The Colonial Context
For the newspaper propagandists of the American cause, the revolutionary message, whatever the cast of the moment, had, at its literal back, advertisements that sought to buy slaves, sell slaves, or recover slaves who had escaped. There could be no confinement of the word “slavery” to a rhetorical flourish or to political metaphor when colonial readers saw the existence of slavery, if not in day-to-day contact, each week in the newspapers. Slave advertising occurred routinely in newspapers of all colonies, and because “runaway” notices crossed colony borders, colonists far from concentrations of slavery had before them examples of the construction of slavery from all parts of the colonies.
About a fourth of newspaper space was generally devoted to advertising— separate, small paragraphs of information that occasionally included a small woodcut display and a boldface “headline.” Set amidst these notices of ship arrivals and departures, land for sale, runaway indentured servants, and lost horses, the slave advertisement was not unusual even in areas served by newspapers where the slave and free black population was low. Here, in the context of legitimation provided by the colonial newspaper, slave owning was presented as an accepted routine of colonial life, and, for the price of the advertisement, the slave owner was free to construct identities and dispense and disperse attitudes that were most useful to the slave-owning community.
In the Northeast, for example, “good” slaves were the competent workers and appropriate members, like indentured servants and apprentices, of a stepladder society. In Virginia and Maryland, slave advertising reflected the integral role slavery played in the definition of the society. “Runaway” advertisements reminded Virginians that their definition of self depended on slaves remaining loyally in the place Virginians had prescribed for them. In South Carolina, the slave advertisement was the town crier, calling out that white dominance could only be maintained by vigilance and loyalty of white to white.
Under the umbrella of the colonial newspaper, these differences were not so much sharp contrasts as varieties off the same stalk. The printer served as the middlemen in the transactions. In the North, the names of William Bradford of Philadelphia, John Peter Zenger of New York, and Benjamin Edes of Boston appear in the advertisements from their regions as much as their counterparts, William Rind of Williamsburg and Peter Timothy of South Carolina appear in the southern press. Tory or patriot affiliation made no difference. The typographical displays of slave advertisements were alike, even to the use of running figures for notices of escaped slaves.
Slave descriptions also came from a narrow band of choices that served to present slave transactions in terms of colonywide commonality. By the eve of the American Revolution, slave advertisements had anchored in place an array of slave characteristics that included renderings of the “bad” slave as untrustworthy, demonic, and violent, depending on his or her resistance to the condition of servitude, and the “good” or virtuous slave as one who accepted servitude. Thus, with the exception of arriving slaves sold in “parcels,” slaves were characterized in colonial advertising in ways that indicated slaves were different from the free because they embodied particular characteristics that made them appropriate to the status of slavery. Reading the slave advertisements across the colonies, these characteristics fall into two categories: the suitability of black bondsmen and women to accomplish the work of the colonial society, and the need to maintain white control over a body of people whose perceived inborn characteristics, notably violence, threatened the larger society.
This was a different rationale for slavery than in traditional Mosaic law, which viewed slavery as a state of labor and circumstance but not necessarily related to viewing a group of people in agreed-upon ways. It also differed from the “just war” rationale for slavery provided by John Locke and colonial proslavery essayists, who asserted slavery was appropriate when men and women had been captured in a just war, that is, not a slave-catching expedition, when the alternate to enslavement was immediate death. Like Mosaic law, slavery by way of the Lockean loophole was based on circumstance, not inborn characteristics related to race. The rationale offered by slave advertising had most in common with that offered by the Old Testament in its account of Ham, who, along with his descendants, was condemned to servile status forever. Slave advertising called upon a notion that slavery was an unchanging status regardless of circumstance largely because of shared personal characteristics that made slaves unfit for freedom. Prominent among these characteristics was the danger black people, freed or enslaved, posed for whites. Thus, no matter how “good” the good slave, the skills, behavior, or demeanor would never be good enough to warrant freedom. The tip of a sunny iceberg did not preclude the existence of danger below, a constant reminder provided by advertisements for escaped slaves.
The practice of slavery differed markedly from region to region in the American colonies, but the slave advertising of colonial newspapers might be considered a place where these varied attitudes found common ground. Because slave advertisements crossed regional boundaries, particularly in the advertising for escaped slaves, which often appeared in mid-Atlantic and northeastern newspapers in areas of suspected havens, regional differences toward slaves found widespread distribution. But rather than appearing as bizarre in a new context, slave advertising emanating from one region provided the opportunity to tap into common perceptions. Once on the common page, southern slave owners and New England slave owners could determine they were equally fearful of slave conspiracy. A description of a slave by his or her “leering undertook,” a common expression that indicated untrustworthiness, even revolt, for the southern slave owner, might not lead to the apprehension of the slave in question but clearly reinforced any reader’s suspicion, North or South, that slave loyalty could not be taken for granted. Competence was an aside in face of the apparent proof provided by the advertisements for escaped slaves that only the thin line of white vigilance protected society from slave uprising. Warnings of the perils of “harbouring” in the revolutionary decade of the 1770s were as apparent in advertising from the North as from the South.
Taken together, the slave advertisements of the colonial press called upon and reinforced perceptions about racial characteristics. While abolitionists such as Granville Sharp pointed to the advertisements in horror and argued that property and humanity were irreconcilable, slave owners found that perceived and specific characteristics of slaves buttressed the rationale for the institution. Proof of humanity by way of personality traits, as the abolitionists would have it, thus made no difference in the status of freedom; existence of personality traits was not in question. Instead, the characterization of the slave in what would become commonly understood ways provided a vocabulary that accepted the patriot metaphor.
