The Kidnapped And The Ransomed: Being The Personal Recollections Of Peter Still And His Wife Vina, After Forty Years Of Slavery

by Kate E.R. Pickard, William Henry Furness (Illustrator), Samuel J. May (Introduction)

Originally published in 1856, The Kidnapped and the Ransomed is the personal recollection of Peter Still, a black slave. He was stolen as a child from his home in New Jersey, yoked to servitude for more than forty years in Kentucky and Alabama, and finally freed with the help of a pair of Jewish brothers. It is the only nineteenth-century slave narrative to show the participation of the Jews in the antislavery movement before the Civil War.



The reader follows Still through a succession of brutal masters, a clandestine courtship, marriage involving separation, births and deaths, the formation of a daring plan for freedom, and harrowing action. No stage drama could be as wrenching as this true rendering of a slave’s experience in America. Kate E. R. Pickard was in contact with Still while she taught at the Female Seminary in Tuscumbia, Alabama.



Maxwell Whiteman was the archival and historical consultant for the Union League of Philadelphia and coauthor, with Edwin Wolf II, of The History of the Jews of Philadelphia from Colonial Times to the Age of Jackson. The original introduction by Rev. Samuel J. May, an abolitionist, has been retained.

Genres: History, Biography

412 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1956

Reviews

[Diana Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredible and heart breaking story about two young boys, born free and then kidnapped and sold into slavery. Another one of the stories from the Mega Collection of Slave Narratives.

[allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t even put it into words. truly an incredible story and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

[Schvenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heartbreaking, as all stories of slavery are, but enlightening and well written.

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I narrated this on tape for the Jewish Braille Institute and it was extremely moving.

[ػᶈᶏϾӗ]

This was a real eye-opener. I would definitely give excerpts to undergrads.