Month: October 2016

Slavery Advertisements Published October 15, 1766

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR:  Ceara Morse

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-1
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

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oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-2
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

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oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-3
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

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oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-4
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

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oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-5
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

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oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-6
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

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oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-7
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

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oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-8
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

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oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-9
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

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oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-10
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

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oct-15-georgia-gazette-slavery-11
Georgia Gazette (October 15, 1766).

October 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , ,

GUEST COMMENTATOR: Jordan Russo

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

oct-14-10141766-south-carolina-gazette-and-country-journal
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 14, 1766).

“Exceeding fine Hyson Tea.”

 

In addition to “Water Bread” and “superfine Flour in barrels,” Benfield and Jones advertised “two chests of exceeding fine Hyson Tea.” T.H. Breen states, “Perhaps the central item in this rapidly changing consumer society was tea. In the early decades of the eighteenth century, tea began to appear in the homes of wealthier Americans.”[1] Tea was a drink that elite colonists socialized over. Moreau de Saint-Méry, a foreign visitor to Philadelphia in the 1790s, wrote, “The whole family is united at tea, to which friends, acquaintances, and even strangers are invited.” Drinking tea united and brought people together, allowing them to get to know each other better. According to Carla Olson Gade’s summary on Colonial Quills, “Obviously, young men and women enjoyed the sociability of teatime, for it provided an ideal occasion to get acquainted.”

It is also interesting that this advertisement was promoting their goods to be sold to retailers. Benfield and Jones wanted retailers to buy their goods so they could sell them to others. The customers that bought the tea from Benfield and Jones may not have been the end users.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes

Benfield and Jones did indeed appear to be wholesalers rather than retailers, though some colonial firms did pursue both. This advertisement suggests that they specialized in moving high volumes of staples and supplies (bread, flour, iron, and tea), for which they accepted cash “at a very low advance” or “exchange[d] for coarse goods” that they then likely sold and exported in bulk.

Benfield and Jones provided tea to the Charleston market, but colonial consumers could not enjoy the social rituals Jordan describes without also purchasing a variety of other accouterments and supplies. Drinking tea practically demanded sugar. It also required a variety of equipment: tea sets that included cups, saucers, tea kettles, covered sugar bowls, creampots, hot-water urns, salvers, trays, and canisters for dried tea leaves. Drinking tea required purchasing more than just the tea itself.

As Jordan notes, tea was initially a luxury enjoyed by wealthy colonists, but over time it gained widespread popularity. Colonists of every station and background developed a taste for tea, often considering it just as much a staple as the bread and flour listed alongside it in Benfield and Jones’ advertisement. This prompted a further expansion of consumer activity as colonists purchased tea equipage of various styles and made of various materials. Fashions changed and consumers opted to display and use tea sets that reflected their own tastes, wealth, and status.

In providing tea to the Charleston market, Benfield and Jones distributed an important commodity, one that became an emblem of eighteenth-century consumer culture. Yet they sold only one component necessary for the extensive practices and rituals of socializing over tea: the tea itself. Other advertisers promoted an array of additional items necessary for drinking tea that colonists would have imagined while reading Benfield and Jones’ advertisement, products that may not be as readily apparent to modern readers accustomed to modern convenience and methods of preparing tea.

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[1] T.H. Breen, “An Empire of Goods: The Anglicization of Colonial America, 1690-1776,” Journal of British Studies 25, no. 4 (October 1986): 488.

Slavery Advertisements Published October 14, 1766

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR:  Ceara Morse

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

oct-14-south-carolina-gazette-and-country-journal-slavery-1
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 14, 1766).

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oct-14-south-carolina-gazette-and-country-journal-slavery-2
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 14, 1766).

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oct-14-south-carolina-gazette-and-country-journal-slavery-3
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 14, 1766).

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oct-14-south-carolina-gazette-and-country-journal-slavery-4
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 14, 1766).

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oct-14-south-carolina-gazette-and-country-journal-slavery-5
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 14, 1766).

October 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR: Jordan Russo

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

oct-13-10131766-new-york-mercury
New-York Mercury (October 13, 1766).

