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Erica Armstrong DunbarNever Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 11-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “The Negotiator”
In 1796, George Washington announces his retirement from the presidency and at the same time begins trying to recapture Judge, whose disappearance could reflect very badly on the soon-to-be former president. The Washingtons spend their last year in Philadelphia largely relying on white servants to avoid any additional mishaps.
Martha insists George retrieve Ona: “[t]he fugitive belonged to the first lady, after all, and Judge had already been promised to her granddaughter” (137). George decides to use the federal government’s resources to his advantage. Washington is convinced that Judge could only have run away if she had a male suitor, insisting that “[s]omeone else must have lured her away” (139). Dunbar notes that this is something that Washington continues believing for years, even without any evidence to support the idea.
Washington contacts Portsmouth customs official Joseph Whipple to enlist his help in recapturing Judge. In doing so, “[t]he president offered suggestions about recapturing the fugitive, and all of them were clear violations of the [Fugitive Slave Act]” (139) that Washington himself had signed into law several years prior. Dunbar notes that Whipple’s attitudes about slavery are more in line with other residents of Portsmouth than with the president, and “[a]lthough [Whipple] accepted the assignment from Washington with a professed eagerness and due respect, he planned to investigate the claims about Ona Judge and come to his own conclusions about her escape” (142).
Whipple lures Judge to him with the potential promise of Judge working as a servant for Whipple’s wife. During the conversation, Judge surmises that Whipple knows an awful lot about her—too much for the meeting to concern a legitimate work opportunity. In asking too many personal questions, Judge realizes that she is in danger. Dunbar relates their conversation in depth, explaining that Whipple asks to hear Judge’s side of things, and in response offers a compromise to be negotiated on her behalf. He suggests that Judge return to the Washingtons with the provision that she be set free upon their deaths.
Judge agrees to meet Whipple at the docks and return to Virginia, but does not show up. Whipple tells the Washingtons that he was unsuccessful and suggests that gradual emancipation might be the best course of action. In response, Washington tells Whipple to continue his attempts and makes subtle threats against Judge’s family. However, his attempts fail as Whipple continues to push back against Washington’s wishes.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Mrs. Staines”
Shortly after her encounters with John Whipple, Judge marries a free Black man, Jack Staines. Staines works at sea, which provides him with an income he might not otherwise be able to obtain, but also presents challenges in the possibility of capture and being sold into slavery in the US South or the Caribbean. While the marriage offers some protection for Judge in the form of increased financial security and Staines’s physical presence, he is often away for long periods, leaving her vulnerable to potential slave-catchers.
Judge and Staines’s marriage takes place in Greenland, thanks to interference from Whipple, who said that “a marriage certificate in Portsmouth would be next to impossible” (159). Judge and Staines’s combined income allows them to move into their own home, something not often possible for free Black people. Not long after moving, Judge becomes pregnant, which brings both joy and potential additional hardship. Like many women in her position, Judge must continue working while pregnant and return to work shortly after giving birth. Furthermore, “[Judge] had passed the disease of slavery to her daughter” (162). If Judge were ever recaptured, her daughter would also belong to the Custis estate.
Three years after sending Whipple, the Washingtons try to capture Judge again, this time employing their nephew, Burwell Bassett Jr. Bassett connects with John Langdon in Portsmouth, and appears at the Staines’ home while Jack is away at sea. Bassett attempts a variety of tactics to convince Judge to return, including lying about her being set free and mentioning her family. He is unsuccessful and must decide how to proceed.
Someone–either Langdon himself or a free Black working in his home–alerts Judge that she is in danger, and that Bassett intends to take her by force. By the time he arrives at the Staines’ residence, Judge, her child, and their roommates have vacated the home.
