Introduction
There is a rich tale about slavery in the US from previous ages of which people can only understand now as something that belied “equality” and “freedom”. Specifically, this can be glimpsed in advertisements such as the one that follows.
Main body
In 1769, Thomas Jefferson put an announcement in the Virginia Gazette for an escapee slave: Runaway from the pledge in Albemarle, a mixed-blood bondman named Sandy, about 35 years of age, his height is somewhat low, inclining to beefiness, and his skin texture is light; he is a shoe-maker by skill, in which he uses his left hand predominantly, can do common carpenters work, and is incredible of a horse jockey; he is very much obsessed to drink, and when drunk is impudent and unruly, in his discussion he swear much, and in his behaviour is crafty and tricky. He took with him a white horse, many marks with suggestions, of which it is likely he will try to arrange; he also carried his shoemaker’s tools, and will probably attempt to get employment that way. Whoever passes on the said slave to me, in Albermarle, shall have $40 incentive, if taken up within the district, 4 1, if somewhere else within the colony, and 10 1, if in any other colony, from Thomas Jefferson (Virginia Gazette, 1769).
Given Jefferson’s multifaceted approach toward the society of slavery, the advertisement discloses undeniably that property rights, even possessions in human beings, formed an important component of Jefferson’s viewpoint. The author of the Declaration of Independence presented a reward for and is adamant on the return of his human bondsman; freedom was to be extensive to free white men only.
But the advertisement also tell us something about Sandy, from his physical depiction: “inclining to overweight and his skin is light,” to his personal practices: “very much obsessed to drink, when drunk is impudent and unruly, in his discussion he promises a lot,” he was “crafty and tricky.” however Sandy was also a exceptionally skilled slave: a left-handed shoe-maker, he could also do woodwork and was “something of a hoarse jockey.” The information that Jefferson offered the quite considerable prize of four pounds for Sandy if he were taken within Virginia, and ten pounds if arrested outside the colony, tells us that he mainly appreciated these accomplishments, despite Sandy’s drinking, his bad language, and his “impudent and unruly” behavior.
Runaways were a process during the New World slave civilization: as England’s oldest New World authority, Virginia by the eighteenth century was a multinational, multicultural civilization whose wealth was built on the backs of men and women of African origin who grew tobacco and other agricultural foodstuffs, constructed roads, and bridges, built houses and made furniture, and created many of the clothing, tools, and other articles that Virginia migrant used daily. However the customary basis for the history of colonial Virginia centered almost completely on the lives and activities of a moderately insignificant group of privileged planters at the height of civilization. Slaves such as Sandy and the Yanimarew captives, at the base of the social and economic speculation, have received only marginal consideration as revealed through the eyes of the white master class, mostly in lawful and plantation accounts and personal association.
The runaway ads, though, provide an exceptional window on the African peoples of Virginia, and can help us in understanding the lives of the previously incoherent bondsmen and women. By presenting us physical imagery of runaways, lists of clothing, and other things slaves frequently carried away with them, facts of the many abilities and kinds of work runaway slaves experienced, and even some insight into the basis why slaves run away, the runaway ads can help light up the concealed corners of colonial Virginia’s slave society. In addition to ads placed by owners looking for runaway slaves, there are also an important number of ads placed by sheriffs and other county officers recounting alleged runaways taken up and lodged in the county jail. These captured ads hold the similar types of information.
A file of runaway and captured slave ads of eighteenth-century Virginia can help out us to go after the story of the hundreds of individuals described in them. By labeling each individual runaway listed in the ads, we can present a foundation for the construction of a sequence of collective life story of the runaways. Building on this foundation by integrating additional material in the letters, diaries, plantation accounts and county records of eighteenth-century Virginia will give an initial point in building human stories.
Although every advertisement described an exceptional individual or persons, the phrasing of the ads followed a type of method. Owners were mainly concerned in the return of the escapees, and as a result wrote thorough physical descriptions of the runaways. Sheriffs advertising imprisoned were concerned in owners’ getting back of their possessions and reducing the state of the load of their accommodation. They thus offered the same types of information, though captured ads were typically much briefer than runaway ads. Both kinds of ads also explained the clothing that slaves were wearing or took away with them.
In adding up, owners sometimes listed specific skills runaway slaves have, which may make them, stand out, and they irregularly tried to presume at the actions of slaves, offering speculation as to where the runaways were headed. These speculations rarely provide evidences to the motives for slaves’ running away. Owners also listed a payment on hand for the return of the runaway, a suggestion of the worth they placed on their slaves. By Virginia law, arresting a runaway slave entitled the captor to one hundred or two hundred pounds of tobacco, but owners almost at all times agreed to add anywhere from close to one pound up to ten pounds Virginia money. By the middle of the eighteenth century, with main field hands worth between eighty-five and one hundred pounds, the extra five and ten percent of the value of the slave.
