Month: July 2019

July 31

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

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

Jul 31 - 7:31:1769 Newport Mercury
Newport Mercury (July 31, 1769).

“The Shoe-making Business is still carried on at her Shop.”

Elizabeth Mumford did not insert herself into the public prints until necessity forced her to do so. When her husband Samuel, a cordwainer, passed away in the summer of 1769, she ran advertisements in the Newport Mercury calling on “her late Husband’s Friends and Customers” to continue to patronize the family business. She referred to the shop on New Lane as “her Shop” and reported that she employed John Remmington, “who has work’d with her late Husband several Years.” Former customers may have been familiar with Remmington already, having interacted with him in the shop in the past. Whether or not they had previously made the acquaintance, Mumford underscored that the “Shoe-making Business” continued without disruption and that customers could “depend on being served with as good Work of every Sort as in her Husband’s Life-time.” Remmington’s presence provided continuity in the production of shoes, but Mumford likely made other contributions, such as waiting on customers and keeping accounts.

Mumford, however, downplayed any role that she had played or continued to play in the family business as partner, supervisor, or assistant. Instead, she presented herself as a widow who happened to own the shop yet otherwise depended on the good will of others. She reported that Remmington continued working at her Shop “for the Benefit of her and her Children,” making her appeal to “her late Husband’s Friends and Customers” all the more poignant. Without husband and provider, the widow and children found themselves in a vulnerable new position. Mumford crafted her advertisement to encourage sympathy and a sense of collective responsibility for her family among friends and patrons. She took what steps she could in engaging Remmington’s continued employment at her shop, but that did not matter if their former customers did not return in the wake of Samuel’s death. In other circumstances, the quality of the shoes produced in the shop on New Lane may have been sufficient promotion in newspaper advertisements, but Mumford did not consider that enough following the death of her husband. She crafted a narrative with greater urgency even as she noted the continuities in the shop. As a widow she enjoyed new financial and legal powers, but she tempered her portrayal of herself as an independent entrepreneur in her efforts to retain her husband’s clientele and “the Continuance of their Favours.”

Slavery Advertisements Published July 31, 1769

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 for slaves – for sale, wanted to purchase, runaways, captured fugitives – 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 colonists 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. Colonists who did not own slaves were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing slaves or assisting in the capture of runaways. 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 slaveholders rather than the slaves 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.

Jul 31 - Boston Chronicle Slavery 1
Boston Chronicle (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Boston Evening-Post Slavery 1
Boston Evening-Post (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Boston Evening-Post Slavery 2
Boston Evening-Post (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Boston Evening-Post Slavery 3
Boston Evening-Post (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Boston Post-Boy Slavery 1
Boston Post-Boy (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Boston-Gazette Slavery 1
Boston-Gazette (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Boston-Gazette Slavery 2
Boston-Gazette (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Boston-Gazette Slavery 3
Boston-Gazette (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - New-York Gazette Weekly Mercury Slavery 1
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - New-York Gazette Weekly Mercury Slavery 2
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - New-York Gazette Weekly Mercury Slavery 3
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - New-York Gazette Weekly Mercury Slavery 4
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - New-York Gazette Weekly Mercury Slavery 5
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - New-York Gazette Weekly Mercury Slavery 6
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - New-York Gazette Weekly Post-Boy Slavery 1
New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Newport Mercury Slavery 1
Newport Mercury (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Newport Mercury Slavery 2
Newport Mercury (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Newport Mercury Slavery 3
Newport Mercury (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Pennsylvania Chronicle Slavery 1
Pennsylvania Chronicle (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Pennsylvania Chronicle Slavery 2
Pennsylvania Chronicle (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Pennsylvania Chronicle Slavery 3
Pennsylvania Chronicle (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Pennsylvania Chronicle Slavery 4
Pennsylvania Chronicle (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - Pennsylvania Chronicle Slavery 5
Pennsylvania Chronicle (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 1
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 2
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 3
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 4
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (July 31, 1769).

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Jul 31 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 5
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (July 31, 1769).

July 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Jul 30 - 7:24:1769 New-York Gazette Weekly Mercury
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 24, 1769).

“If the Patriotic Americans, should approve, large Quantities can readily be furnished.”

In the summer of 1769, Isaac Adolphus turned to the public prints to propose a new venture. In an advertisement in the July 24, 1769, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, he invited fellow colonists to visit his house to examine “some Patterns of Hosiery” that he proposed to make in larger quantities if those samples met with approval. To incite interest, he sketched out some of the most important aspects of the enterprise, positioning his hosiery as a viable alternative to imports from Britain. In so doing, Adolphus made appeals to both quality and price, two of the most common marketing strategies in the eighteenth century. He pledged that his hosiery was “superior in Goodness to British Goods of the Kinds.” Prospective customers did not have to settle for inferior quality if they chose to support local production. Furthermore, they did not have to pay a premium for that support. Adolphus’s hosiery was “equal in Price” to wares imported from England.

