Under the Staircase
Karl Whitney: Hans Jonathan, Runaway Slave, 19 October 2017
The Man Who Stole Himself: The Slave Odyssey of Hans Jonathan
by Gisli Palsson, translated by Anna Yates.
Chicago, 288 pp., £19, October 2016,978 0 226 31328 3 Show More
by Gisli Palsson, translated by Anna Yates.
Chicago, 288 pp., £19, October 2016,
“... In the spring of 1801 a young man called Hans Jonathan left the mansion in Copenhagen where he worked as a slave. Going for a walk was allowed: despite his status, he had a degree of autonomy within the walls of the city, then a thriving port with around one hundred thousand inhabitants. But this time he didn’t return. His owner, Henrietta Cathrina Schimmelmann, reported his escape to the police, claiming he had stolen money from her son ... ”