What does it mean to escape?
For David George, who was born enslaved in Virginia in the 1740s, the answer was never simple. He escaped his enslaver’s plantation, only to be captured by the Muscogee Creek. He escaped the Creek, only to find himself enslaved again at a South Carolina plantation. He built a life of faith and family there, only to escape once more to the British lines during the Revolution. From British lines, he then escaped to Nova Scotia, and finally to Sierra Leone.
Each escape was real. None was final.
Gregory O’Malley, Professor of History and Department Chair at the University of California, Santa Cruz, joins us to discuss The Escapes of David George: An Odyssey of Slavery, Freedom, and the American Revolution.
Built around one of the only first-person narratives left by an enslaved person from the colonial and revolutionary era, Greg’s research allows us to follow David George across six decades and three continents, and illuminates what freedom actually meant, and didn’t mean, for the people the Revolution left behind.
This episode was made possible with support from the Massachusetts Historical Society, the first historical society in the United States.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Episode Summary
Gregory O’Malley is Professor of History and Department Chair at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His first book, Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619–1807, details the brutal network for distributing enslaved Africans throughout North America and the Caribbean after they survived the Atlantic crossing.
In his new book, The Escapes of David George: An Odyssey of Slavery, Freedom, and the American Revolution, Greg builds a sweeping history of slavery and the Revolution around one man’s extraordinary odyssey and the rare first-person narrative David George gave to Baptist ministers in London in the 1790s.
During our odyssey, Greg reveals:
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- Why David George ran south — not north — when he escaped slavery, and what his circuitous path to freedom reveals about a world where slavery was legal everywhere in British North America
- How David George’s conversion to the Baptist faith became another kind of escape from slavery, allowing him to build a life of family, community, and purpose even while legally enslaved at Silver Bluff Plantation
- Why the congregation David George founded during the Revolution may be the first Black Baptist church in America
What You’ll Discover
- Why enslaved people’s voices are so rare in the colonial and revolutionary historical record
- How David George’s narrative came to be preserved in the Baptist Annual Register
- How historians authenticate a source mediated by white transcribers
- Why David George ran south into the Carolina frontier rather than north when he first escaped slavery
- The liminal space between slavery and legal freedom that David George navigated on the colonial frontier
- How David George was captured by the Muscogee Creek Nation and what his time in that community was like
- How David George came to Christianity through itinerant evangelical preachers at Silver Bluff Plantation in South Carolina
- Why enslaved people were drawn to evangelical Baptist and Methodist preachers over the established Anglican Church
- The generational difference in religious practice between enslaved Africans born in Africa and those born in North America
- How David George’s spiritual conversion was connected to starting a family and putting down roots while still legally enslaved
- What we know, and don’t know, about David George’s wife Phyllis and their children
- How David George used British military policy during the Revolution to escape slavery and reach freedom
- What life looked like for the 10,000 Black and white loyalist refugees who built the town of Shelburne, Nova Scotia
- Why Greg O’Malley argues David George was a founding father
- The story of discovering that the Silver Bluff Baptist Church still exists and still meets on the same land today
Links to People, Places, and Publications
Time Warp Question
What do you think David George’s life would have looked like if he and his family hadn’t been able to evacuate Charleston with the British Army in 1783?
Complementary Episodes
🎧 Episode 008: Greg O’Malley, Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade
🎧 Episode 322: Running from Bondage in Revolutionary America
🎧 Episode 424: Andrew Lawler, Dunmore’s Proclamation
🎧 Episode 434: Shirley Green, The Frank Brothers: Freeborn Black Soldiers
🎧 Episode 440: Brooke Newman, The Crown’s Silence
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