Neither Bond Nor Free: A Novel
Ebook
Overview
Neither Bond Nor Free draws heavily on real events and from the lives of historical figures to weave a tale of suffering and redemption in antebellum America. Across a violent landscape of virulent racial prejudice and hatred pitted against the aid and protection of free black communities and abolitionists of the Underground Railroad, self-emancipated refugees from the South’s Peculiar Institution navigate their way north to freedom in Canada. One highly literate mulatto’s escape from slavery intersects closely with the lives of free blacks and Quakers in a small Indiana community until the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 shatters his hopes but not his indomitable desire to be free. In his adventures and struggle to fully secure his freedom, he makes surprising discoveries about the nature of suffering and his own humanity.
“This novel is a well-told story of the trials and tribulations
of growing to adulthood in the 1840s and 1850s. . . . It is a well
written, touching story of the lives of several people, including
both whites and free and enslaved blacks. . . . I find this a
touching, moving story of people who lived in this turbulent time,
and the interactions between the different groups. It is an
enjoyable read.”
—Robert Slawson, Docent, National Museum of Civil War
Medicine
Product Details
- Title : Neither Bond Nor Free: A Novel
- Author: Hinshaw, Daniel B.
- Publisher: Resource Publications
- Publication Date: 2019
- ISBN: 9781532699948
Daniel B. Hinshaw is a physician and emeritus professor in the
University of Michigan Medical School. A direct descendant of
Quakers who strove to assist freedom seekers in the antebellum
period, the author was drawn to write this piece of historical
fiction. He is the author of Suffering and the Nature of
Healing (2013) and Touch and the Healing of the World
(2017). Neither Bond Nor Free is his first work of
fiction.