Scholars have long examined slave advertising for the information it can provide about the institution itself, about slave life, and as examples of slave resistance (Frey, Hodges and Brown, Mullin, P. Wood). Several studies also use slave advertising to examine regional differences (Smith and Wojtowicz, White, Parker). Here, however, the emphasis is on slave advertising as a construct of white control and has most in common with Shane White, who writes, “Consider for example, the accounts of the physical appearance of blacks contained in the runaway advertisements. Such descriptions appear to be dispassionate, illustrating well the ‘objectivity’ of the advertisements, but we need to understand that the language used in them was loaded with meanings… there was a direct and readily discernible link between appearance on the one hand and character and intellect on the other” (White 119).
Set in the various contexts of legitimation provided by the colonial newspapers in a message composed for the benefit of slaveholders, the slave advertisements provided ostensible evidence that human characteristics not only were insufficient claim for a nonfree status but offered a paradigm that defined particular characteristics as those indicative of a subservient class. Proof of humanity by way of personality traits thus made no difference in the status of freedom, but their existence instead proved that blacks and slaves should remain subservient, for the benefit of all. For the master seeking a runaway slave, the escape proved the slave was not suited for freedom, for the act of running away made the slave “artful,” “conniving,” and “disloyal.” Escaped slaves, the advertisements suggested, in often demonic renderings, should be turned in for the protection of the greater society. Meantime, sellers of slaves sold them for “no fault,” often with acknowledgment of their skills, none of which was considered a prelude to life as a free person.
Political position apparently played no role in the amount of advertising carried by a newspaper. For example, a moderate newspaper such as the Pennsylvania Gazette carried many columns of slave advertising—in 1772, for example, twice as many (by my count) as its competitor, the Pennsylvania Journal, most likely because of the Gazette’s substantial circulation. The Boston Gazette carried only slightly more slave advertising than Richard and Margaret Draper’s conservative Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter. Printers had no politics when it came to slave advertising, a business proposition.
Besides advertisements for slaves for sale and advertisements for runaway slaves, advertisements also appeared, in much fewer numbers, for slaves wanted and by jailers advertising for the owners of individuals who had been apprehended on suspicion of being runaway slaves. The for-sale advertisements exceeded, although not overwhelmingly, the advertisements for runaway slaves. The slave-wanted advertisements, by contrast, occurred irregularly and, particularly in the Northeast, tended to be calls for individual slaves with specific skills. Despite the fewer numbers of these slave-wanted advertisements, readers of the Boston Gazette would have had difficulty in avoiding the advertisement by a slave dealer that called for “Any persons who have healthy Slaves to dispose of, Male or Female, that have been some years in the Country, of 25 Years or Under, may be informed of a Purchaser by applying to the Printer.” That advertisement appeared sixteen times between December 1772 and July of the following year, an unusual number of repetitions. Most advertisements appeared two or three times.
In the Northeast the “good slave” of the for-sale advertisements was articulated most prominently. To the colonial reader of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York, the slave of the for-sale advertisements was hardworking, healthy, and skilled, and sold for “no fault” or “for want of employ.” Occasionally, those phrases would be elaborated upon, as in the advertisement of “A likely Negro WENCH, about 22 years of age, fit either for town or country business. She is sold of no fault, but the want of employment, as her mistress has quit keeping house” (PG 4/25/70). Four years later, in almost identical language, another “likely young Negro Wench” was advertised for sale, “The cause of her being sold is her Master’s removing out of the Province” (PG 11/5/74). Purchasers were sought for children on the same grounds, as in the advertisement of the “strong Healthy Negro Girl 10 Years of Age” who was to be sold “for Want of Employ” (BG 4/6/70).
Only occasionally did an advertisement include an indication that the slave in question was not faultless, as in the advertisement of a “likely Negro wench, about 25 years old with a Female Child, about 4 years old.” Potential buyers were told that upon inquiry “the real cause of her being sold will be made known” (PG 12/7/75). Another Pennsylvanian, advertising a mother and her two sons, indicated “There faults will be candidly told” (PG 5/15/76). However, one New York advertiser had no hesitation in expressing candor in the center of the advertising marketplace. The advertised slave had no faults “except a too great fondness for a particular Wench in his old neighborhood” (NYJ 10/19/75). Two Boston Gazette advertisers were similarly frank: “To Be Sold, a hearty, likely strong Negro Fellow of about 18 years old, he has some good Qualities, he is sober and good-natured, but is a runaway, a Thief and a Liar. If such a Negro will suit any Person to send out of the Province, they may hear of him if they apply soon to Edes and Gill” (BG 12/10/70). The week before an advertisement in a similar vein had appeared: “Very handy at all kinds of Household Work, but does not like it, is discontented with his present service and by keeping bad Company in Town, is grown very impudent and Saucy” (BG 12/3/70).
But such indications of problems were rare, so rare in fact that, in an unusual insertion, the Boston Gazette noted the trend toward faultless slaves with some sarcasm: “WANTED A Negro Man from 18 to 30 Years of Age that will steal, lie and get Drunk. Any person having such a one to dispose of, may hear of a Purchaser by applying to the Printers hereof” (BG 7/18/74).
