Who is Anthony Burns?

Virginia Hamilton's portrayal of a man on trial for escaping slavery is an engrossing, tension-filled story, made especially powerful by the fact that it is true. Anthony Burns was captured, tried, and sent back into a slavery worse than that from which he had originally escaped. He was eventually freed, but the trial and Burns's ordeal are the focus of this book. Because Hamilton presents the atrocities of Burns's childhood and later life with little editorial comment, readers can judge the everyday realities of slavery for themselves.