GUEST CURATOR: Ceara Morse
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“SUNDRY houshold goods, plate, several dozen bottles of old arrack.”
Even though eighteenth-century America was built on drinks – the social and often political drink of tea and the economic production of rum – some colonists also enjoyed more expensive choices of drinks. The commodity that drew me to this advertisement was the “several dozen bottles of old arrack.” From the context, I gathered that it was some form of drink, most likely alcoholic. According to Chuck Hudson’s explanations of “Beverages in the Georgian Era,” Arrack is a form of alcohol from Indonesia which was distilled from sugarcane. It was first popular in London, and through Anglicization, it became popular in the colonies. This was the type of drink one would get if one “could afford better than the basic.” Since England wanted to control trade with the colonies, the Arrack was “shipped from the East Indies to England before it could be trans-shipped to America.” This also made it quite expensive.
This brings me back to the advertisement itself. The previous owner, the late Robert Hume, must have been a wealthy man with what was being sold. He had several bottles of Arrack, which was a feat in it of itself. This was also shown with how much land Mr. Hume seemed to own.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes
Merchants, shopkeepers, and artisans who promoted new goods placed most advertisements for consumer goods featured on the Adverts 250 Project, yet early Americans acquired goods a variety of ways. In addition to imported items recently arrived on ships from London and other ports in the British Atlantic world, secondhand goods circulated widely in eighteenth-century America. Colonists willingly sold or passed on some of their possessions for a variety of reasons, but other goods reentered the marketplace via theft or estate sales.
In addition to “several dozen bottles of old arrack,” the executors of Robert Hume’s estate also advertised “SUNDRY houshold goods,” likely a more affordable option for some colonists than purchasing new wares from South Carolina’s merchants, shopkeepers, and artisans. Another advertisement in the same issue of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal announced an auction for “SOME HOUSHOLD FURNITURE, WEARING APPAREL, and sundry other Articles, lately belonging to a Person deceased.” Surely readers could find some bargains there as well!
Elsewhere in the same issue, Alexander Caddell announced that he had “STOPT from a Negro who offered them for sale, a pair of very good Buck-skin Breeches, almost new.” Caddell indicated that he ran a “breeches-maker’s shop in Broad-street.” Presumably the “Negro” approached Caddell with an opportunity to supplement his inventory, hoping that the breechesmaker would not much care about the origins of the breeches. Advertisements for runaway slaves and indentured servants often listed clothing they had taken with them, which could be used for disguises or sold or exchanged. On a fairly regular basis, shopkeepers placed notices indicating that thieves had stolen multiple items, not just a single article of clothing. Black and white colonists frequently colluded in what Serena Zabin has called the “informal economy” of stolen and secondhand goods.
John Davies advertised an assortment of textiles and other wares “Imported in the Minerva, from London” in the March 24 issue of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal. He informed potential customers of his inventory not only because he competed with other merchants and shopkeepers but also because colonists acquired some of their possessions through the market for secondhand goods.