Freeing Charles recounts the life and epic rescue of captured fugitive slave Charles Nalle of Culpeper, Virginia, who was forcibly liberated by Harriet Tubman and others in Troy, New York, on April 27, 1860. Scott Christianson follows Nalle from his enslavement by the Hansborough family in Virginia through his escape by the Underground Railroad and his experiences in the North on the eve of the Civil War. This engaging narrative represents the first in-depth historical study of this crucial incident, one of the fiercest anti-slavery riots after Harpers Ferry. Christianson also presents a richly detailed look at slavery culture in antebellum Virginia and probes the deepest political and psychological aspects of this epic tale. His account underscores fundamental questions about racial inequality, the rule of law, civil disobedience, and violent resistance to slavery in the antebellum North and South.| Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Genesis 2. Revelation 3. Master and Slave Relations 4. The Shakeup 5. Making the Break 6. The Escape 7. Still in Philadelphia 8. Farmed Out Illustrations 9. Family Pays a Heavy Price 10. Meteors 11. Hooking Up 12. Caught 13. Busting Out 14. Rescue 15. Aftermath 16. The War Hits Home in Culpeper, 1861-65 17. Moving On 18. The Search for Charles Nalle Appendix Notes Index | "Christianson explores the complications of the law, and he captures the drama of Nalle's escape and attempted recapture and the complexities of citizens willing to defy the law for a higher principle."—Booklist
"Christianson's beautifully written story of fugitive slave Charles Nalle's dramatic escape, recapture, and then rescue is one of the long forgotten yet incredibly important events in our nation's history. Christianson serves up history like a master storyteller: a great dose of drama, tragedy, triumph, love, illicit sex, and a cast of characters that will surprise and delight."—Kate Clifford Larson, author of Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero
"Extensively researched and finely analyzed, Freeing Charles tells the gripping story of a fugitive slave rescue that has largely escaped our attention until now."—Richard J. M. Blackett, author of Divided Hearts: Britain and the American Civil War"In this magnificently conceived and subtly rendered book, Christianson not only brings to life the men and women of the Underground Railroad as they carry out one of the most dramatic rescues of a fugitive slave on record, he also guides us unflinchingly along the heartbreaking fault line of racial relations that warped life in America—in both the North and the South—in the age of slavery."—Fergus M. Bordewich, author of Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America
|Scott Christianson is the author of With Liberty for Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America and many other works. He lives in New York state.