“BEING the largest and most curious collection …”

In this advertisement Gerardus Duyckinck described the merchandise in his “Universal STORE” as a “Medley of GOODS for the CURIOUS.” Duyckinck sold “plain and ornamented looking-glasses” and “maps, charts and prints of various sorts.” I imagine the items in Duyckinck’s store were not sold everywhere else or else it would not have made sense to call them “GOODS for the CURIOUS.”

Duyckinck sold items for a variety of customers. Some of merchandise was high end while others was not. For example, his glassware was “plain” or “ornamented.” The differences in merchandise meant that the prices varied between items. Duynkinck said that he had “high and low-priced paper hangings.” Duycknick was not attempting to sell his items to one type of customer; he had items and prices welcoming to all.

T.H. Breen notes that “British imports initially flowed into the households of the well-to-do. These are the goods that catch our eyes in modern museums and restored colonial homes.”[1] When we visit museums today, we are most likely to see the sort of chic merchandise that Duynkinck sold to elite customers.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes

Historians of eighteenth-century consumer culture and material culture frequently discuss the sense of wonder that colonists experienced as they encountered an expanding array of goods that they purchased and put to use for a variety of purposes. Some goods were completely utilitarian; others were luxury items. Some denoted conspicuous consumption; most testified to the identity of the consumer in one fashion or another.

In some instances historians have carefully excavated the sense of excitement that colonists felt when confronted with new consumer choices. For instance, the standard list advertisement (with its heavy and dense format) may not seem especially exciting when viewed through modern eyes, but thick descriptions of how such lists presented a new world of imagination, sensation, and possession to eighteenth-century consumers uncover raucous enthusiasm.

Jordan has chosen an advertisement that does not require quite as much excavation. Gerardus Duyckinck verbalized the sense of wonder and excitement that he knew consumers felt, mobilizing it to bring customers into his “Universal STORE.” He offered a variety of specialty goods among his “Medley of GOODS for the CURIOUS.” He deployed hyperbole to describe his wares, which included “the largest and most curious collection” of looking glasses “ever imported in America, consisting of the greatest variety.” He stocked paper hangings (wallpaper today): “an extraordinary assortment … as has yet been imported at one time into New-York.” His general merchandise included “the greatest variety of goods in the several branches, suitable for country and city tradesmen, mechanicks, and private families.”

What would it have been like to visit Duyckinck’s shop? Was he as much of an entrepreneur, an early modern carnival barker, in person as he sounded in his advertisement? Interacting with the shopkeeper may have been an important part of the entertainment involved in shopping at his establishment, just as significant as the pleasures of inspecting his merchandise and exercising choice in selecting among his wares.

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[1] T.H. Breen, “An Empire of Goods: The Anglicization of Colonial America, 1690-1776,” Journal of British Studies 25, no. 4 (October 1986): 487.

Slavery Advertisements Published October 13, 1766

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR:  Ceara Morse

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

oct-13-boston-gazette-slavery-1
Supplement to the Boston Gazette (October 13, 1766).

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oct-13-connecticut-courant-slavery-1
Connecticut Courant (October 13, 1766).

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oct-13-new-york-gazette-slavery-1
New-York Gazette (October 13, 1766).

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oct-13-new-york-gazette-slavery-2
New-York Gazette (October 13, 1766).

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oct-13-new-york-gazette-slavery-3
New-York Gazette (October 13, 1766).

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oct-13-new-york-mercury-slavery-1
New-York Mercury (October 13, 1766).

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oct-13-new-york-mercury-slavery-2
New-York Mercury (October 13, 1766).

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oct-13-south-carolina-gazette-slavery-1
South Carolina Gazette (October 13, 1766).

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South Carolina Gazette (October 13, 1766).

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South Carolina Gazette (October 13, 1766).

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South Carolina Gazette (October 13, 1766).

October 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR: Jordan Russo

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

oct-12-10101766-new-hampshire-gazette
New-Hampshire Gazette (October 10, 1766).

“TIcklenburgs and Oznabrigs.”

Two words in larger type near the top of this advertisement caught my interest: “Ticklenburgs and Oznabrigs.” They were words that I had not seen before. Both of these items are textiles; the majority of the items listed in the advertisement were textiles. As I mentioned earlier this week, clothing was an important way for colonists to indicate their position in society. The list of items is very long and diverse; there were many types of items all different types of people would have wanted.

