Harriet Heming's identity as a fugitive slave was never discovered in her lifetime

[Dingbat]

Subject: <<Harriet Heming's identity as a fugitive slave was never
discovered in her lifetime>>
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241893860_Lost_and_Found_The_Search_for_Harriet_Hemings

I say: In Latin, a fugitive is an escapee but it seems to be that in English,
a fugitive is an escapee who's being chased down. Thomas Jefferson
wasn't treating his children by Sally Heming like slaves and even if
Harriet was a slave, she wasn't being chased down.

Harriet made her way to Philly, and married a white man, passing as
white without anyone getting the wiser in her lifetime. Is it accurate to
call Harriet a fugitive?

[Cheryl]

Post by Dingbat
Subject: <<Harriet Heming's identity as a fugitive slave was never
discovered in her lifetime>>
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241893860_Lost_and_Found_The_Search_for_Harriet_Hemings
I say: In Latin, a fugitive is an escapee but it seems to be that in English,
a fugitive is an escapee who's being chased down. Thomas Jefferson
wasn't treating his children by Sally Heming like slaves and even if
Harriet was a slave, she wasn't being chased down.
Harriet made her way to Philly, and married a white man, passing as
white without anyone getting the wiser in her lifetime. Is it accurate to
call Harriet a fugitive?

I think it would depend on the law in Philadelphia at the time. If it
required the return of slaves living there to their masters, she would
still be a fugitive slave. If it didn't, she would be an ex-slave or a
former slave, since as far as I understand it, she was legally a slave
in her father's home, however well she was treated.

But it's not entirely clear-cut. Someone from a state where slavery was
legal might well consider an escaped slave to be always a fugitive
slave, even one who had made a new life somewhere that slavery was illegal.

[J. J. Lodder]

Post by Cheryl

Post by Dingbat
Subject: <<Harriet Heming's identity as a fugitive slave was never
discovered in her lifetime>>
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241893860_Lost_and_Found_The_Search

_for_Harriet_Hemings

Post by Cheryl

Post by Dingbat
I say: In Latin, a fugitive is an escapee but it seems to be that in
English, a fugitive is an escapee who's being chased down. Thomas
Jefferson wasn't treating his children by Sally Heming like slaves and
even if Harriet was a slave, she wasn't being chased down.
Harriet made her way to Philly, and married a white man, passing as
white without anyone getting the wiser in her lifetime. Is it accurate to
call Harriet a fugitive?

I think it would depend on the law in Philadelphia at the time. If it
required the return of slaves living there to their masters, she would
still be a fugitive slave. If it didn't, she would be an ex-slave or a
former slave, since as far as I understand it, she was legally a slave
in her father's home, however well she was treated.
But it's not entirely clear-cut. Someone from a state where slavery was
legal might well consider an escaped slave to be always a fugitive
slave, even one who had made a new life somewhere that slavery was illegal.

That was indeed George Washington's position.
He liberated his slaves, poshumously after his wife's death,
but not his slaves who had run away.

There is a biography of one of them:
===
Dunbar, Erica Armstrong (2017). Never Caught: The Washingtons'
Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge.
===
On Ona Judge (Ona "Oney" Judge Staines) herself
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oney_Judge>

Happy ending, despite being quite nasty about it
the Washingtons didn't get her,

Jan

[Lewis]

Post by Cheryl

Post by Dingbat
Subject: <<Harriet Heming's identity as a fugitive slave was never
discovered in her lifetime>>
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241893860_Lost_and_Found_The_Search_for_Harriet_Hemings
I say: In Latin, a fugitive is an escapee but it seems to be that in English,
a fugitive is an escapee who's being chased down. Thomas Jefferson
wasn't treating his children by Sally Heming like slaves and even if
Harriet was a slave, she wasn't being chased down.
Harriet made her way to Philly, and married a white man, passing as
white without anyone getting the wiser in her lifetime. Is it accurate to
call Harriet a fugitive?

I think it would depend on the law in Philadelphia at the time. If it
required the return of slaves living there to their masters, she would
still be a fugitive slave.

