WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- The news spread through this Virginia colony like a runaway virus. Lord Dunmore, the British governor, was promising freedom to any black who could get to Norfolk and join him in fighting the rebellious colonists.

The offer teased Peter Southall's imagination. He already knew what freedom felt like. He'd spent four years on the run in North Carolina before his luck ran out.

But the joy of freedom remained in his heart. "You see this proclamation?" he says, holding a tattered sheet of paper and grabbing a man from among the crowd clustered around him. "I want you to read it, so these people can hear it from one of their own."

The stranger reads the promise, with its offers of muskets and freedom. "S-say that word again," says Peter, a 23-year-old slave with a wife and child. "Say it loud." "Free?"

"Free!" he says, as if the sound itself could lift the soul.

On this day in November 1775, the hope of freedom will consume him. He'll seek advice, argue with his wife, dodge slave patrols and try, desperately, to make his choice -- all as part of a dramatic re-enactment called "To Run or To Stay." It's one of a series of programs at Colonial Williamsburg this year that delve into the lives of blacks who lived in this historic town during the 18th century, when blacks made up half the population. "Trying to Git Some Mother Wit" offers a poignant look at the healing power of humor, while "A Broken Spirit" takes visitors deep into the brutal, complex world of plantation slavery.

For years, these lives were largely ignored. "Enslaving Virginia" has changed that. No longer are George Washington, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson the only big draws at this living history museum. Now visitors also come to see the story of Peter and Sarah Southall.

Several years ago, Colonial Williamsburg was reviled by many for re-enacting a slave auction. What administrators saw as an effort at historical accuracy instead became a lightning rod for criticism and "I told you so's."

Since its debut in March, "Enslaving Virginia" has brought national and international attention, most of it positive. The Southalls' story, played out on the streets of Williamsburg twice a week, draws crowds rivaling those that follow the fife and drum corps of British redcoats.

Throughout the day, visitors meet the Coopers, free blacks who own two slaves; Miss Lydia, matriarch of the slave community; and Talbott Thompson, a free black from Norfolk with tales of lynchings, house burnings and revolution.

Richard Josey and Hope Smith, both 23, play Peter and Sarah Southall. They're veterans of Colonial Williamsburg, having started as child re-enactors. They say "Enslaving Virginia" has been a success.

"I think it has opened a lot of people's eyes, especially dealing with slave individuals," says Smith, a graduate of the College of William and Mary. Before, she says, visitors "never knew what they were doing or what they thought."

To make their story and their characters as authentic as possible, Josey and Smith did extensive research, poring over library collections and slave narratives.

Still, they were not sure how people would react.

"Just [from] the title, 'Enslaving Virginia,' people get all kinds of ideas," says Smith. "But we knew we had done the research. The stories are realistic, with restraint. There are no chains, no manacles. Lorraine Brooks, a spokesman for Colonial Williamsburg, believes you can tell history without being overly graphic. Perhaps that is a lesson learned from the slave auction.

"The goal, of course, is to educate," she says. "These were real people who had the same emotions and passions that we share today."

There are still dissenters. Brooks occasionally gets e-mails asking, "How could you do this?" and "Why are you digging this up?" The wound of slavery has not healed. It is as if what William Faulkner wrote is true: "The past is not dead. It's not even past."

"Now, what about y'all?" Peter Southall says, turning to the crowd and refolding his copy of the proclamation. "What are y'all planning on doing?"

No one responds. It is too early in the story. People don't know if they're supposed to be spectators or participants. They look on, silent.

Peter and Sarah, Miss Lydia and Talbott talk among themselves. The community is rife with rumors. Some say Dunmore only wants the blacks for cannon fodder. Not so, says Talbott. The Hessians take the front line.

The conversation stops when Miss Lydia sees three men looking on from 100 yards away. There's fear in her voice.

"Y'all get on your feet and don't say a word," she tells the largely white crowd. "Don't say nothing to none of them because they will use their muskets."

The men -- a slave patrol -- come forward, three swaggering white men carrying their power in their muskets and in their skin.