Slaves for sale shared a number of other positive characteristics, particularly that of being “likely,” a somewhat all-purpose eighteenth-century word of affirmation that suggested suitability to task, health, and physical attractiveness, as in the description of a slave as “likely to look upon” (NYJ 1/12/75). But perhaps the most valuable quality the word had for the advertiser was that it was all-encompassing. Men, women, and children could all be described as “likely,” whether they were house servants, artisans, or sold on the auction block straight from the Middle Passage. “Likely” served as a common description for all slaves, a word, significantly, generally not used in the advertisements for indentured servants. Its popularity may be explained by the fact it served as a way of ascribing similarity to men and women who were not always similar. It thus served as a way of working against the individualization of slaves into personalities and put the onus of developing the “likeliness” or the potential of slaves onto the shoulders of the master.
A description of a slave as “likely” was often joined by a description of strength and health, as “A very likely, strong Negro Boy of Good Temper, about 12 years of age,” who, naturally, was to be “sold for no fault, but only for want of Employ” (BG 9/1/72). It was a selling point if a slave had had smallpox and measles and the resulting immunization that the successfully survived diseases provided in a society that was periodically racked by epidemics.
Once it was ascertained that the slaves were sold for no fault, were “likely,” and were strong and healthy, all attributes that commonly were shared among slaves for sale, slaves were only then individualized by their talents. The talents were considerable and crossed a number of occupations. Not only were slaves advertised as being good farmers and cooks, the advertisements indicate they had skills in a variety of trades—as millers, coopers, butchers, hairdressers, tanners, carpenters, wheelwrights, and bakers. Language ability, English as well as others, was considered worthy of mention, as the advertisement that promoted “a likely Negro lad, 17 years old, speaks English and French” (BG 4/4/74).
Good temper was occasionally mentioned, but the emphasis was on usefulness and the attributes of skill, strength, and health that would contribute to that usefulness. A slave-wanted advertisement called for a boy “of a good disposition, and willing to learn the necessary qualifications for a waiting man” (PJ 9/13/70).
Even in the context of the for-sale advertisements, there are glimpses of slave independence and the recognition by advertisers of their wants and desires: “The cause of her being sold is her Master’s removing out of the Province, and she not willing to go, as her Parents live near Philadelphia” (PG 5/11/74). Another: “The cause of his being sold is that he is not inclined to farming” (PG 6/29/74). A third: “They are sold for no fault, only not agreeing with the freeman of the business they are at present employed in” (PG 4/10/70).
Obedience may have been assumed, but owners of slaves for sale did not consider it either sufficiently factual or important to use meek behavior as a selling point. Indeed, the use of the phrase “down look,” presumably a depressed, hangdog attitude, was seldom used to describe slaves in the Northeast, but frequently used to describe runaway indentured servants. However, the lack of description of slaves as subservient cannot be interpreted to mean that the slave had some control over his or her destiny. Despite the concern of an occasional kind master, the majority of the slave advertisements indicated that slaves existed for the benefit of the owner regardless of the personal consequences for the slave. Small children were sold with or without their mothers. In one Pennsylvanian advertisement, a husband and wife were advertised for sale as a pair, not a common occurrence, but the family unit did not automatically include their child. “They have a fine promising male child, 2 years old, that has had the smallpox, likewise to be sold with them if the Purchaser chooses” (PG 12/7/75). A New York advertiser offered a similar option to potential buyers. “A likely Negro Wench, not quite twenty years of age, with or without her child, a Boy, about 2 years of age, as may suit the purchaser” (NYJ 8/2/79). A five-year-old child was advertised separately from her mother with a sanctimonious note: “The owner intends to break up house-keeping, otherwise he would not choose to part with them” (PJ 5/11/74).
Boston advertisements, however, provide the most compelling evidence that points to the vulnerability and isolation of the black child. In Boston, black babies were regularly “given away free.” Between 1770 and 1774, the Boston Gazette and the Boston News-Letter together carried twenty-five such advertisements for free babies, as in this typical one: “To Be Given Away. A very, likely Negro Female Child, of as fine a breed as any in America. Enquire of the Printer” (BNL 1/30/73). In other colonies, advertisements for free babies were rare, suggesting that the owners found other solutions for unwanted or orphaned black children.
By the age of seven or eight, children were useful enough to be sold. Children of the eighteenth century, of course, did not inhabit a special place of dependency and need later defined as childhood. Work began early for both black and white children. But perhaps one benefit of the harsh rules of the eighteenth century that only recognized a short period of physical rather than emotional dependency of childhood may have been the lack of characterization of blacks as childlike, a characterization that was to hound future generations.
If runaway slaves had not been advertised in the northeastern newspapers, the image of the eighteenth-century colonial slave portrayed by the northeastern papers would be one of competent servant. But the existence of advertisements for runaway slaves belied that image. Not all of these advertisements for escaped slaves were from northeastern owners. The location of Philadelphia made its newspapers recipients for advertisements from southern colonies, particularly Maryland.
