Month: June 2017

Slavery Advertisements Published June 15, 1767

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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.

Jun 15 - Boston-Gazette Slavery 1
Boston-Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - Boston-Gazette Slavery 2
Boston-Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - New-York Gazette Slavery 1
New-York Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - New-York Gazette Slavery 2
New-York Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - New-York Mercury Slavery 1
New-York Mercury (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - New-York Mercury Slavery 2
New-York Mercury (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - New-York Mercury Slavery 3
New-York Mercury (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - New-York Mercury Slavery 4
New-York Mercury (June 15, 1767),

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Jun 15 - New-York Mercury Slavery 5
New-York Mercury (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - New-York Mercury Slavery 6
New-York Mercury (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - New-York Mercury Slavery 7
New-York Mercury (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - Newport Mercury Slavery 1
Newport Mercury (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - Newport Mercury Slavery 2
Newport Mercury (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - Newport Mercury Slavery 3
Newport Mercury (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 1
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 2
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 3
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 4
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 5
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 6
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 7
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 8
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 9
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 10
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

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Jun 15 - South Carolina Gazette Slavery 11
South Carolina Gazette (June 15, 1767).

June 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Jun 14 - 6:11:1767 Pennsylvania Gazette
Pennsylvania Gazette (June 11, 1767).

“He is so far from being a Quack Doctor, or Dealer in mysterious Receipts.”

Recently arrived in Philadelphia from Saint Domingue, surgeon-physician Louis Colin did not place an advertisement in search of patients, though that may have been his ultimate goal. For the moment, two obstacles prevented him from offering his services to the residents of Philadelphia. He did not speak English fluently, nor had he cultivated a reputation for skill and expertise in his profession. He placed a notice in the Pennsylvania Gazette to set about overcoming both.

Colin realized that many readers were likely to be skeptical of any new medical practitioner who arrived in town. Too many itinerant doctors made promises and did not deliver. Too many peddlers sold patent medicines that had no effect. To allay suspicions of those sorts, he asserted that he was “so far from being a Quack Doctor, or Dealer in mysterious Receipts, that he utterly despises all Charlatanry.” He did not conjure preposterous diagnoses, prescribe ludicrous treatments, or hawk potions to desperate customers. Instead, his work with patients was grounded in years of training in Europe followed by years of experience in the Caribbean. He offered his credentials to make the point, noting that he studied “in one of the greatest Hospitals” in Paris for nine years before migrating to Saint Domingue. There, Count d’Estaing, the governor general of the colony, “had great Confidence in him, and placed him at the Head of the Hospital of Cape Francois.” Unfortunately for Colin, the climate did not agree with him, so he opted to migrate once again, this time to Philadelphia.

Readers did not need to merely trust that Colin accurately related his credentials. Rather than seeking patients, he placed his advertisement in hopes of making acquaintance with “the Gentlemen Physicians and Surgeons of this City,” provided that they could speak Latin or French. In the course of their conversations with Colin, other medical professionals could assess whether he truly possessed the knowledge and skills he claimed. If he had made false claims, surely local physicians and surgeons already known and trusted by the community would expose him as a fraud, the sort of “Quack Doctor” he disdained. In the course of socializing with his professional peers, Colin could also further develop his ability to speak English, though he assured readers he “assiduously applies himself” to studying the language.

As a newcomer to Philadelphia, Colin made an astute decision about what sort of advertisement to place in the local newspaper. He was not yet ready to solicit patients, but he realized that he would benefit in the long run by introducing himself to the community, especially fellow physicians and surgeons, as a means of gaining familiarity and building his reputation. This would only make recruiting patients that much easier when the time came.

June 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Jun 13 - 6:13:1767 Providence Gazette
Providence Gazette (June 13, 1767).

“The assortment being too large for an advertisement, the particulars are omitted.”

Shopkeepers, including Gideon Young of Providence, frequently promoted the “compleat and full assortment of European and India Goods” they imported, stocked, and sold to colonial consumers. Most emphasized consumer choice, enticing potential customers with visions of selecting textiles and housewares that appealed to their own tastes and fit their budgets. A “compleat and full assortment” of merchandise meant that customers experienced significant independence when they went shopping, rather than being expected to accept whatever happened to be on the shelves. Such freedom empowered colonial consumers; advertisers hoped this would encourage them to make more purchases as they explored and considered all the possibilities before determining which goods to buy.

Many advertisers set that process in motion by inserting lengthy lists of their inventory in their commercial notices, prompting potential customers to imagine possessing their merchandise – wearing particular fabrics and adornments or using and displaying specific housewares – even if they had not yet considered visiting any shops. Advertisers sought to stimulate demand by introducing readers to items that they might not have previously even realized that they desired. Eighteenth-century shopkeepers considered enumerating dozens or even hundreds of items in a list-style advertisement one effective way of achieving that goal.

