This Great Object of My Life

Abstract

This chapter explores enslaved men’s attempts to provide for their families, focusing on men who purchased or endeavored to purchase freedom for themselves and their family members. The second half of the chapter looks at enslaved men who became fugitives, the painful decision some made to run away and leave loved ones behind, and their commentary on family once free. In failure and in the infrequent cases of success, former slaves’ words, choices, and actions as they sought to free self and family underscored the centrality of kinship and slave communities’ definition of paternal duty.