The major negative characteristic of slaves in the runaway advertisements was connected to their disappearance. By the act of escaping, the slaves could be characterized as “arch,” “sly,” “cunning,” “lying,” and “crafty.” The act of escape was seen as betrayal, even abandonment. The advertisements bristle with antagonism. Personality traits of the escaped slaves were described as if they were warning signs to others not to be similarly fooled. A Boston runaway by the name of Samson, although “sprightly and active,” spoke with a “learing under-look” (BG 8/19/76). Nor did skillfulness and hard work guarantee a loyal slave. Jem was described by his Philadelphia owner as “a cunning ingenious fellow” despite a remarkable number of admirable traits—a “good workman in a forge” who could do “any kind of smith or carpenters work necessary about a forge, and can also do any kind of farming business” (PJ 8/5/72).
Indeed, there seemed no protection from artful behavior, a theme in the escaped-slave advertising that appeared in the Northeast. Even religious demeanor was no guarantee of a dutiful slave. Moses Grimes, for example, was “very religious, preaches to his colour, walks before burials, and marries.” He was still “very artful”—so artful, in fact, that “if spoke familiarly to, pretends to simplicity and laughs” (PG 12/25/72). Another slave, who had escaped with his wife, was described as a preacher and also “smooth tongued, and very artful” (RNY 1/6/75). In these advertisements, pleasantness was not viewed as a natural characteristic of slave personality, as it was in later rhetoric, but as an indication of cunning.
The examples also illustrate that artfulness was frequently connected to the slave’s conversational interaction with the master, reflecting the master’s lurking suspicion that slaves did not always mean what they said. The advertisement for the Philadelphia slave, Buck, could work as a reminder to other whites that a slave’s pleasant demeanor was no guarantee that disloyalty was not far under the surface. He was “artful and deceptive in conversation, firm and daring in his efforts to perpetrate villainy, though of mild temper and plausible in his speech” (PG 12/4/75). The same phrases, “deceptive in conversation” and “plausible in speech” were used the following year for a slave named Harry (PG 12/26/76).
The appearance of these and similar phrases in the runaway advertisements indicate that slave owners established for themselves a rhetoric that protected them from the acknowledgment that the men and women who ran from their custody might have reason to seek their independence. In some cases, the rhetoric served as a public expression of grief as much as a call for the return of property, as in this advertisement by a Virginia master that appeared in a Pennsylvania paper:
I tell the public he is the same boy who for so many years waited on me on my travels through this and neighboring provinces (and his pertness, or rather impudence, was well-known to almost all my acquaintance) there is the less occasion for a particular description of him. I think it not amiss to say he is a very likely young fellow, about 20 years old, about 5 feet 9 inches high, stout and strong made, has a remarkable swing in his walk, but is much more so by a knack he has of gaining the good graces of almost everybody who will listen to his bewitching and deceitful tongue, which seldom or ever speaks the truth. (PG 4/27/74)
The runaway advertisements, like the advertisements for runaway apprentices, can be characterized by their predictability. As in the for-sale advertisements, the runaway advertisements of the Northeast usually conformed to a pattern. Some newspapers, particularly the Pennsylvania Journal, perhaps the most typographically advanced colonial newspaper in terms of advertising layout, used an African running figure or other illustration with the advertisements. The block of copy most usually began with the word “RUNAWAY” capitalized, followed by the location of the place the slave left, the name and a description of the slave, a detailed description of the clothing worn and taken, a description of skills, and occasionally a description of personality traits, as already discussed. The advertisement closed with a reminder of the amount of the reward and the name of the owner or an “Enquire of the Printer.” A final postscript often warned “all masters of vessels” not take up the slave or anyone to “harbour” the slave on pain of legal penalty. As in the for-sale advertisements, the physical description of the slave was dominant in words that affirm as much as describe: “A very stout well-made fellow” (PG 2/3/73); “well-featured,” “a likely, well-made fellow” (BG 11/8/71); “strait-limb’d” (BG 3/25/76); “very strong made” (BNL 6/15/75); “spare and active” (BNL 9/28/75); “stout well-set Fellow” (BNL 7/8/73). These general statements were followed by precise physical descriptions—height “five feet seven or eight inches”—with particular attention paid to physical marks of identity, some of which were striking. A Boston slave, Prince, although “well-set,” had “had his Jaw Bone broken, it is an obstruction to him in Eating, has had his right leg broke, and is a little crooked, has lost two or three Toes of his Foot.” If those disabilities were not sufficient to make him a marked man, his former master noted his red waistcoat and yellow breeches (BNL 6/7/70).
Not regularly, but on occasion, an advertiser noted that the slave was wearing an iron collar, certainly a reminder to northeastern readers of the status of slaves. An eighteen-year-old Philadelphia girl was identified by the iron collar she was wearing at the time of her escape (PG 2/6/70). And another slave escaped with a collar and a chain on his leg, although his owner warned that he nonetheless “pretends to be free,” a favorite phrase. It was noted he took a hammer and chisel with him (PG 5/10/70). The slave Cuff escaped with “an iron collar around his neck” but was also identified by his stutter (PG 10/25/75).
Where such obvious identification marks were not available, owners did not fail to use minutia. The physical description of a Maryland slave advertised for in Pennsylvania included mention of a small bald spot and “one of his little fingers stiff” (PG 2/8/70). Another youth “has been lately cured of a sore on one of his great toes, and one on his shin bone a little above the instep” (PG 10/12/74).