The majority of the ads start on with accurate physical descriptions; accordingly, Chelter, of Hanover county, who ran away in 1770, was described by his owner Harding Burnley, as “about 5 feet 8 to 10 inches high, a little of a reddish skin tone, full eyed, quite thin features for a muscular young fellow, his hair has the appearance of wool, which he commonly combed back, and was about three or four inches long” (Virginia Gazette, 1770). Africans and Afro-Virginians who ran away thus factually carried their recognitions on their bodies. As the physical look of bondspersons was significant to potential buyers, what they looked like also assisted to recognize them when they ran away (Johnson, 1999).
Jack, committed to jail in New Bern, North Carolina in 1767, was described by Sheriff Richard Blackledge as “about 5 feet 4 inches high has six rings of his county marks round his neck, his ears full of holes.” and lots of escapees have other types of markings, characters set by their owners. Annas, a “very white mixed-blood.” was marked on both cheek with owner Edward Rutland’s product: E on the right cheek. R on the left cheek. Anne Relce, a mulatto woman who used the name Bush, ran away in 1739 in company with a white Irishman named Edward Ornsby. She had been whipped by direction of the Court of King George County, and “may possibly have the Marks on Her Back” (Virginia Gazette, 1767).
In adding up to their bodily descriptions, owners also almost at all times offered thorough lists of the clothing runaway bondsmen and women take with them. For instance, Bacchus, who ran away from Gabriel Jones’s Augusta County property in summer of 1774, carried with him an entire wardrobe, consisting of two White Russia Drill Coats, and so on (Virginia Gazette, 1774).
Several perceptions into the world of labor of the slaves can also be garnered from the advertisements. Skilled slaves embodied important investments and appear unreasonably in runaway ads. Slaves talented in one or more skills had moderately more freedom than their equivalents who worked in the fields. And, though the risks remained huge for all slaves who decide to run, slave craftsman’s also possessed capacity that would aid them to live longer as free men and women. One regular skill among Chesapeake runaways was that of waterman. Skilled sailors and boat-handlers were very significant in the Tidewater with its numerous rivers and navigable creeks. A case of a runaway boatman was John Holladay’s Cambridge, “who previously belonged to Mr. Benjamin Hubbard.” Holladay was customs collector for the Rappahannock River district at Fredericksburg, and certainly trusted Cambridge, who was “so well identified as to need no other accounts,” with a great deal of freedom to move along Virginia’s rivers and creeks. He alleged the “noted villain” who had “a wife at almost each landing on Rappahannock, Mattapony, and Pamunky rivers, “of being protected in one of the slave housing in the area. Cambridge was imprisoned and trade to Benjamin Grymes. The gifted waterman punctually ran off again; go with by a slave blacksmith from King and Queen County named Dick (Virginia Gazette, 1768).
In addition to physical individuality and descriptions of clothing and slaves’ skills, the ads also inform us something about the reasons of many of the escapees. Runaways’ actions as exposed in the runaway ads are mixed; slaves decide to run away for a number of cause, from maltreatment by a master or boss, change in master or home, efforts to re-unite with loved ones, or a actual want for freedom, whether by escaping the settlement on a sea-going boat or running on the way to a town to attempt to “pass for free.”
Masters frequently presumed at the likely course a runaway may be headed; they irregularly had more dependable information, Jones Bacchus, for instance, had a determined plan, which certainly give details why he acquire so many fine clothes with him. According to his master, Bacchus, who had escorted Jones all through the settlement, “will most likely try to pass for a Freeman by the Name of John Christian, and try to get on Board some Vessel bound for Great Britain, for the information he has of the late willpower of Somerset’s Case.” The Somerset case, the conclusion of a number of lawful exercises brought by well-known British reformist Granville Sharp in lieu of slaves in Britain, agreement with James Somerset, a runaway slave whose master had carried him to England. Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, come to a decision that Somerset must go free, since there were no laws in England either for or against slavery, and slavery itself was so “hateful” that nothing could be found to maintain it even if there were laws. Mansfield, though, keenly declined to admit that his ruling had barred slavery in Great Britain and it was usually accepted that it did not (Thomas, 1997).
Further cases of runaways’ reasons can help us appreciate the real human disaster that happened when slaves were divided from their families. Tony and Phillis, a middle-aged husband and wife, ran away from their Fauquier County district in 1770. the pair “have had several children, who are sold and detached through Culperer, Frederick, and Augusta counties, to one of which if they are not in Lancaster, I think they are gone, though I incline to believe they are in the latter, as the fellow always expressed an unusual desire to return there.” In other words, their owner assumed that they had fled to their children, if not back to Lancaster, the county of their birth (Virginia Gazette, 1770).
The crucial significance of the runaway ads lies primarily in what they can tell us about the life stories of individual slaves. Every ad explained part of the story of a real person, not a concept. When additional study into other basis has been taking on, these human stories can be fleshed out as real human beings begin to come out from the records.
In May, 1751, a varied group of mulatto servants and black slaves in Accomack County ran away jointly. The leaders, Dollar and Greenock, joining them were a mulatto man and woman, James and Tabitha Shavers. The escapees got hold of some guns, broke into several storehouses, and stole a boat (Virginia Gazette, 1751).