"Now, just what do you people think you're doing here?" asks one, a Mr. Drury. "You know the law says no more than five of you can gather at one time. I could have you all hung." Or , he says, he could have them sold down to the sugar islands in the Caribbean. The patrol breaks up the meeting.

"As for the rest of you," he says, turning to the crowd. "You are to return to your masters where you belong."

"Welcome back to the 20th century," Harriott Lomax, who plays Miss Lydia, says to the crowd's applause as the scene ends.

Joseph Wornom, who has been portraying one of the slave patrol members, tells the crowd that in 18th century Williamsburg, the patrols were the patriots. They were enforcing the law and preparing to fight the British.

"The 18th century viewpoint is entirely alien to someone who grew up in the 20th century. The fact that black people were human beings wasn't bandied about much then," Jay Templin, aka Mr. Drury, says as the crowd disperses. "With Peter, as soon as he laid his hands on me, I would have shot him, and the Committee of Safety likely would have paid the master his value."

Throughout the scene just completed, Mereda Johnson's son, Alex, 8, kept asking her: "Is this real? Is this real?"

"I had to reinforce that it was a play," says Johnson, 46. Johnson is here at Williamsburg with her family. Her husband, Henry, an attorney, came to see Thomas Jefferson's world. He had no idea he would end up in the town's slave community.

"The setting was real and the dialogue placed us in the setting. I felt we were in the minds of the 18th century people," Henry Johnson, 44, says. "They were in a dilemma. Right now, I don't know which way I would have gone."

Shirley Lewis, a teacher from Olney, has made up her mind about one thing. She is going to bring a class in the fall.

"The children need this. I wish they would have had this earlier," she says. "This has been something." She pauses. "I couldn't teach it. I couldn't teach it for a long while because it was too painful."

The re-enactors hoped for these types of responses.

"We're not actors. We're historians," says Wornom. "I'm here because I want to teach people."

Often their characters make surprising connections with the audience. Valerie Jackson, who portrays a slave-owning mulatto, says about a third of the blacks in 18th century Williamsburg were mulatto. That fact resonates with many who felt they had no connection to Colonial America.

Many visitors also are surprised to learn that blacks owned anything, let alone slaves. Some react angrily. When Jackson explains that her character inherited one of the slaves, visitors argue that isn't an excuse.

"When I do this character as a free person, I want people to realize that blacks had rights," she says. "We're speaking for people that couldn't speak. We're giving them a voice."

Sarah is worried. She hasn't seen Peter since the slave patrol broke up the morning's gathering. She went by the jail. He wasn't there. He could be anywhere. He could be dead.

"These are trying times for families," Talbott tells her. "Some of us have growed up with these folks and now they're turning their muskets against us."

From the road, Peter approaches, and a woman following the story whispers to him as he passes by: "They're looking for you, Peter."

Peter tells Sarah he has been walking, thinking, making up his mind. They have to go to Norfolk, he says. Sarah shakes her head. Not yet. Not now. It's just like Peter to jump ahead, to work it all out in his head then come to her with his solution. She wants them to make this decision together.

Like any couple who has ever argued, neither is sure the other fully understands. Peter can't stop the master from selling his wife. Sarah can't stop the mistress from sending their daughter to the tobacco fields.

This is the scene that drives them, that drains them, that leaves Sarah in tears. She is thinking for three people. Peter is thinking for himself, then Sarah, then their daughter, Mary. It was so much easier when he was alone.

He starts yelling, beating his chest. There's no time for questions, worries or fears. Now, Sarah. Now.

She wants another day. He will not be moved.

"I'm not letting this chance pass by. I'm not," he says. "Sarah, we got to leave now. We got to. We don't ... all we'll end up is slaves." He will be at the apothecary at half past 4, he says finally, ready to run. Sarah, tears telling of her disappointment, runs off. This time as the scene ends, the crowd lingers. There is no applause. No one breaks character to bring them back to the 20th century. They are left with their thoughts.

"Lovely," says Robert Williams, 54, from Allentown, Pa. He heard about "Enslaving Virginia" on television. So, he is here, seeking out the story of his ancestors. Not blood relatives, but ancestors in the universal sense, the millions sold into the diaspora of slavery. At times, the scene made him angry.