The closeness of the master’s observation of the men and women in his or her custody was again illustrated in the descriptions of the slave clothing. Although owners acknowledged that the runaway slave would likely change his or her clothes, that did not stop them from listing every stitch down to the shade of the buttons that the slave was wearing at the time of escape. Another close description was given to clothing the slave took along: “Had on when he went away, a brown Homespun Coat, lined with the striped woolen, old leather breeches, a Pair of New long striped Linen Trousers, and took with him a new homespun brown lappel coat and Breeches lined with the same colour, and brass Buttons, the collar lined with red quality, black Calico… and a homespun Great Coat with metal Buttons and divers pair of Stockings, striped Woolen shirt and a white linnen ditto” (BNL 3/18/71).
The master of Philadelphia runaway Dick noted that the “pair of pretty good leather breeches” he ran away in were without any seam between the legs (PG 6/7/70). The owner of the slave Pompey concluded his already detailed clothing description with the information the slave’s shoes, although decorated “with copper or pinch-back buckles,” still “appeared too long for him” (PJ 11/20/76). The amount of clothing that was available for the escaping slave Be to take on her flight to freedom, and her master’s knowledge of the wardrobe, invites speculation as to her special status. In addition to the considerable amount of clothing she was wearing, she also carried along “an half worn scarlet coat, new purple and yellow checked stuff jacket and petticoat, white linen ditto, blue and white stample linen ditto, cambrick apron, red and white calico short gown, and black bombazein quilted petticoat” (PJ 11/20/76).
The minute physical and clothing descriptions certainly indicate one level of intimacy between the slave and his master. But the intimacy appeared limited to these spheres of observation. Owners of the runaway slaves advertised in the Northeast appeared, at least from the advertisements, to have little personal knowledge of the men and women who served them. Unlike slave owners in the southern colonies, northeastern slave owners tended not to offer speculation on where the runaway slaves may have fled to, suggesting these owners had little interest or even much concept of the familial and emotional ties of the slave. When such acknowledgments existed, the tone sometimes suggested surprise that the tie to the master was not always paramount, as when one owner complained that when he gave his female slave a pass to visit her child in Philadelphia, “she never returned” (PG 2/20/72). Another female slave left “three young children, a good master and mistress, and is going towards New-York, after a married white man who is a soldier in the Continental service there” (PG 8/7/76).
Another black-white relationship was noted in an advertisement in which the emphasis was on the kind of white women that would flee with a slave. “Said Mulattoe took with him a white woman, which he says is his wife, she is very remarkable, as all the fingers are cut off her right hand, and is a thick-set, chunky, impudent looking, red haired hussey, pretty much given to strong drink” (PG 11/1/70).
Most advertisements that speculated on whereabouts did not have this intensity. Advertisements simply noted that it “is supposed she will go towards New-York, where she has Relatives” (PG 8/8/71). The Philadelphia slave Mingo was “supposed to be gone off with a White Woman, named Fanny” (PG 6/28/70). In a footnote, an owner added that his slave Jack, since he was born in Maryland, “is on his way to his old master, to see his mother and father” (PG 10/21/72). There were occasional mentions of family units fleeing to freedom. “A young female child about eight months old” was taken in the flight of a man and woman, “which may be a good mark to know them both” (PG 11/1/70). Similarly, another couple by the names of John Sharper and Nan took with them the three-year-old Ishmael (PJ 5/7/72).
These examples come from the Philadelphia papers, which carried the largest amount of slave advertising of the northeastern papers. In Boston, with less advertising from southern colonies, family connections or speculation to the whereabouts of runaways were almost totally ignored. The Boston Gazette carried only one such advertisement from 1770 through 1776, that for a slave named Dillar, who “had carried off with her a Child of about 5 Years of Age” (BG 2/6/75).
Runaway advertisements suggest that slaves did not escape without some planning. The frequent mention of the clothes they took with them, even their “artfulness,” suggests the leave-taking was not impulsive. Those factors would indicate that slaves probably had some rather specific plans on where they were going. But many northeastern slave owners, particularly in Massachusetts, although observant enough to note the fit of a shoe and shape of a buckle, appeared to be ignorant of the lives and concerns of slaves outside their connection with the white world.
Escaped-slave advertisements composed a small portion of northeastern advertising in general, and a small portion of advertisements when compared to the advertisements for runaway servants and apprentices. At first glance the slave runaway advertisements seem almost indistinguishable from the advertisements for runaway servants. Indeed, there were many similarities between the two, including close physical descriptions and the offering of rewards.
There were differences also. Slaves were never advertised with a surname, and servants, including free blacks, were given both names. The use of the single name, in fact, was the immediate indication that the individual in question was a slave. Additionally, there were certain rhetorical nuances. The use of “likely” for slaves and not for servants; the use of “down look” for servants more than slaves (although in Virginia, the use of “down look” was also used in slave descriptions); and the occasional use of “wool” to describe the hair of a slave. Unlike descriptions of white women servants, black women were described as “wenches” (although “woman” was also used); black youths were frequently “boys” and “girls,” whereas white male youths were described as “lads.” But most important, the advertisements made unequivocally clear that the sale of slaves was the sale of the individual but that the indentured servant was not for sale; it was his or her time that was for sale. These differences, or lack of them, bring up the notion proposed by Oscar Handlin and Mary F. Handlin in connection with the origins of the slave system in the South. They argue that slavery grew out of a tradition that accepted various levels of non-freedom, beginning with medieval villenage, rather than perceived inherent differences of the black race. If we apply that model to the Northeast, advertisements indicate that colonists did not simply view slaves as on the bottom rung of servitude out of happenstance or history. They were acknowledged as different from indentured servants and were given characteristics, including violence and cunning, that were less applied to indentured servants. Nonetheless, the existence of other servant classes could suggest that slavery might be more easily accepted by northeastern colonists as yet another level that existed for the overall good of a functioning society. Emphasizing the function of the slave in the white world, advertisements can be viewed as illustrations of the proslavery arguments of the period that claimed enslavement was part of the natural order of the world because it promoted the happiness of the whole rather than individual benefit.