Gideon Young, however, took a different approach as he encouraged potential customers to think about his “compleat and full assortment of European and India Goods.” He did not list any specific items, but instead stated, “The assortment being too large for an advertisement, the particulars are omitted.—Therefore I invite my good old customers and others, to call at my shop.” Such an invitation may have been just as powerful as a list of specific goods. It created a sense of mystery and anticipation by prompting readers to imagine the size of Young’s inventory and the variety of his goods that prevented him from offering a preview in the newspaper. It evoked curiosity and encouraged window shopping that might lead to actual purchases when readers came to investigate the “complete and full assortment” of merchandise on their own.

Young may have been making a virtue of a necessity when he adopted this sort of appeal. While this marketing strategy occupied less space on the page and presumably incurred lower costs, this did not necessarily make it less effective than posting a list-style advertisement. Instead, Young’s description of his merchandise – “the best of its kind, well chosen, and suitable for the season” – was designed to convince potential customers to visit his examine his wares rather than visit shops where the proprietors had not exercised so much care in selecting which goods to stock.

Slavery Advertisements Published June 13, 1767

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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.

Jun 13 - Providence Gazette Slavery 1
Providence Gazette (June 13, 1767).

June 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

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

Jun 12 - 6:12:1767 New-Hampshire Gazette
New-Hampshire Gazette (June 12, 1767).

“The Indian King Tavern and London Coffee House in Salem, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay.”

Thomas Sommerville was the proprietor of the Indian King Tavern and London Coffee House in Salem, Massachusetts. To entice visitors of all sorts, he provided a variety of amenities, from “good Accommodations” to exceptional customer service (“the genteelest Usage”) for “Gentlemen, Ladies, and other Travellers.” While Sommerville certainly welcomed local residents to partake in the food and beverages he served as they gathered to socialize or conduct business, he also wished to augment the number of patrons who came through his door, especially visitors from other towns who would pay for lodging in addition to food and drink.

To that end, Sommerville needed to attract customers from beyond his local market. Accordingly, he placed advertisements in the New-Hampshire Gazette to inform residents of Portsmouth and its hinterland about the services he offered. While the Indian King Tavern and London Coffee House might not have been the ultimate destination for most travelers, Sommerville sought to make it a destination that they planned to visit while en route to other places. Not unlike the modern hospitality and tourism industries, he marketed his services to potential customers from a distance.

In his announcement, Sommerville indicated that “the Season is now opening,” suggesting that as spring gave way to summer that greater numbers of people would travel beyond their local communities, either for business or leisure. In the advertisement printed immediately below Sommerville’s notice, Thomas Wood also addressed travelers and described the reception they could anticipate receiving at his tavern at Newbury Ferry in New Hampshire. Sommerville and Wood operated businesses with seasonal rhythms and placed advertisements accordingly, as did their counterparts in other parts of the colonies. Notices promoting houses of entertainment and scenic gardens within and beyond the major port cities increased in spring and the summer months as colonists embarked on their own version of what has become the summer vacation season.

Slavery Advertisements Published June 12, 1767

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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.

Jun 12 - New-Hampshire Gazette Slavery 1
New-Hampshire Gazette (July 12, 1767).

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Jun 12 - New-London Gazette Slavery 1
New-London Gazette (July 12, 1767).

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Jun 12 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 1
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (June 12, 1767).

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Jun 12 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 2
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (July 12, 1767).

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Jun 12 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 3
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (June 12, 1767).

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Jun 12 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 4
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (June 12, 1767).

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Jun 12 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 5
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (June 12, 1767).

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Jun 12 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 6
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (June 12, 1767).

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Jun 12 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 7
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (June 12, 1767).

June 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Jun 11 - 6:11:1767 Virginia Gazette
Virginia Gazette (June 11, 1767).

“JUST IMPORTED, In the Rachel & Mary, Capt. Anderson, a fresh ASSORTMENT of DRUGS and MEDICINES.”

At a glance, a significant number of eighteenth-century newspaper advertisements look much the same as many of their counterparts. This often has the effect of underplaying the distinctiveness and innovation of some commercial notices. In addition to inciting demand for the goods and services they sold, advertisers simultaneously pursued two goals when writing copy.

First, they sought to incorporate several common appeals (price, quality, choice, fashion, gentility) that they believed resonated with potential customers. They often deployed formulaic language in the process. While this gave the impression that their notices more or less reiterated others, it also demonstrated that advertisers understood the conventions of current marketing practices. It implied a level of competence that presumably transferred to other aspects of operating their businesses.

On the other hand, advertisers also attempted to distinguish their commercial notices from others in hopes of attracting customers or clients that might otherwise employ their competitors. The Adverts 250 Project regularly identifies and examines such innovations. As a result, some of the repetitiveness and standardization of eighteenth-century advertisements gets overshadowed.

Today’s advertisements help to remedy that. Published one immediately after the other, both advertisements for “DRUGS and MEDICINES” use the same language and structure: a notice that the wares were “JUST IMPORTED,” the name of the vessel that transported the goods and its captain (which allowed readers to compare to the shipping news and assess how recently they had been “JUST IMPORTED”), and a brief indication of that customers could choose among an array of merchandise (“A large ASSORTMENT” versus “A fresh ASSORTMENT” in these two advertisements). William Biers and Benjamin Catton posted advertisements that looked and read strikingly similar to each other.