Detained, they were tried before the Accomack justices, where Tabitha Shavers and the boy give evidence that Dollar, Greenock, and James had broken into a number of storehouses and stolen bacon and meal. The witnesses were found not guilty, though Tabitha experienced a public whipping for the reason that of a protest on the part of her master of defiance, maybe connected to her running away. The other four were detained over until the next month when they appeared before a local court of Oyer and Terminer, a particular court that tried crimes. At the latter assembly, James was free, but Pleasant was found culpable of getting stolen goods and verdict to be given twenty-five lashes “on her bare back, well laid on.” Greenock, the gang leader, who was detained again following another hopeless escape while in anticipation of the second trial, was found accountable of carrying away stolen goods and evasion from custody. He was sentenced to be burned in the hand, given twenty-five lashes, and placed in the pillory for a quarter of an hour with his ears nailed to the post. Dollar’s fate is mysterious; he never showed at the second trial. Maybe he had been killed between trials (Accomack County Order Book).
The ads factually put human faces on the slaves. Peter Deadfoot, for instance, was a very ideal among men. A major inconsistency of the ads stems from the detail that the owners frequently stretching in their descriptions of their slaves’ achievements. Therefore we frequently see expressions like “act as if to be a carpenter,” or “an uncaring shoemaker” in the ads. One from time to time has to read between the lines in order to shape a precise idea of the skills among slaves. But on a number of juncture the ads disclose the real picture: Will, “a house carpenter, tight cooper,” who “understands plantation business well, and is a very handy fellow; Adam, a brick layer, described by his master as “a very good workman”; and multi-talented Peter, “a good house carpenter, cooper, Bricklayer, Plaisterer and Whitewasher and Gardener,” all represent the broad variety of skilled situations that slaves crammed in regal Virginia (Virginia Gazette, 1768).
Still in the midst of the skilled runaways, on the other hand, Deadfoot stands out. Obviously wasting his aptitudes on Mason’s inland quarter, where he had been put to work sawing lumber, Deadfoot ran away in 1769. Thompson placed an ad for the very gifted and clever runaway, who feared was headed for Philadelphia with a fake pass. Mason described him as “an uncaring shoemaker, a good butcher, farm worker, and transporter; and excellent sawyer, and waterman, understands breaking oxen very well and is one of the best cut men, either with or without a cradle, in America; in short, he is so resourceful a fellow, that he can turn his hand to everything (Virginia Gazette, 1768).
Other runaways, such as Bacchus, stand out because of their willful determination in search of their freedom. Aaron, who passed as a free man by the name Aaron Griffin, was a constant deserter. Identified on both cheek with owner Henry Randolph’s initials, Aaron first ran away in December of 1767, and have a wish for freedom so immense that we can go after him through following ads. Imprisoned, he ran away again in October of the next year. Again taken up, Aaron ran away again the next year, this time with one more bondsman named Sam. The determined slave lastly take legal action for his freedom, and when the General Court ruled against him in October of 1769, he ran once more in June, 1770, thus running away a total of four times in three years. We do not know whether Aaron Griffin attained his wanted for freedom, but the final ad, placed by Henry Randolph’s son John, is explicit indication to his possible destiny. He was outlawed, and John Randolph offered a payment of ten pounds for his head, five if brought in alive. Most probably Aaron was worth more to Randolph as a dead example to the other slaves than as a live repeated runaway, a frightening case of Aaron’s own willpower as well as of the dangers that all runaways faced (Virginia Gazette, 1768).
Conclusion
There are restrictions to the usefulness of the ads in considering the lives of the majority of slaves. We do not know the final outcome of the majority of the individuals named in the ads. Owners did not place ads for every runaway because many were most likely captured quickly. Many more slaves did not run away at all and do not appear in the records. But given these boundaries, the escapee and captured advertisements still present us an extraordinary quantity of information about individual human beings trapped in a truly awful system. And when increased with other basis of information, the ads can start on to reinstate some human dignity to a group of persons who have long been deprived of their self-respect.
References
Virginia Gazette (Purdue & Dixon), Williamsburg, 1769. Web.
Virginia Gazette (Rind), 1770.
Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), pp. 20-21.
Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), 1767, (Parks), 1737.
Virginia Gazette (Rind), 1774.
Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), April 21, 1768. September 29, 1768: Mullin, Flight and Rebellion, p. 95, asserts that watermen made up fourteen percent of all skilled slave runaways.
Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870, (New York, 1997), pp. 475-476.
Virginia Gazette (Rind), 1770.
Virginia Gazette (Hunter), Williamsburg, 1751.
Accomack County Order Book, 1744-53, pp. 496-7,511-12.
Virginia Gazette (Rind), (Purdie & Dixon), 1774.
Virginia Gazette (Rind), 1768.
Virginia Gazette (Rind), 1768; (Purdie & Dixon), 1768.