The Fugitive Blacksmith / or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington, Pastor of a Presbyterian Church, New York, Formerly a Slave in the State of Maryland, United States

The narrative offers an autobiographical account of a man born into slavery in Maryland who escapes bondage and later serves as a pastor in New York. It recounts family separations, sales of enslaved people, and daily humiliations enforced by the chattel principle, arguing that even so-called kind or Christian masters cannot alter the system's dehumanizing logic. Written as condensed lecture notes, the work blends personal incidents with legal and moral critique, religious reflection, and direct appeals to fellow Christians and ministers to acknowledge slavery's essential wrongness and its corrosive effects on both the enslaved and their owners.