The Price of Freedom carefully examines how urban slavery, long neglected by historians, became an important step in the path from bonded to free labour. The author argues that the creation of "term slavery" and the increase in manumission in Baltimore during the post-revolutionary era should be attributed to economic self-interest rather than humanitarian impulses founded in republican ideology or religion. Using the leverage of flight, the author shows how skilled slaves wielded considerable power in negotiating the terms of their labour. This meticulous study sheds new light on free and unfree labour during the early national period.