In Defiance: Runaways from Slavery in New York’s Hudson River Valley, 1735 to 1831

NEW EDITION OF A LANDMARK BOOK ON SLAVERY IN NEW YORK. In recent years, historians and researchers have taken a closer look at New York’s complicity in the “peculiar institution” of slavery. One book that shed more light on this tragic subject was the 2016 publication, In Defiance: Runaways from Slavery in New York’s Hudson River Valley, 1735–1831.

The core of that book by two Hudson Valley historical researchers, Susan Stessin-Cohn and Ashley Hurlburt-Biagini, was reproducing and transcribing hundreds of 18th- and 19th-century newspaper notices. These offered rewards for the return of enslaved people who had escaped their captors and become “runaways.” Continuing their research since then, Stessin-Cohn and Hurlburt-Biagini discovered more than 250 additional runaway notices that prompted them to rewrite and greatly expand In Defiance in this newly released Second Edition

Susan Stessin-Cohn is a former professor of social studies education at SUNY New Paltz and Director of Education at Historic Huguenot.

Ashley Hurlbut-Biagini is a research historian in the Hudson Valley.

Softcover, 480 pages, with a trim size of 10 x 8 inches; illustrations include nine tables with 774 slave notices and 36 black-and-white images. Plus, five maps. Published by Black Dome Press in 2023. ISBN 979-8985692150.

“An invaluable resource for seeing those enslaved in colonial New York’s Hudson Valley area.” ~Lavada Nahon, Interpreter of African American History, NYS OPRHP/BHS