This is exactly how it worked. Unless she was specifically freed and
could prove it, she was always a fugitive until the Emancipation
Proclamation.

Post by Cheryl
But it's not entirely clear-cut. Someone from a state where slavery was
legal might well consider an escaped slave to be always a fugitive
slave, even one who had made a new life somewhere that slavery was illegal.

That was the law in the United States.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Post by Cheryl

Post by Dingbat
Subject: <<Harriet Heming's identity as a fugitive slave was never
discovered in her lifetime>>
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241893860_Lost_and_Found_The_Search_for_Harriet_Hemings
I say: In Latin, a fugitive is an escapee but it seems to be that in English,
a fugitive is an escapee who's being chased down. Thomas Jefferson
wasn't treating his children by Sally Heming like slaves and even if
Harriet was a slave, she wasn't being chased down.
Harriet made her way to Philly, and married a white man, passing as
white without anyone getting the wiser in her lifetime. Is it accurate to
call Harriet a fugitive?

I think it would depend on the law in Philadelphia at the time. If it
required the return of slaves living there to their masters, she would
still be a fugitive slave. If it didn't, she would be an ex-slave or a
former slave, since as far as I understand it, she was legally a slave
in her father's home, however well she was treated.

I think it would depend on the law in Virginia, from which the property
was absconded.

The Dred Scott decision (1854) made Fugitive Slave Laws operative
in every state, not just states that were still slave states.

It would take a bit of checking to discover when slavery was abolished
in Pennsylvania. Probably fairly early on, given the Quaker influence.

Post by Cheryl
But it's not entirely clear-cut. Someone from a state where slavery was
legal might well consider an escaped slave to be always a fugitive
slave, even one who had made a new life somewhere that slavery was illegal.

[Jerry Friedman]

Post by Cheryl

Post by Dingbat
Subject: <<Harriet Heming's identity as a fugitive slave was never
discovered in her lifetime>>
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241893860_Lost_and_Found_The_Search_for_Harriet_Hemings
I say: In Latin, a fugitive is an escapee but it seems to be that in English,
a fugitive is an escapee who's being chased down. Thomas Jefferson
wasn't treating his children by Sally Heming like slaves and even if
Harriet was a slave, she wasn't being chased down.
Harriet made her way to Philly, and married a white man, passing as
white without anyone getting the wiser in her lifetime. Is it accurate to
call Harriet a fugitive?

I think it would depend on the law in Philadelphia at the time. If it
required the return of slaves living there to their masters, she would
still be a fugitive slave. If it didn't, she would be an ex-slave or a
former slave, since as far as I understand it, she was legally a slave
in her father's home, however well she was treated.

There was a Federal law (*looks it up*), the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.
Since Hemings was born in 1801, she probably was still alive when the
stricter Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed.

However, she didn't escape except technically. Jefferson had his overseer
provide her with a stagecoach ticket and $50 (about $1100 in today's
money if you believe

https://futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=50&currency=dollars&fromYear=1822

).

Post by Cheryl
But it's not entirely clear-cut. Someone from a state where slavery was
legal might well consider an escaped slave to be always a fugitive
slave, even one who had made a new life somewhere that slavery was illegal.

The law said the legal owner in one state had the right to retrieve an escaped
slave from another state.

Incidentally I keep forgetting and being reminded that Sally Hemings,
Jefferson's slave and mistress, was his late wife's half-sister.

[Horace LaBadie]

Post by Dingbat
Subject: <<Harriet Heming's identity as a fugitive slave was never
discovered in her lifetime>>
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241893860_Lost_and_Found_The_Search_f
or_Harriet_Hemings
I say: In Latin, a fugitive is an escapee but it seems to be that in English,
a fugitive is an escapee who's being chased down. Thomas Jefferson
wasn't treating his children by Sally Heming like slaves and even if
Harriet was a slave, she wasn't being chased down.
Harriet made her way to Philly, and married a white man, passing as
white without anyone getting the wiser in her lifetime. Is it accurate to
call Harriet a fugitive?

Heard of Dred Scott? He was never chased, but still subject to fugitive
slave laws and never considered a citizen with rights.