In December of 1774, an advertisement in the Maryland Gazette sounded the feared note of slave uprising. The advertisement was for the runaway Will, a slave whose escape had not been artful or deceitful, whose getaway had been engineered not by a smooth tongue, who had run without wife or child or even additional clothes, who had no plan of escape and ran to no secret harbor. Will took the action that colonists feared the most—he rose up and attacked the white man in whose charge he had been placed: “Having resisted his overseer, by throwing him down, throating him and striking him sundry times with his fist, it is therefore to be hoped that as he has been guilty of so flagiteous [sic] a crime that all masters of negroes and servants will encourage the taking of him… it cannot be doubted but all overseers will be vigilant on this occasion” (MG 12/15/74). In face of slave unpredictability, here, indeed, was a call for white vigilance.
The advertisements of the southern press suggest vigilance was not limited to such dramatic calls. It existed on many levels, and its front line of defense was depersonalization. Slaves advertised for sale in the Virginia press, and to a lesser extent the Maryland press (that exhibited characteristics of both southern and northern regions), lost the characterizations of skillful workers of the northeastern advertisements. Slaves became members of “parcels,” men, women, and children known only by their common enslavement. In Virginia the context of the slave advertisements shifts from that of people to that of property. The advertisements no longer appeared amid those for runaway indentured servants but were found among the advertisements of what appears to be an extraordinary number of lost, strayed, or stolen horses.
In the early 1770s, the number of advertisements of slaves for sale and those for runaways were fairly similar. But in the Virginia press the advertisements represented many hundreds of slaves for sale, rather than the few dozen of the northeastern press. William Rind’s Virginia Gazette for 1770 contained more runaway advertisements than sale advertisements. Yet the number of slaves represented by the runaway advertisements amounted to perhaps thirty-four; the slaves represented by the advertisements for sale numbered more than fifteen hundred (by my count).
Many of those for-sale advertisements were for slaves to be sold by professional dealers from parcels as large as 240; others from groups of 20, 30, or 80 slaves, all to be sold at auction, not at private sale. So organized, slaves were described in limited ways—“choice,” “valuable,” and the ubiquitous “likely,” those terms usually a part of the headlines along with the place of birth: “Just arrived from Africa” or “Virginia-born.” Health was prominently mentioned. But only when the parcel was the result of the death of an owner, or sold by “a gentleman who declined to go into planting” did the advertisement generally include the mention of the skills represented in the group: “Nine choice Negroes,” including a “good carpenter, good shoemaker” (VG-Rind 3/1/70). A group of 80 “Virginia-born” slaves included “likely young wenches, sundry carpenters, a good blacksmith and a master skipper” (VG-Pickney 4/13/70). But even these descriptions, which tended to characterize the parcels rather than individualize the men and women who comprised the parcels, were scarce. Even when small parcels of slaves were sold, in groups as few as two, the opportunity to individualize was ignored. The advertisement of the slave Minny was rare. “He is supposed to be as good a skipper as any in the colony; is well acquainted with the bay, and all Virginia and Maryland” (VG 10/12/75). And by Virginia standards the for-sale advertisement of a house servant was effusive. The young man was “exceedingly likely,” “a very good house servant,” understood “taking care of horses,” and was even “a tolerable good cook.” The seller offered to take the young man back if the purchaser was not entirely satisfied within a month (VG-Purdie 4/14/75).
For the most part, however, Virginia owners were faint in their praise for the slaves they wished to sell. A parcel of slaves might include “sundry carpenters” and “a good blacksmith” (VG-Pickney 4/14/70), but such descriptions were insufficient to make much difference in the representation of slaves. The definition of slaves as individuals was left to the purview of the runaway advertisements.
As in the northeastern advertisements, the physical description of the slave dominated the runaway advertisements. But the Virginia advertisements lacked the minute detail of the northeastern advertisements. Virginians were satisfied to describe the slave simply as “middle-sized” or “well-made,” rather than convey size in exact feet and inches. Virginians did share with the slave owners of the Northeast a particular concern with color. Virginians, as other colonists, could be specific about shade: “yellowish complexion” was a frequent term of description. “Pass for a white man,” “very black,” “remarkably black,” and “dark Mulatto” were important distinctions. As in the Northeast, speech was seen as a means of identification—stuttering, speed, plainness, and even “talkiness” was noted, but noted, of course, when there was something unusual and usually negative about the speech.