"You can't help it," he says. "Just seeing this. I became really emotional. Just recognizing this is what our ancestors went through to attain freedom."

"The whole thing I try to bring about is: Everything in the life of a slave individual is uncertain," says Smith. "I might have a white woman in the 20th century in the audience, but she can say, 'I'm a wife. I'm a mother.' Everybody can relate to a human experience."

Except for the slave patrol, whites are never seen. Yet they are ever-present. Their power is absolute and is wielded with a maddening arbitrariness.

"It's the hardest thing to picture that she is your wife and at any time Master Southall could sell her," says Josey. "At times it's all so vivid."

Sometimes, says Smith, the argument becomes so intense, her commitment to character so deep, she cannot pull herself out. She just keeps crying.

By late afternoon, Peter -- and the crowd that has followed his story -- have picked up plenty of advice. But no one has an answer.

The free blacks are split. Flora, a slave at the Raleigh Tavern, says run. The community will take care of Sarah.

"I think you need to take one of Southall's horses, the white mare that really moves," she says. Miss Lydia tells him to run if he must, but not without Sarah. That doesn't make sense. She turns to the crowd. "Y'all ain't seen Sarah, has you?" she asks. People shrug. "Well," she says, "I got to find her, 'cause he ain't leaving without her."

Outside McKenzie's Apothecary, the crowd waits. Peter steps out from between two houses, peeks around, then slips across a town green. He stops outside the store.

"Look here," he says to the crowd. "Y'all decided if you're running?"

"We're running!" someone says.

He looks for the voice, nods. "All right. So, how many of y'all going?"

A dozen or so hands go up. They are tentative, seemingly wary of siding with a slave who wants to run away and fight for the British.

Another voice calls out: "Where are we going?"

A white woman steps out of the crowd and into the story. She works, she says, for a master named Mr. Randolph. She likes him. He has never whipped her. Why she should run?

"You asking me why you got to run?" says Peter. "Just because he ain't put the lash to your back don't mean that he cain't."

One of those on his side calls out, "Better off free!"

The crowd is with him. The wall separating actor from audience is gone. Peter fields their questions. They want to know if he has any other family. They want to know how he lived on the run in North Carolina.

"So, what's your plan?" asks onlooker Bob Landau. "Where you gonna go from here?"

Peter says he'll make a run for Rock Springs, then Hampton. He'll find Jupiter, whose brother belongs to the Coopers. Jupiter will get him across the water to Norfolk. Then, Lord Dunmore will give them rifles.

"Musket in a man's hand can change him," Peter says. "Musket make a man free."

Landau hesitates. "I don't know if I'll stay and fight for Colonel Henry," he says. "Sometimes, it's better the devil you know."

"How would we get our families up?" asks another potential runaway.

Musket, says Peter. "If I get a musket in my hand, there's no man over me," he says.

He is about to make his move when a gasp runs through the crowd. The patrol is coming.

"Uh-oh!"

"Watch out, Peter."

"Run, Peter!"

Too late. The slave patrol surrounds him. They don't believe his excuse about running an errand for Mr. Southall. They know what he's up to; he's still carrying Dunmore's proclamation. Doesn't he know the governor is lying?

"I ought to have shot you this morning. It's only because your wife was with you that stayed my hand," Mr. Drury says before turning away. "Just remember, if you run away, Peter. What's going to happen to your wife and child?"

It is half-past 4. Freedom is still beyond his reach. The question remains: Run or stay?

Audience responses still surprise Smith and Josey. "You might have a black mother from Ohio and a white mother from Seattle, talking," he says. "We've had people crying about whether they're going to run or not."

Once, he pulled a kid from the crowd and they ran off together. Now on some days parents try to put their children near him. Josey says the story should be filmed, somehow put out to people who can't make it to this museum near the mouth of the James River.

"I just don't want the scenario to be, 'Well, 1999 was "Enslaving Virginia." Now we can move on,' " says Smith. "Keep this program. Keep all the programs with Africans in Virginia, Africans enslaved."

Josey nods. "We're telling the truth, and we're not watering down nothing."