by Richard Bell
A gripping and true story about five boys who were kidnapped
in the North and smuggled into slavery in the Deep South—and their daring
attempt to escape and bring their captors to justice, reminiscent of Twelve Years a Slave and Never Caught.
Philadelphia, 1825: five young, free black boys fall into
the clutches of the most fearsome gang of kidnappers and slavers in the United
States. Lured onto a small ship with the promise of food and pay, they are
instead met with blindfolds, ropes, and knives. Over four long months, their
kidnappers drive them overland into the Cotton Kingdom to be sold as slaves.
Determined to resist, the boys form a tight brotherhood as they struggle to
free themselves and find their way home.
Their ordeal—an odyssey that takes them from the
Philadelphia waterfront to the marshes of Mississippi and then onward
still—shines a glaring spotlight on the Reverse Underground Railroad, a black
market network of human traffickers and slave traders who stole away thousands
of legally free African Americans from their families in order to fuel
slavery’s rapid expansion in the decades before the Civil War.
Impeccably researched and breathlessly paced, Stolen tells
the incredible story of five boys whose courage forever changed the fight
against slavery in America.
About the Author
Richard Bell
teaches Early American history at the University of Maryland. He has received
several teaching prizes and major research fellowships including the National
Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award. His first book, We Shall
Be No More: Suicide and Self-Government in the Newly United States, was
published in 2012. He is also the author of Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped
into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home.
ISBN 978-1501169434, 37 Ink, © 2019, Hardcover, 336 pages, Maps,
Photographs & Illustrations, Endnotes, Key Sources & Index. $27.00. To
purchase this book click HERE.
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