Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Never Caught, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Slavery and Paternalism
Narrative and Historical Erasure
The Creation of America
Freedom and Agency
Summary
Analysis
After settling his family in Philadelphia, Washington begins a tour through the south, stopping in Mount Vernon to rest between visits to Southern cities. In April of 1791, Washington begins to realize that his finances are in trouble. The Attorney General (and former governor of Virginia) Edmond Randolph visits the President’s House to speak with Martha Washington and to inform her of a threat to the Washingtons’ ability to hold slaves in Philadelphia. The law of Pennsylvania states that all adult slaves who are brought into the commonwealth for more than six months are free at the end of that period. Though many slaveholders rely on the tenuous idea that their ignorant slaves will simply never learn of the law, several slaveholders have recently had trouble with runaways—and Randolph himself has lost “property.”
In this passage, Dunbar introduces a concrete and serious threat to the Washingtons’ seemingly untouchable, unchangeable engagement with the practice of slavery. The Washingtons believed that their status as slaveholders would never be contested—but here in Pennsylvania, they are beginning to see that shifting social attitudes toward slavery are not merely abstract. The country that George Washington leads is moving on without him in many ways—and he will soon be forced to choose how he wants to appear to his constituents and what his legacy will come to mean.
Themes
Martha Washington enlists the help of Tobias Lear in coming up with a system that will discreetly yet effectively allow their family to bypass Philadelphia’s law. Washington himself is not naïve enough to believe that his slaves are especially grateful or loyal to him—he knows that the promise of freedom will entice them away from bondage should they learn of the law. Together with Martha and Lear, Washington creates a plan to circumvent the law by rotating slaves between High Street and Mount Vernon every six months.
The Washingtons are too reliant upon slave labor to consider letting their slaves benefit from Philadelphia’s progressive laws, and they immediately get to work on a plan to avoid granting their slaves the freedom that they deserve under Pennsylvania law. Dunbar introduces the Washingtons’ actions here not only as morally indefensible but illegal, calling into question what her readers know about the legacy of the most famous Founding Father.
Themes
Pennsylvania has had a long and difficult relationship to the institution of slavery, and in 1688, a group of Germantown Quakers in the state declare slavery an inhumane contradiction to their religious beliefs. The financial benefits of slavery to slaveholders, however, outweighed the Quakers’ protests against the inhumanity of holding fellow humans in bondage for many years. But in March of 1780, the first antislavery law in the United States is passed—after their 28th birthdays, enslaved Black people are to be freed.
Dunbar uses this passage to contextualize the long struggle against slavery which has been taking place in Pennsylvania for nearly an entire century. She wants to illustrate just how profoundly the Washingtons’ actions fly in the face not just of modern concepts of right and wrong, but even of their contemporaries’ conceptions of good and evil.
Themes
Washington discreetly writes letters from Virginia to Martha in Philadelphia, encouraging her to hastily plan a trip home—and to bring with her the adult slaves whose six months are almost up. At the same time, Washington knows that as he is only two years into his first term, he needs to protect his reputation amidst growing antislavery sentiment in the North. He urges Tobias Lear to keep his missives secret, and he urges Martha to keep her slaves in the dark about what is happening to them (or, rather, what is not).
Dunbar shows how even in the midst of a profound moment of reckoning with the institution of slavery—and the possibility of freedom for enslaved Black men and women—the Washingtons choose only to focus on how the absence of slave labor in their lives would affect them. Washington wants to protect his wealth, his reputation, and his right to own human “property,” compromising his moral and legal standings in order to do so.
Themes
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On April 19th, Martha sends Ona’s brother, Austin, back to Mount Vernon with just over $11 for the trip. Soon after, she begins making arrangements for herself and the rest of her slaves—even the underage Ona, whose status as a minor does not exempt her from the six-months law—to make the sojourn home. Washington, in his correspondences with his wife and his secretary, urges them both to use the utmost discretion when making plans so as to prevent the slaves from learning the truth about how close they are to freedom. Washington is determined to keep power from shifting from himself to his human property. The loss of slaves would be both embarrassing and dangerous for the already nearly-financially-insolvent president.
Washington is determined to prevent his slaves from acquiring any power or agency over their own lives. The loss of his slaves would be both embarrassing and dangerous for the already nearly-financially-insolvent president—and he is willing to shadily circumvent the law (and bar fellow human beings from attaining the freedom they deserve) in order to protect his own interests.
Themes
The Washingtons begin hurrying many of their slaves out of Philadelphia—but they remain concerned about their chef, Hercules, whom they have recently allowed to start making an income for himself by selling kitchen scraps. Hercules has used his pay to purchase fine clothing for himself, buying velvet coats, shiny shoes, and a pocket watch. Refusing to risk losing the emboldened Hercules, the Washingtons hurry him to Mount Vernon—a controversial move given his prominent role at the High Street house.
Again, Dunbar highlights how Hercules’s attainment of monetary and material assets signals not only to other enslaved Black men and women but indeed to his enslavers that he desires freedom. This, in the Washingtons’ eyes, makes Hercules a liability and a threat to their careful plans to circumvent Pennsylvania law.
Themes
Hercules’s departure raises questions at the house—and it leads to an information breach. Hercules learns of the six-months law and realizes that he has a decision to make—not just for himself, but for his daughters back in Mount Vernon and for Richmond. Hercules promises Tobias Lear that he has no intention of taking advantage of the opportunity for freedom, which would require him to leave his family behind. Hercules desperately works to assure the Washingtons of his loyalty to them. Six years later, however, in February of 1797, Hercules will run away on Washington’s birthday. He will never be seen again.
Dunbar shows how even for an enslaved person like Hercules—who receives relatively “good” treatment—there is nothing more vital, more important, or more necessary than freedom. Countless enslaved people like Hercules were forced to make impossible decisions concerning the pursuit of freedom—and, like Hercules, Ona will one day choose the uncertainty and danger of freedom over the continued inhumanity of bondage.
Themes
The Washingtons’ “slave shuffle,” as Dunbar calls it, is successful for many years. Tobias Lear is instrumental in helping the Washingtons to keep their plot going. Lear reveals in private correspondence that he assists the Washingtons so carefully because he believes that the Washingtons’ slaves are better off with the Washingtons than they would be if they were free. This paternalistic sentiment is a common attitude of the time and will be used to justify slavery for decades to come.
As Dunbar points out, the paternalism that Lear exhibits in his private correspondence was a common justification for slavery. The inability to accept that Black men and women had not just a right to freedom but the capacity for agency and self-determination associated with paternalism allowed slavery to progress and proliferate over the years.
Themes
As Washington continued shuffling his slaves—including Ona—back and forth between Virginia and Pennsylvania, Dunbar suggests, Ona must have begun using the long journeys between the two places to consider the growing divide between her life in the North, with its promises of freedom, and her life down South in bondage.
Dunbar again uses this passage to create a narrative extrapolation about Ona’s emotional state based on the historical context of what was happening to her and those around her. Dunbar seeks to illuminate the parts of Ona’s story that have been erased from history and to imagine what her existence might have been like in the midst of such turbulent times.
Themes
