Stolen Audiobook By Richard Bell cover art

Stolen

Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home

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Stolen

By: Richard Bell
Narrated by: Leon Nixon
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$8.99/mo. after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offer ends July 5, 2026 at 11:59pm PT.

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This “superbly researched and engaging” (The Wall Street Journal) true story about five boys who were kidnapped in the North and smuggled into slavery in the Deep South—and their daring attempt to escape and bring their captors to justice belongs “alongside the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edward P. Jones, and Toni Morrison” (Jane Kamensky, Professor of American History at Harvard University).

Philadelphia, 1825: five young, free black boys fall into the clutches of the most fearsome gang of kidnappers and slavers in the United States. Lured onto a small ship with the promise of food and pay, they are instead met with blindfolds, ropes, and knives. Over four long months, their kidnappers drive them overland into the Cotton Kingdom to be sold as slaves. Determined to resist, the boys form a tight brotherhood as they struggle to free themselves and find their way home.

Their ordeal—an odyssey that takes them from the Philadelphia waterfront to the marshes of Mississippi and then onward still—shines a glaring spotlight on the Reverse Underground Railroad, a black market network of human traffickers and slave traders who stole away thousands of legally free African Americans from their families in order to fuel slavery’s rapid expansion in the decades before the Civil War.

“Rigorously researched, heartfelt, and dramatically concise, Bell’s investigation illuminates the role slavery played in the systemic inequalities that still confront Black Americans” (Booklist).
African American Studies Americas Black & African American Social Sciences United States Railroad Mississippi Civil War War
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I finished and wanted to learn more. I know getting additional material is difficult. I'm glad I listened. Narrator excellent.

I wish there was more to it

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this book is for those who like to hear about history. this book is not In story for where the author builds individual characters, however it's one person telling the story of others. Good book,.

Good History Book

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Loved the detailed accounts of the five young boys stolen & their journey.

I learned some new history!

Phenomenal Research!

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I learned a lot about a terrible time in the nation's history. For that reason alone I will remember this book.

meh.

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This is quite a n education for me. Very thought provoking. This book is a testament to the memories of all those who have been held in bondage.

Eye opening

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