Runaway America Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution

Scientist, abolitionist, revolutionary: that is the Benjamin Franklin we know and celebrate. To this description, the talented young historian David Waldstreicher shows we must add runaway, slave master, and empire builder. ButRunaway Americadoes much more than revise our image of a beloved founding father. Finding slavery at the center of Franklin's life, Waldstreicher proves it was likewise central to the Revolution, America's founding, and the very notion of freedom we associate with both. Franklin was the sole Founding Father who was once owned by someone else and was among the few to derive his fortune from slavery. As an indentured servant, Franklin fled his master before his term was complete; as a struggling printer, he built a financial empire selling newspapers that not only advertised the goods of a slave economy (not to mention slaves) but also ran the notices that led to the recapture of runaway servants. Perhaps Waldstreicher's greatest achievement is in showing that this was not an ironic outcome but a calculated one. America's freedom, no less than Franklin's, demanded that others forgo liberty. Through the life of Franklin,Runaway Americaprovides an original explanation to the paradox of American slavery and freedom. David Waldstreicher, a professor of history at Temple University, is the author ofIn the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820and the editor of Thomas Jefferson'sNotes on the State of Virginia. Scientist, revolutionary, abolitionist: that is the Benjamin Franklin we know and celebrate. To this description, David Waldstreicher shows we must add runaway, slave master, and empire builder. ButRunaway Americadoes much more than revise our image of a beloved Founding Father. Finding slavery at the center of Franklin's life, Waldstreicher proves it was likewise central to the Revolution, America's founding, and the very notion of freedom we associate with both. Franklin was the sole Founding Father who was once owned by someone else. As an indentured servant, Franklin fled his master before his term was complete; as a struggling printer, he built a financial empire selling newspapers that only advertised the goods of a slave economy (not only to mention slaves themselves) but also ran the notices that led to the recapture of runaway servants. Perhaps Waldstreicher's greatest achievement is in showing that this was not an ironic outcome but a calculated one. America's freedom, no less than Franklin's, demanded that others forgo liberty. Through the life of Franklin,Runaway Americaprovides an original explanation to the paradox of American slavery and freedom. "A careful reader of Franklin's writings and times, David Waldstreicher has given us an extraordinarily fresh look at Franklin, slavery, and the American Revolution."--Barbara Oberg, Princeton University "A subtle analysis of Benjamin Franklin and the problem of freedom in America . . . This new volume probes deeply into one of the hardest and most unpleasant aspects of early American history, the fact that in a land that promised and celebrated freedom, a great many of its inhabitants were burdened with degrees of enforced unfreedom imposed by some of the same people who promised and celebrated liberty."--Brent Tarter,Richmond Times-Dispatch "Engaging and provocative . . . What Waldstreicher refreshingly offers is less a conventional biography than a critical reconsideration of Franklin's economic and social world, and his political thought, that focuses on the spectrum of freedom and unfreedom in Colonial America . . . Waldstreicher effectively undermines Franklin's antislavery reputation without falling into the modern habit of extreme moralistic dismissal or outright condemnation . . . Indispensable readin

David Waldstreicher, professor of history at Notre Dame, is author of In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism and editor of Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (Bedford Books).