Apparel was given little emphasis, sometimes dismissed as clothes “that are commonly given to Field Negroes” (VG-Purdie and Dixon 5/23/71). Ben escaped “wearing such clothes as Negroes occasionally wear in summer” (VG-Purdie 11/3/75). Even in cases where the escaped slave was known to have taken clothes with him, owners had difficulty being specific or, unlike the northeastern owners, found the enumeration of clothing unimportant, as in the advertisement for Essex: “He is a great rogue, and had a great variety of clothes on him, 21, middle-sized, very straight, talks fast, has large eyes, thick lips and had several times had a swelling under his throat, which has frequently broke, the scars of which are plainly to be seen” (VG-Rind 5/31/70). Caesar carried off “several suits of clothes, but do not remember any except those he went off in” (VG-Pickney and Dixon 7/27/70).
The mention of scars and physical difficulties were frequent, and the advertisements made a point of noting that the markings or disabilities were the result of accidents rather than mistreatment. The runaway Will was partly identified by the scar under one eye received from an ax blow (VG-Rind 11/8/70). Ben was identified by a mark “occasioned by burn when young” (VG-Purdie 11/10/75). Some masters appeared sensitive to the subject of mistreatment. The Virginia owner of the slave Sam made it clear his slave could not have escaped because he was treated badly: “His thefts were certainly the cause of his flight, to avoid the Gallows, for he was never punished whilst with me, nor ever complained, neither had he had Cause to be dissatisfied at his Treatment” (VG-Purdie 3/7/71). But the owner of another slave, also named Sam, offered 25 pounds for the slave’s head. “He has broke open my Store, and stole many things…. I will give Ten Pounds Reward for his Head, if separated from his Body. He has been much whipped for the Crime he committed, and expects to be hanged if taken; therefore he must be well-secured” (VG-Pickney and Dixon 2/2/71).
The same edition carried an advertisement that certainly served to remind Virginians that slavery was supported by the colonial government and that an owner had the right to call for the death of an escaped slave. “As he is outlawed I will give TEN POUNDS for his head, or for a property Certificate to entitle me to be allowed for him by the county.”
But neither the tone of the advertisement for Sam nor the angry, punishing words of the last two advertisements was typical. Those advertisements reminded Virginians in a particularly strong way that slaves, after all, were not loyal, and that in the end, discipline was the only support. The message was more typically carried in the characterization of the runaway slave as deceitful or artful. Charles was an “artful cunning fellow,” a sawyer and shoemaker who “reads well and is a great Preacher from which I imagine he will pass for a freeman” (VG-Purdie and Dixon 4/25/71). Jack had a “deceitful smile” (VG-Rind 2/15/70), as did Joshua, who also was of a “cunning and of a roguish disposition” (VG-Purdie and Dixon 2/15/70). Another Jack was described as “slim, clean made, talkative, artful, and very fancey fellow” (VG-Purdie and Dixon 12/5/71). Artfulness was frequently connected to some aspects of speech. Venus, for example, advertised along with the second Jack, was characterized as “very smooth tongued” (VG-Purdie and Dixon 12/5/71). Caesar was identified as “cunning, smooth-tongued, sensible fellow, has a remarkable good countenance and talks much, especially when in liquor to which he is pretty much addicted” (VG-Purdie and Dixon 7/26/70). The mention of alcohol addiction occurred periodically in advertisements throughout the colonies.
As in the northeastern advertisements, the Virginia advertisements that refer to runaway slaves as deceitful and artful composed less than 10 percent of the total advertisements, despite the power of the description when it occurred. Indeed, Virginia masters did not characterize their slaves as deceitful or artful in any significantly greater numbers than advertisers of the Northeast.
Nonetheless, the appearance of the description “artful” and its corollaries in the runaway advertisements suggests Virginians were not as impersonal about their slaves as the for-sale advertisements would seem to indicate. Other aspects of the advertisements evidence that Virginians were far from impersonal in their relationships with their slaves. And, unlike their northern counterparts, Virginians demonstrated a far-ranging awareness of the personal history of their slaves and a realization of the multiplicity and strength of familial and emotional connections that caused slaves to abscond, as the Virginians phrased it, from “their duty.”
“I gave him leave to go see his wife, who lives at Mr. Cornelius Loften’s in this country, and he is supposed to be lurking around in the neighborhood. It is supposed that he had had dealings with a woman of infamous character in this neighborhood… and that she advised him to run away” (VG-Purdie and Dixon 9/6/70). On a similar theme, it was noted that Sail Cooper, one of the few slaves who was given a surname in the runaway advertisements, “has been for some time past much in the Company of a white Man who has lately gone to Norfolk, she is probably lurking in that place” (VG-Purdie 11/21/71).
Such advertisements provide glimpses into the lives of slaves; occasionally, an advertisement provides a complete drama. A ten-pound reward was offered for the capture of Sam: “About three years ago he purchased his freedom of his old master, Mr. Francis Slaughter, and continued in that state until this spring, when it was discovered he was attempting to inveigle away a number of negroes to the way of Indian country (where he had been most of the last summer) upon which the neighbors insisted on his being reduced to slavery once again; and I purchased him. I imagine he will endeavor to pass as a freeman; he having served in the expedition against the Indians last fall” (VG-Purdie 6/23/75). Sam’s knowledge of the “Indian country” may have helped his escape. His ability to survive is suggested by what he took with him—a gun, an ax, and a pot.
Interestingly, the Virginia slave owner did not routinely regard his runaway slave as deceptive. Deception was a consistent but nonetheless minor theme, suggesting that the response of their slaves to Lord Dunmore’s call for them to join the British, as explored in the final chapter, may have been of surprise to their patriot owners and helps explain the sense of betrayal that characterized Virginians’ response to that episode.