Beyond quality and price, Adolphus placed production and consumption of his hosiery in a political context. He called on “Patriotic Americans” to examine his wares and make determinations for themselves. Merchants, traders, and others in New York had instituted a nonimportation agreement in response to new duties levied by the Townshend Acts. The success of the nonimportation strategy depended in part on colonists both producing goods themselves and consuming those domestic manufactures. Yet not everyone acceded to the plan. A detailed account of haberdasher, jeweler, and silversmith Simeon Cooley flagrantly violating the nonimportation agreement appeared on the same page as Adolphus’s advertisement. After other colonists asserted considerable pressure, Cooley eventually apologized to his “Fellow Citizens” and attempted to make amends in order to avoid the further “Contempt and just Resentment of an injured People.” Cooley had appeared in New York’s newspapers with some regularity in July 1769.

Adolphus recognized an opportunity to enlist “Patriotic Americans” as customers for the hosiery he produced. Yet he was not willing to risk too much on the venture until he had better assurances of success. He presented himself and his wares as an alternative to men like Cooley and their “British Goods of the Kinds” he produced locally, but he delayed making “large Quantities” until he had enough orders to justify the investment of time and resources. Adolphus recognized an opportunity in the marketplace, but he used his advertisement to further gauge his prospects for success. In that regard, his advertisement facilitated rudimentary market research in the eighteenth century. The nonimportation agreement, calls to encourage domestic manufacturers, and news of Cooley’s violations all primed the pump for “Patriotic Americans” to react positively to Adolphus’s hosiery once they had an opportunity to examine it for themselves.

July 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Jul 29 - 7:29:1769 Providence Gazette
Providence Gazette (July 29, 1769).

“I hereby forewarn all Persons against trusting her on my Account.”

Newspapers printed in colonial America notably carried relatively little local news. As most were published once a week, printers realized that much of the local news of consequence spread via word of mouth between issues. Accordingly, they reserved space in their newspapers for printing news from other colonies, the Caribbean, Europe, and other places. This often involved reprinting items from other newspapers, organizing the contents such that news from the farthest away appeared first. Consider the July 29, 1769, edition of the Providence Gazette. The masthead proclaimed that it carried “the freshest Advices, both Foreign and Domestic.” It included news from London (reprinted from the London Gazette), followed by news from Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Newport, and Providence. The final page, usually reserved for advertising, carried more news from Boston and Philadelphia as well as a brief update from South Carolina. The brigantine Grant had just sailed for London from Charleston, carrying “twenty bales of STAMPED PAPER, which was imported here in the memorable year 1765.”

Although printers and editors ran little local news in colonial newspapers, the advertisements submitted by other colonists did include some of the “freshest Advices” about events that occurred in their own communities. Legal notices, estate notices, and other announcements certainly carried news of interest. Other advertisements advised readers of significant interactions and changing relationships between members of the community. In his advertisement dated “Providence, July 29 1769,” Thomas Lindsey announced that Sarah, his wife, “has eloped from my Bed and Board, and otherwise conducted herself in a very unbecoming Manner.” That being the case, Lindsey warned that he would not pay any debts contracted by his wife. This advertisement informed the community of discord in the Lindsey household, which was news as much as gossip. It documented a wife resisting the authority of her husband and the consequences for doing so. The advertisement also delivered important information to shopkeepers, innkeepers, and others who might consider doing business with a woman who was so exasperated with her husband that she saw no alternative except to remove herself from his authority. Readers who knew more of the backstory than the advertisement revealed may have extended aid despite the husband’s indignant warning.

Which piece of news had greater relevance to readers of the Providence Gazette, a note about stamped paper being returned to England several years after the repeal of the Stamp Act or a notice about evolving personal and financial relationships in the Lindsey household contained in an advertisement? Each touched on aspects of colonial life and culture. Each delivered information that helped readers better understand the society in which they lived. For those who interacted with the Lindsey family, news of Sarah leaving Thomas was as momentous in their daily lives as learning about continued resistance to all sorts of new legislation from Parliament. Purchasing advertising space gave colonists other than printers and editors an opportunity to deliver and shape the news that appeared in the public prints.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 29, 1769

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 for slaves – for sale, wanted to purchase, runaways, captured fugitives – 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 colonists 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. Colonists who did not own slaves were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing slaves or assisting in the capture of runaways. 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 slaveholders rather than the slaves 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.

