary records -- everything from letters and diaries to newspapers, handbills and petitions to county courts and state legislatures -- Franklin and Schweninger want to show that slaves rebelled against their masters in a number of ways. The scope of rebellion is breathtakingly wide, ranging from a sort of civil disobedience -- complaining, refusing to work, hiding from the overseers, destroying or stealing property, mistreating the animals, to the more serious offenses such as running away, formenting rebellion or murder. Any slaves was capable of running off, from known troublemakers to the most trusted house servants. Even hired slaves, those who had earned their master's trust and were allowed to accept work in the cities and generally left alone, would run away. "Runaway Slaves" spends several hundred pages detailing the various forms of rebellion, and that is the book's greatest strength and weakness. The sheer volume and range of these acts makes it clear what the white overlords were up again, and explains some of the extreme methods used to keep the blacks down. But the book also doesn't give an indication of the extent of black rebellion, and thus it offers a case no more convincing than whites to point out the few blacks who fought for the Confederacy. It would have been far more effective to look at a particular county over a year and examine what went on there during that time. By cross-referencing diaries, newspapers, memoirs and other accounts, it may be possible to discover just how deep resistance to whites ran. But for those looking for details of who ran, why, and how they were captured and punished, "Runaway Slaves" offers a wealth of details and a few choice insights.
Rating:
Summary: Lays bare the frail foundation of the antebellum South
Review: The contents of this book (covering the period from 1790 to 1860) provide a convincing argument for why the prosperous citizens of southern states felt compelled to fight a war for state's rights. The slaveholding society had acquired its rapid growth and success from the low cost production of highly labor-intensive commodities. While the abolition of slavery might have allowed a reasonable transition to a low-pay labor force, this would be the case only if, as most southerners then asserted, their slaves were generally contented with their work and treatment. On the contrary, most southern states elaborated, over nearly a century, extensive formal and informal mechanisms to keep their system of slavery from collapsing under its own weight. The reality of profound social instability within the Southern system is brought home dramatically by Franklin and Schweninger's relentless survey of runaways. It exposes the lie in the Southern assertion that the system worked. "In 1860, there were about 385,000 slave owners in the South, among whom about 46,000 were planters [20 or more slaves]. Even if only half of all planters experienced a single runaway in a year, and if only 10 or 15 percent of other slaveholders faced the same problem (both extremely conservative estimates) the number of runaways annually would exceed 50,000." These numbers are staggering. It bespeaks a system under siege from within. While abolitionists often spoke of the brutalizing effect of slavery on the slaveholder, these figures offer a frightening vision of the efforts that were required to maintain slavery. In some states, over 50% of the penal code dealt with specific aspects of slave management and control. The systems of slave retrieval and the disposition of recalcitrant slaves gave birth to practices which extended well beyond the realm of slaves. Any non-white, free or otherwise, was increasingly subject to suspicion and arrest as a possible runaway slave -- the antebellum offense of WWB (walking while black). As a student of the Haitian Revolution, I have become fairly inured to reading about the brutalities of slavery. But, while reading this book, tears filled my eyes at the recounting of numerous instances of free people of color being arrested as suspected runaways. These victims, men, women and children, were often sold into lifelong slavery. While this is not substantially different from similar events occurring on the Slave Coast, it came as a surprise that it occurred in America to free-born people as well as to those who had been manumitted. Re-enslavement was often close at hand. "Twenty-seven black men in Prince Edward County, Virginia, for example, were listed on the county's 1847 inventory of 'free Negroes to be Sold for taxes,' including seven members of the Bartlett family -- Joe, Henry Jr., Ben Sr., George, Samuel, Charles and Jim." WEAKNESSES: In terms of the value of the material presented, this remarkable book deserves 5 stars. Its greatest shortcoming is a consequence of the nature of the primary historical sources (advertised runaways and court documents). The hundreds of compelling stories are quite brief and often left this reader wondering, "what happened next?" But the answers are not a part of recorded history. This makes the reading somewhat choppy throughout. It is a manifestation of what Michel-Rolph Trouillot calls "silencing the past". The dominant segment of society recorded only what it wished to record. STRENGTHS: That dominant segment has failed at obscuring (at least to readers of this book) the prevalence, intensity and cost of slave dissent. A chilling aspect of this narrative is the almost complete absence of literary sensationalism. The horror of the naked facts carry their own argument. CONCLUSION: This book deals a fatal blow to the romantic notion of a "Gone With The Wind" society in the antebellum South. It is as much about the nature of the slaveholder as of the slave. The power of its revelations have changed my understanding of slave resistance in America.
Rating:
Summary: KIND OF HARD TO READ!
Review: This book was interesting though rather hard to read, sort of like a text book. Sometimes there were interesting stories about people, and then you didn't hear what happened to them in the end. I think you can learn about fugitive slaves easier from other books like I WAS BORN A SLAVE. Also, I liked THE JOURNAL OF LEROY JEREMIAH JONES, A FUGITIVE SLAVE and THE DIARY OF A SLAVE GIRL, RUBY JO.
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