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Survivor”
Chapter 13 begins with a crucial event in both Judge’s story and the history of the United States: “Late in the evening on December 14, 1799, George Washington took his last breath” (173). Washington’s will provides for the emancipation of his slaves upon Martha’s death, as well as assistance for the elders and education for the youths. Part of Washington’s reasoning for eventual rather than immediate emancipation is that many of those enslaved at Mount Vernon belong to the Custis estate, not Washington himself, and he does not wish to break up families. Dunbar suggests that George must have had some doubts about slavery as an institution despite his adherence to its practice during his life.
Martha, fearing that Washington’s slaves would try to speed up their emancipation with attempts on her life, frees them on January 1, 1801. Even if she wanted to, Martha could not free those enslaved by the Custis estate; as part of the estate, they would belong to her grandchildren after her death, meaning Judge is still in potential danger from recapture attempts by members of the Custis family. Martha dies in 1802, and unlike George, she does not emancipate any of the enslaved individuals she controls. She divides them among her grandchildren, leaving “no suggestion that she was ambivalent about slavery” (177).
Judge and Staines continue their lives in Portsmouth, eventually having three children. Not long after Martha’s death, Jack Staines dies. Judge relies on help from a free Black family after Staines’s death, as supporting three children on her own is a frightening prospect, especially with the potential threat of recapture always looming over her head. Dunbar provides a history of the free Black family, the Jacks, who have the distinction of owning property. The Jacks had also helped Judge before when Bassett came looking for her.
Driven by poverty, Judge must indenture her teenage daughters, and as the years pass on, Judge, her daughters, and the Jack family continue to live in an ever-eroding house. Judge’s daughters die in their thirties, leaving Judge “once again, alone” (184). In her later years, Judge relies on her religious faith for support, and through that connection gives two interviews about her life to two abolitionist newspapers. A little over a year later, Judge dies at the age of 73.
Chapters 11-13 Analysis
These chapters span from the time the Washingtons find out about Judge’s location to Judge’s death. Dunbar condenses the historical timeline considerably, particularly in the final chapter, during which she flies through approximately 45 years, from Martha Washington’s death to Judge’s death. As Dunbar’s primary concern is with the Washingtons’ relationship with Judge, she chooses to skim over the parts that do not directly involve them, choosing instead to highlight just a few events–indenture of Judge’s daughters, the deaths of her daughters, and Judge’s interviews, which acknowledge that even though Judge was free, her family members were not, and she was therefore ensnared in the effects of the racist “curious institution” regardless of her status as free or enslaved.
Dunbar uses these final chapters to further characterize George and Martha Washington. George is no longer president, and while he still has relevance to the country, after his retirement, the Washingtons return to being just Southern enslavers, having apparently absorbed nothing regarding attitudes toward Black people from their time in the North. To highlight this distinction, Dunbar explains how previous allies of the Washingtons moved in other directions. She notes, “Now that George Washington was no longer the president, they could not count upon the assistance of past friends and allies. Even close friends such as Senator Langdon could no longer be considered helpful” (169). This growing divide between North and South is crucial, as tensions like these lead to the US Civil War less than 20 years after Judge dies.
While Dunbar does allow for some leeway in her depiction of George—he provides emancipation after his death, as well as additional assistance in small but meaningful ways—Martha receives no similar pass:
The transfer of the dower slaves to [Martha’s] grandchildren was not simply done out of obligation or a legal requirement, but because of the first lady’s commitment to the institution of slavery. Unlike her husband, Martha Washington left no suggestion that she was ambivalent about slavery (177).
Finally, Dunbar delves more into the vulnerability of enslaved women. Judge loses her husband and the protection that he offers, and by losing his income, she must place her daughters in servitude, something she surely would never have wanted. She likely had a son as well, but rather than indentured servitude, he would have been able to work at sea like his father. He has opportunities that Judge’s daughters do not simply because of his maleness. Additionally, George Washington clinging stubbornly to the idea that Judge must have been coerced into running away by a man, even after he knew such an idea to be untrue, belies an opinion that women are not capable of making decisions for themselves. The systemic belief that women of any color are inferior to men puts Judge at a further disadvantage and makes her escape and survival that much more noteworthy.
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