Jul 29 - Providence Gazette Slavery 1
Providence Gazette (July 29, 1769).

July 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Jul 28 - 7:28:1769 New-Hampshire Gazette
New-Hampshire Gazette (July 28, 1769)

“They will be Sold as cheap as at any Shop in Boston.”

Robert Robertson advertised a “large Assortment of English GOODS” available at his shop in Portsmouth in the July 28, 1769, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette. Samuel Bowles and Stephen Hardy advertised similar wares. All three listed dozens of items; collectively, their advertisements filled almost an entire column in that issue, presenting consumers with many choices. Prospective customers could choose among the merchandise, but they could also choose among the purveyors. To help them make those choices, Bowles and Robertson each described their prices as “very cheap.”

Robertson, however, did more than deploy a standard appeal to price. He concluded his advertisement with a nota bene that underscored the bargains at his shop: “As the above Goods are a Consignment to me, they will be Sold as cheap as at any Shop in Boston.” In making this pronouncement, Robertson acknowledged that he competed not only with Bowles and Hardy and other shopkeepers in Portsmouth but also with all of the merchants and shopkeepers not so far away in the largest and busiest port in New England. Their advertisements filled the pages of the several newspapers printed in that city that certainly found their way to Portsmouth. Robertson revealed that he expected at least some of his prospective customers engaged in comparison shopping, not only in Portsmouth but ranging farther away as well. He also suggested that consumers in New Hampshire had grown accustomed to paying higher prices than their counterparts in Massachusetts.

Merchants and shopkeepers sometimes proclaimed that they matched or beat the prices of their local competitors in the 1760s; only rarely did they address prices throughout an entire region or make comparisons to prices in other cities and towns. Robertson was innovative in that regard, but it may well have been innovation born of necessity if he suspected that he regularly lost business when colonists in New Hampshire visited Boston or sent away for goods supplied by the merchants and shopkeepers who resided there.

July 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Jul 27 - 7:27:1769 New-York Journal
New-York Journal (July 27, 1769).

“Seal of Mr. FALCK, Inventor … to guard against Counterfeits.”

In an advertisement for the “LIQUID TRUE BLUE” that ran in the New-York Journal for months in 1769, Mr. Falck, “Inventor, and principal Proprietor of this Liquid,” cautioned readers against counterfeits. First, however, he described the dye to prospective customers, stating that it white silk became “a most beautiful Blue,” yellow “a fine Green,” and red or pink “a rich and agreeable Purple.” Users could dye an entire suit with a single vial or use it in smaller quantities for “other small Things” like hats and ribbons. The dye did not lose its potency as long as it remained “well cork’d up.”

Falck claimed the Liquid True Blue as his “original Invention,” first made available to consumers in New York in 1766, just a few years earlier. Since then, he had moved to England and expanded distribution there. Yet the product was still available in the colonies via Falck’s agents, John Holt, the printer of the New-York Journal, and Garrat Noel, a bookseller in New York. Holt and Noel sold the product “Wholesale and Retail,” both to local customers and “all Dealers in the British Plantations.” Falck realized that this left room for mischief on the part of unscrupulous purveyors of imitation products. The authentic Liquid True Blue came with the “Seal of Mr. FALCK … which serves as a Certificate to all Venders in the British Dominions, to guard against Counterfeits.”

Despite his frustration, Falck leveraged the appearance of counterfeits to sell the authentic Liquid True Blue. If he had not “brought it to its Perfection” then others would not have passed off their imitation products as the real thing. Though unfortunate, this was an expected consequence familiar to anyone who succeeded in business or, as Falck put it, “an Inconvenience which Useful Inventions generally labour under by Quacks, whose Study it is to impose on the Public.” The number of counterfeits had multiplied since he left the colony, making it all the more important that customers purchase only those vials of Liquid True Blue that bore his seal and otherwise treat imitations with the contempt they deserved.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 27, 1769

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 for slaves – for sale, wanted to purchase, runaways, captured fugitives – 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 colonists 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. Colonists who did not own slaves were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing slaves or assisting in the capture of runaways. 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 slaveholders rather than the slaves 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.

