The western world has always been like this. I just found out the story of Oney Judge, one of George and Martha Washington's house slaves. She ran away from them in Philadelphia and made it to New Hampshire, though they searched for her to bring her back. Freed, she married and had a family. The Washingtons actually wrote to her and asked her to come back to them. Think about the mindset it takes to think that a slave that ran away would consider returning if you ask. She did not return. This is in a book "Beneath the Mountain: an Anti-Prison Reader".
The western world has always been like this. I just found out the story of Oney Judge, one of George and Martha Washington's house slaves. She ran away from them in Philadelphia and made it to New Hampshire, though they searched for her to bring her back. Freed, she married and had a family. The Washingtons actually wrote to her and asked her to come back to them. Think about the mindset it takes to think that a slave that ran away would consider returning if you ask. She did not return. This is in a book "Beneath the Mountain: an Anti-Prison Reader".
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/letter-jourdon-anderson-freedman-writes-his-former-master
Apparently in at least once instance, the escaped slave actually wrote back.