The “Carried Off” Cover-Up: How Historians Hid the Founders’ Drive to Recapture British Fugitives from American Slavery

In the years between the end of the Revolutionary War and the beginning of the nineteenth century American statesmen attempted to pressure the British to return the thousands of people who had fled American slavery. These efforts, which included risking renewing the war itself, have been systematically suppressed by historians of this era. This essay traces the historiography of this subject and shows several ways that the true importance of patriot efforts at re-enslavement have been silenced.