T.H. Breen indicates that the volume of consumer goods imported into the colonies allowed prices to decrease. Samuel Cutts’ advertisement states that he sold his goods “at lowest Rate.” Cutts was making sure his potential customers knew that he had the lowest prices and they could have the best deals for all these items. We could compare this to today’s consumer culture; stores are always advertising that they are having sales and have better deals than other stores. Modern customers are always attracted to being able to purchase something for the least amount of money.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes

In her work as guest curator so far, Jordan has identified some of the most significant aspects of eighteenth-century advertising. In one sense, she has returned the Adverts 250 Project to its origins, examining the most common appeals that appeared in early American advertisements. Today we take such appeals — price, choice, fashion — for granted, but that was not the case during the consumer revolution of the eighteenth century. Those appeals were the building blocks of the first generation of advertising for consumer goods and services in American newspapers and magazines, but not all advertisers deployed one or more of those most basic appeals.

As the eighteenth century progressed, appeals to price, choice, and fashion became increasingly common. Some advertisers experimented with incorporating two or all three into their advertisements. In one form or another, each of those appeals appeared in the advertisement Jordan selected for today. Samuel Cutts explicitly made an appeal to price. As Jordan notes, he offered his wares “at the lowest Rate.” Several aspects of his advertisement suggested that customers had many choices in his store, from the extensive list of merchandise to the repetition of the word “variety” to concluding the advertisement with “&c. &c. &c. &c.” Indeed, inserting the eighteenth-century abbreviation for et cetera would have been sufficient to signal that he carried other goods, but repeating it so many times underscored that customers could examine many more items if only they visited his store. Cutts’ appeals to fashion were more subtle, but colonial consumers would have had the ability to classify which textiles were intended for which consumers. Those who wished to attire themselves in the finer textiles, for instance, would not have purchased “Oznabrigs,” a coarse fabric commonly used for clothing for slaves.

In examining some of these most common appeals, Jordan identifies some of the concerns that were most important to eighteenth-century advertisers and consumers. In the process, she also demonstrates that in some regards colonists were not that much different from modern Americans participating in the marketplace.

October 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR: Jordan Russo

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

oct-11-10101766-new-london-gazette
New-London Gazette (October 10, 1766).

“A valuable FARM, containing about 130 Acres of choice good Land.”

The majority of people in colonial America lived on farms. This advertisement could have been directed at someone who was new to Connecticut and needed somewhere to start a new life. Settling in the New World offered most colonists the chance to own land for the first time so this advertisement might have attracted colonists that came to New England for that reason. The buyer would not have to start from scratch since the farm already had “a Large double House well finished two good Barns, a good Well, and every Convenience for a pleasant Place.”

Colonists needed to make profits off their farms so a main selling point in this advertisement was that the farm had “a good Orchard, that will make 100 Barrells of Cyder.” The buyer knew that his land would already be making a profit. T.H. Breen states, “Consumer demand was the driving engine of economic change” in the eighteenth century.[1] Purchasing this farm would have allowed a colonist to take part in consumer culture by selling the surplus of products from the farm.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes

Although the Adverts 250 Project focuses primarily on the marketing of consumer goods and services in eighteenth-century America, newspapers included advertisements that colonists placed for many other purposes. The guest curators often find such advertisements as interesting as those that attempted to persuade readers to become consumers. In addition, those advertisements provide a means of exploring other aspects of the colonial American experience, which is the overarching purpose of the class in which the guest curators are enrolled. Accordingly, I allow each guest curator to select one advertisement that deviates from the usual methodology.

Such entries certainly enhance the Adverts 250 Project by acknowledging and incorporating the other types and purposes of eighteenth-century advertisements. That being said, the guest curators sometimes draw interesting connections between consumer culture and an advertisement that did not explicitly market consumer goods and services. As part of her examination of an advertisement for “A valuable Farm,” Jordan has done so by linking the profits from surplus production on the farm (especially the revenue generated from “100 Barrells of Cyder” coming out of the “good Orchard”) to opportunities to participate in the marketplace as consumers in addition to producers. Potential buyers would have also seen advertisements for goods and services in the New-London Gazette, invitations to be part of a transatlantic network of exchange that accelerated throughout the eighteenth century as the number and variety of possessions in households significantly increased. I appreciate the cause-and-effect relationship that Jordan suggests would have linked the two sorts of advertisements: colonists hoping to be active consumers first needed a means of earning the money (or at least demonstrating that they had the resources to barter or merited credit) necessary to make purchases.