Slave advertisements of the South Carolina press offered slaves in “parcels” and individually, the individual advertisements picturing the slave as skilled and useful, as did those in the Northeast. Yet the advertisements for runaway slaves portray a society that viewed itself under siege, protecting itself by the methods of a police state in response to the astounding increase in the number of slaves between 1730 to 1767 (Parker, P. Wood). As in other colonies, description of slaves to be sold included some characterization by their skills. Some parcels of slaves were advertised as including such trades as “a cooper, porter, cook, seamstress” (SCG 3/18/70). Other parcels were simply described as “choice plantation slaves” to be sold “by a gentleman about to decline planting” (SCG 2/15/70), a fairly common reason given for the sale of groups of slaves. Individual slaves were similarly characterized by their skill—a woman as “an extraordinary good Washer and Ironer” (SCG 6/7/70), a young man as understanding “extraordinary well taking care of horses” (SCG 1/1/70). The South Carolina advertisers seldom mentioned that their slaves were “sold for no fault,” and there were only occasional explanations for the sale, just two in 1770, including this glimpse into a master-slave relationship: “The only reason his being offered to sale is, that his present employment is to attend a store, which does not seem to suit his inclinations, his present owners are willing part him, as they want one chiefly to attend the store. Enquire of the Printer” (SCG 1/25/70). Five years later a young woman and three-year-old child were to be sold because “she does not like to live in the country” (SCG 1/30/75).
But in the harsh slave world of South Carolina, concerns for the inclinations or the desires of the slaves stand out as oddities. The brutality and the costs of an institutionalized slave system were apparent in the slave advertisements.
As in other colonial advertisements, the South Carolina advertisements began with descriptions of the slave’s physique and the clothing worn, in the stock euphemism for escape, “when he went away.” Physical characteristics dominated, but there was not the precise notation of size and weight or the attention to the details of clothing found in the northeastern press. What most differentiated the South Carolina advertisements from all other colonial newspapers was the particular emphasis on collusion, particularly white collusion, in the escape of a slave.
Routinely, the northeastern press added a paragraph to most runaway advertisements that warned “all masters of vessels” not to take the runaway aboard. Virginians often speculated that escaped slaves were probably “lurking” in various neighborhoods. Authorities in all colonies tended to arrest unfamiliar black men and women as runaway slaves. But in South Carolina, the threat to the system was not so much the escaping slaves but the whites and blacks who made the escapes possible. The code word in the advertisements was “harbour.” Thus, the advertisements tended to provide detailed accounts of the purchase history of the slave, as a way of indicating where the slave may have fled. “It is likely he may be gone to, or harboured by some evil minded person, at some of the above places,” the owner of a slave named Tom wrote, “I hereby offer a reward of 50 pounds to whoever will prove his being so harboured, to be paid on conviction of the offense” (SCG 4/5/70). Significantly, most rewards for “harbouring” included money for information leading to the conviction of the harbourer, particularly if white, as in the advertisement for Neo: “And as I have Reason to believe that he is harboured by some villainous white Person, or free Negroes, or has been shipped off to the Barbadoes, or elsewhere, I will pay 100 pounds currency, for sufficient proof to convict a white person of any offence and Twenty pounds currency for Proof of his being harboured by a free Negro, or Five Pounds by a Slave” (SCG 5/10/70). The concern for conviction of “harbourers” remained unchanged, regardless of the number of escaped slaves. In 1770, 50 percent of the runaway advertisements in the South-Carolina Gazette warn of “harbouring.” In 1775, the percentage was almost the same despite a dramatic decrease in the number of runaway advertisements from five years before (my count).
Although the South Carolina press serves as the most rigid example of the cultural messages of slave advertising, the escaped-slave advertising in all colonies functioned as a way of binding slave owners together, a trade association of sorts, predicated on the assumption that white people would assist in regaining a slave. The confident, even confidential tone, as of one person sharing information with another of similar temperament, translated into the assumption that the advertisements would reach a readership of similar assumptions and expectations. And the advertisements’ appearance in the approved setting of the colonial newspaper further sanctioned the message that all white people—assumed to be the nature of the readership—had an obligation to participate in the maintenance of the status quo across colony boundaries.
The distribution of such messages by way of the colonial newspaper provided an appropriate frame for patriot propaganda that was distant from the antislavery discussion. While clearly the existence of slave advertising did not translate into readers’ automatic acceptance of the institution, its appearance does indicate that American colonists could not avoid knowledge of slavery and were provided an immediate benchmark that gave meaning to the rhetoric of slavery. Outside of metaphor, however, the slave advertising provided a set of characteristics for slaves and, by implication, for all black colonists that emphasized prejudices already in regional cultures and could only help support the rationale that the institution provided appropriate supervision for this group of Americans. The understanding of black colonists along these narrow constructs was sufficiently deep-seated to negate the examples of the competent black worker that the advertising acknowledged and was experienced on a daily basis by many white Americans who shared with them the worlds of home and work.
What can account for a willingness of the northeastern slave owner to share work but nothing else? For Bostonian Americans, close to the “foundry” of propaganda, one explanation is the certitude provided by long-held positions. A generation of white colonists, coming of age in the changing world of revolutionary America, welcomed propaganda that looked back to sureties of the past.