Still, the notices had small variations. Biers doubled down on his appeal to choice by listing more than three dozen specific items. In contrast, Catton emphasized low prices when he pledged to sell “wholesale or retail, on reasonable terms.” Neither advertiser devised any sort of innovative appeal. Even in making decisions that created advertisements slightly different from the other, both Biers and Catton selected from among well-established elements of eighteenth-century advertising. Then, as now, many advertisements played on methods widely considered effective rather than attempting to create some sort of marketing sensation.

Slavery Advertisements Published June 11, 1767

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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.

Jun 11 - Massachusetts Gazette Slavery 1
Massachusetts Gazette (June 11, 1767).

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Jun 11 - Massachusetts Gazette Slavery 2
Massachusetts Gazette (June 11, 1767).

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Jun 11 - New-York Gazette Weekly Post-Boy Slavery 1
New-York Gazette: Or, the Weekly Post-Boy (June 11, 1767).

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Jun 11 - New-York Gazette Weekly Post-Boy Slavery 2
New-York Gazette: Or, the Weekly Post-Boy (June 11, 1767).

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Jun 11 - New-York Gazette Weekly Post-Boy Slavery 3
New-York Gazette: Or, the Weekly Post-Boy (June 11, 1767).

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Jun 11 - New-York Journal Slavery 1
New-York Journal (June 11, 1767).

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Jun 11 - Pennsylvania Gazette Slavery 1
Pennsylvania Gazette (June 11, 1767).

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Jun 11 - Virginia Gazette Slavery 1
Virginia Gazette (June 11, 1767).

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Jun 11 - Virginia Gazette Slavery 2
Virginia Gazette (June 11, 1767).

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Jun 11 - Virginia Gazette Slavery 3
Virginia Gazette (June 11, 1767).

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Jun 11 - Virginia Gazette Slavery 4
Virginia Gazette (June 11, 1767).

June 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Jun 10 - 6:10:1767 Georgia Gazette
Georgia Gazette (June 10, 1767).

“Just imported … from London … Also in the last vessels from Philadelphia.”

This advertisement by Samuel Douglass and Company (formerly Douglass, Elbert, and Company) in the Georgia Gazette depicted the colonial crossroads of trade in the eighteenth century. While many shopkeepers placed notices that promoted imported goods from particular places (most notably the lengthy list advertisements of manufactured wares from England), these merchants outlined the many networks of exchange that crisscrossed the Atlantic and beyond.

Douglass and Company’s inventory came from diverse places. They stocked a “GENTEEL ASSORTMENT of EUROPEAN and EAST-INDIA GOODS,” an array of dry goods, housewares, and hardware. Various textiles made in the East Indies had been first transported to London before continuing on to the colonies. Other goods had been manufactured in the English provinces and then made their way to faraway markets.

Other products did not cross the Atlantic. Instead, they were part of the coastal trade that connected the colonies (and their economies) to each other. Farmers in the Middle Atlantic colonies, for instance, produced surpluses of wheat, butter, and meat that became important supplies for other English colonies in North America and, especially, the plantation economies of the West Indies. Douglass and Company received their dry goods via London, but ship bread, flour, hams, and other foodstuffs and agricultural products arrived “in the last vessels from Philadelphia.”

Finally, Douglass and Company sold other grocery items, particularly sugar, produced in the West Indies and shipped to the mainland colonies in exchange for agricultural goods. Enslaved Africans toiling on plantations had produced the sugar. Their labor was not mentioned in this advertisement, making Douglass and Company’s sketch of trading networks incomplete. The transatlantic slave trade was a major component of a vast system of exchange in the eighteenth century, one that made the others represented in Douglass and Company’s advertisement both possible and profitable. Douglass and Company may not have sold enslaved Africans themselves, but their venture depended on that endeavor. The map of commerce and exchange conjured in their advertisement was both extensive and incomplete.

Summary of Slavery Advertisements Published June 4-10, 1767

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

These tables indicate how many advertisements for slaves appeared in colonial American newspapers during the week of June 4-10, 1767.

Note:  These tables are as comprehensive as currently digitized sources permit, but they may not be an exhaustive account.  They includes all newspapers that have been digitized and made available via Accessible Archives, Colonial Williamsburg’s Digital Library, and Readex’s America’s Historical Newspapers.  There are several reasons some newspapers may not have been consulted:

  • Issues that are no longer extant;
  • Issues that are extant but have not yet been digitized (including the Pennsylvania Journal); and
  • Newspapers published in a language other than English (including the Wochentliche Philadelphische Staatsbote).

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Slavery Advertisements Published June 4-10, 1767:  By Date

Slavery Adverts Tables 1767 By Date Jun 4

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Slavery Advertisements Published June 4-10, 1767:  By Region

Slavery Adverts Tables 1767 By Region Jun 4