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[1] T.H. Breen, “An Empire of Goods: The Anglicization of Colonial America, 1690-1776,” Journal of British Studies 25, no. 4 (October 1986): 476.

Slavery Advertisements Published October 11, 1766

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR:  Ceara Morse

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

oct-11-providence-gazette-slavery-1
Providence Gazette (October 11, 1766).

October 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR: Jordan Russo

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

oct-10-10101766-new-london-gazette
New-London Gazette (October 10, 1766).

“Linseed-Oil … for ready CASH.”

Lindseed oil has many uses today, but this advertisement made me wonder how colonists used linseed oil in the eighteenth century. According to the historians at Historic Jamestowne, linseed oil was “used in wood treatments, paint and animal fodder.” Linseed oil had many uses so it is understandable why people would need it back then as well.

“For ready CASH” meant that the customer needed to have money for that item right as they bought it. “In colonial America,” according to David Walbert, “nobody had enough cash. There wasn’t enough cash to go around — not enough to cover the value of all the goods and services that were available to be bought and sold.” The advertisement I examined yesterday included some of the goods the colonists wanted to purchase, such as necklaces, ribbons, and teas.” It also stated that the shopkeeper sold those goods “for CASH only.” Both Jolley Allen and the company selling the linseed oil wanted cash right away for the goods they sold. They did not want to give credit over time to colonists it seems.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes

Linseed oil (or flaxseed oil) is a byproduct of flax production, which made it a widely available product in colonial America because farmers grew flax to process and ultimately weave into linen in small-scale production. Flax possessed many advantages. For instance, it “has the greatest tensile strength of any natural fiber,” except for ramie. On the other hand, “its overwhelming disadvantage [was] the amount of labor, skilled and otherwise, required from sowing to harvest.” Furthermore, processing flax was “an extremely labor-intensive process” that involved many steps, as explained in greater detail by Historic Jamestowne. After harvest, the first step was removing the seeds in a process called rippling, which involved putting flax bundles through coarse combs. Jordan has chosen an advertisement that appears rather plain; it belies the amount of labor involved in producing linseed oil before offering it for sale.

I found the placement of this advertisement rather interesting. Except for the colophon, it was the last item that appeared in the final column of the October 10, 1766, issue of the New-London Gazette. The printer devoted more than half of the issue (the first two pages in their entirety, excepting the masthead, and most of the first column on the third page) to reprinting “The EXAMINATION of Doctor Benjamin Franklin, before an August Assembly, relating to the Repeal of the Stamp-Act.” As we saw last week, colonial printers deployed a bit of subterfuge to publish Franklin’s testimony before Parliament.

The Stamp Act intensified many colonists’ desire to become self-sufficient rather than rely on goods, especially textiles, imported from England and elsewhere. Both news items and advertisements promoted domestic manufactures as a means of reducing Parliament’s influence in North American affairs. However, schemes for the mass production of linen in the colonies continued to fall short because, as Michele Mormul explains, “they lacked funding and labor was too expensive.”

The October 10, 1766, issue of the New-London Gazette opened with explicitly political news coverage. The advertisement for linseed oil that concluded the issue may not appear particularly partisan at first glance, but some colonists may have drawn connections between the recent argument with Parliament, calls for nonimportation and domestic manufactures, and linseed oil’s connections to flax cultivation and linen production. Take into consideration the placement of the advertisement relative to the Franklin’s testimony as well. Although they appeared first and last, spatially they were not separated on the broadsheet newspaper when laid flat. In that case, the advertisement in the third column of the final page appeared next to the first column of Franklin’s testimony on the first page. When a reader held the newspaper open to peruse the second and third pages, observers would have seen the first and final pages, with the advertisement for linseed oil leading into the political news.

Slavery Advertisements Published October 10, 1766

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR:  Ceara Morse

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

oct-10-new-hampshire-gazette-slavery-1
New-Hampshire Gazette (October 10, 1766).

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oct-10-virginia-gazette-slavery-1
Virginia Gazette (October 10, 1766).

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oct-10-virginia-gazette-slavery-2
Virginia Gazette (October 10, 1766).