[3] Written between 1853 and 1861, the novel was published in 2002 for the first time after Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a Harvard University professor of African-American literature and history, purchased the manuscript and had it authenticated.

Bond's identity was documented in 2013 by Gregg Hecimovich of Furman University, who found that she had been owned by John Hill Wheeler of Murfreesboro, North Carolina.

About 1857 Bond took on disguise with men's clothes, perhaps helped by someone in the Wheeler family, and escaped from the plantation, traveling as a white boy.

Bond apparently was able to read and to use the library, as her novel shows influences from other literature; she reflects elements of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott.

[1] Hecimovich used "wills, diaries, handwritten almanacs and public records" and interviews to discover and document the life of Hannah Bond, and confirm her identity.

Scholars familiar with the novel and the period, such as Gates, Hollis Robbins, and William L. Andrews, believe that he has demonstrated an accounting of her identity.

[1] Hecimovich learned that girls from a nearby school often boarded at the plantation; part of their curriculum required memorizing Charles Dickens' Bleak House, which influences Bond also expressed in her novel.

Believing that the novel was autobiographical, scholars speculated from its plot that Crafts had married a Methodist minister and lived in New Jersey.

[10] Hecimovich believes it is more likely Hannah took this name after living with a Crafts couple in upstate New York in her early time after reaching the North by the Underground Railroad.