Jul 27 - New-York Chronicle Slavery 1
New-York Chronicle (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - New-York Chronicle Slavery 2
New-York Chronicle (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - New-York Journal Slavery 1
New-York Journal (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - New-York Journal Slavery 2
New-York Journal (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - New-York Journal Slavery 3
New-York Journal (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - New-York Journal Supplement Slavery 1
Supplement to the New-York Journal (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Pennsylvania Gazette Slavery 1
Pennsylvania Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Pennsylvania Gazette Slavery 2
Pennsylvania Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Pennsylvania Gazette Slavery 3
Pennsylvania Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Pennsylvania Gazette Slavery 4
Pennsylvania Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Pennsylvania Gazette Slavery 5
Pennsylvania Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Pennsylvania Gazette Slavery 6
Pennsylvania Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Pennsylvania Gazette Slavery 7
Pennsylvania Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - South-Carolina Gazette Slavery 1
South-Carolina Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - South-Carolina Gazette Slavery 2
South-Carolina Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - South-Carolina Gazette Slavery 3
South-Carolina Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - South-Carolina Gazette Slavery 4
South-Carolina Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - South-Carolina Gazette Supplement Slavery 1
Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - South-Carolina Gazette Supplement Slavery 2
Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon Slavery 1
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon Slavery 2
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 27, 1769).Enter a caption

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon Slavery 3
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon Slavery 4
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon Slavery 5
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon Slavery 6
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon Slavery 7
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon Slavery 8
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon Slavery 9
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon Slavery 10
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Rind Slavery 1
Virginia Gazette [Rind] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Rind Slavery 2
Virginia Gazette [Rind] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Rind Slavery 3
Virginia Gazette [Rind] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Rind Slavery 4
Virginia Gazette [Rind] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Rind Slavery 5
Virginia Gazette [Rind] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Rind Slavery 6
Virginia Gazette [Rind] (July 27, 1769).

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Jul 27 - Virginia Gazette Rind Slavery 7
Virginia Gazette [Rind] (July 27, 1769).

July 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Jul 26 - 7:26:1769 Georgia Gazette
Georgia Gazette (July 26, 1769).

“Who has for sale, all sorts of garden seeds and flower roots.”

Colonists placed advertisements in newspapers for a variety of reasons. Some marketed consumer goods and services. Many published legal notices. Others made announcements and shared news. In the July 26, 1769, edition of the Georgia Gazette, for instance, John Martin and James Martin advertised rum, wine, and sugar available at their store on Habersham’s Wharf in Savannah. Morgan and Roche also addressed consumers, informing them that they pursued “the TAYLOR BUSINESS in all its branches.” Among the legal notices, the executors of John Luptan’s estate announced that they would conclude settling accounts and “pay out what remains … to the heirs” on January 1. Another from the Commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs warned about the consequences of smuggling and doctored ship manifests that did not make “true reports of their cargoes.” James Wilson declared that his wife, Jane, “eloped” from him and since she placed herself beyond the authority of his household he would not pay “any debts of her contracting.” Among advertisements that also delivered news, the Trustees for the Presbyterian Meeeting House advised those who pledged to make contributions that “one fifth of the subscription money is immediately wanted” and requested payment. Another stated that “SIX NEGROES … three men, two women, and one girl” escaped from Thomas Young and might be headed towards some of the Sea Islands.

Each of those advertisers had a specific purpose in mind when placing their notices in the public prints, but other advertisers used the space they purchased to pursue more than one goal. Robert Hunter, for example, asserted that recently “several trespasses” occurred at Good Hope and Spring Gardens. To prevent further disturbances and theft, Hunter advised the public that intruders could expect to encounter “guns, dogs, or other snares.” Only after delivering this warning did Hunter briefly promote “all sorts of garden seeds and flower roots” that he offered for sale, a secondary purpose for his advertisement. A similar advertisement ran in the Georgia Gazette a year earlier, that one also lamenting trespassers and theft at Spring Gardens and signed by Robert Winter. It also concluded with a brief note that “Said Winter has all sorts of garden seeds to dispose of.” (Perhaps either “Robert Hunter” or “Robert Winter” was a misprint in one of the advertisements.) In both instances, the advertiser seized an opportunity to encourage sales of seeds, drawing attention to that enterprise after first rehearsing an interesting story about trespassers and threats of “guns, dogs, or other snares.” Stories of intruders and theft implicitly testified to the value of the plants at Good Hope and Spring Gardens, making the seeds all the more attractive to prospective buyers. Hunter leveraged unfortunate events in his efforts to encourage sales.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 26, 1769

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 for slaves – for sale, wanted to purchase, runaways, captured fugitives – 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 colonists 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. Colonists who did not own slaves were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing slaves or assisting in the capture of runaways. 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 slaveholders rather than the slaves 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.

Jul 26 - Georgia Gazette Slavery 1
Georgia Gazette (July 26, 1769).

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Jul 26 - Georgia Gazette Slavery 2
Georgia Gazette (July 26, 1769).

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Jul 26 - Georgia Gazette Slavery 3
Georgia Gazette (July 26, 1769).

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Jul 26 - Georgia Gazette Slavery 4
Georgia Gazette (July 26, 1769).