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.
Boston Evening-Post (August 9, 1773).
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Boston Evening-Post (August 9, 1773).
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Boston Evening-Post (August 9, 1773).
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Boston-Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Boston-Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Newport Mercury (August 9, 1773).
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Newport Mercury (August 9, 1773).
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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (August 9, 1773).
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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (August 9, 1773).
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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (August 9, 1773).
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Pennsylvania Chronicle (August 9, 1773).
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Pennsylvania Packet (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the Pennsylvania Packet (August 9, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (August 9, 1773).
“Every possessor of a copy may himself enter the proper alteration or addition, agreeable to the advertisements I shall from time to time insert in the Gazette.”
In the summer of 1773, Elie Vallette placed an advertisement in the Maryland Gazette to provide an update on The Deputy Commissary’s Guide. Intending to publish the book by subscription, he commenced a marketing campaign several months earlier. He successfully attracted subscribers to the project, a sufficient number that the book “Is now in the Press, and will be speedily published.” Still, Vallette continued to promote the book, hoping to gain additional subscribers to defray the costs and generate more revenue. To that end, he once again declared that those who subscribed in advance would have their names printed on a personalized title page, but they needed “to be speedy in their application, as none but such can have their names printed in the title page.” In the end, that particular enticement worked out a bit differently than Vallette originally described it.
The author also presented an endorsement from several prominent colonizers, all of them “gentlemen of the law” in Maryland, publishing it with their permission. “WE have perused your manuscript, entitled ‘The deputy Commissary’s Guide,’” the lawyers wrote, “and do much approve of it; we apprehend that performance will be of general utility, and that it well deserves the encouragement of the publick.” Even before this endorsement, the number of subscribers “increased far beyond what was conjectured” … and Vallette still had not received lists of subscribers from all of the “gentlemen who have been so obliging to take in subscriptions” throughout the colony. Perhaps an unexpected number of subscribers played a role in Vallette ultimately altering his plans for the title page. In this advertisement, he confided that the subscribers exceeded his original “provision.”
Vallette balanced the popularity and demand for the book with the opportunity to become a subscriber. It was not too late! To help convince any prospective subscribers who might have been wavering, the author revealed another feature of the book. He planned to include “a number of blank leaves” for manuscript additions to reflect changes in the laws. “In some few instances,” Vallette acknowledged, “the testamentary laws now existing, may, and probably will, soon undergo the revival of the legislature.” In such instances, “every possessor of a copy [of The Deputy Commissary’s Guide] may himself enter the proper alteration or addition.” To aid in that endeavor, the author pledged that he would place advertisements in the Maryland Gazette to guide subscribers in updating their books “whenever any such alteration shall take place.” Vallette’s relationship with subscribers extended beyond a single transaction. He continued to offer services after buyers received their books.
Vallette intended for each of these marketing strategies – personalized title pages, an endorsement from six prominent lawyers, and blank pages to enter alterations to current laws – to entice even more subscribers for The Deputy Commissary’s Guide. Other authors, booksellers, printers, and publishers sometimes included recommendations from well-known figures in their advertisements for books. The title pages and blank pages, however, represented innovative and novel techniques for encouraging prospective subscribers to reserve their own copies of the book.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Providence Gazette (August 7, 1773).
“He is under absolute Engagements to return to Boston by the last of October.”
At the same time that Mr. Bates waged his limited-time-only marketing campaign for his final performances exhibiting feats of horsemanship in newspapers in New York, Mr. Delile, “Professor of the French Language,” utilized a similar advertising strategy in Providence. On August 7, 1773, the tutor introduced himself to readers of the Providence Gazette. He stated that he taught French in Boston and Cambridge, but planned to spend three months in Providence and Newport. An invitation “by several Gentlemen” in the two towns convinced him to spend the late summer and early fall in Rhode Island “for the Purpose of teaching said Language.”
Most language tutors who placed advertisements in colonial newspapers did so when they opened schools or academies with set days and times for classes. They hoped to provide instruction to multiple students simultaneously, collecting tuition from several pupils for each lesson they taught. Most also promoted an option for private instruction, either at the school or in the homes of families who engaged their services. Delile did not mention any sort of academy; instead, he offered private lessons exclusively. He advised that “those Gentlemen or Ladies who please to employ him” should “send a Line to Mrs. Westran’s, when he will immediately wait on them.” Delile scheduled tutoring sessions around the “several Appointments” or schedules of his students.
Whether they wished to start learning French, continue lessons taken at another time, or brush up on their skills, prospective pupils had only a limited time to benefit from Delile’s instruction. In a nota bene he underscored that he “is under absolute Engagements to return to Boston by the last of October.” He could not tarry in Providence and Rhode Island. A couple of days earlier, he placed an advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter to alert his pupils in Boston and Cambridge that he planned to spend three months in Rhode Island and return after “the present Vacation at Cambridge.” Delile apparently taught Harvard students while classes were in session there, lucrative and steady employment that explained his resolve to return to Boston after only a few months. Colonizers in Providence and Newport had only a limited time to engage his services.
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.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
New-Hampshire Gazette (August 6, 1773).
“RAN-AWAY … a Sailor, named John Morgan … Portsmouth, Aug. 5.”
The notice arrived in the printing office too late to appear in the August 6, 1773, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette… almost. John Morgan, a sailor, deserted or “RAN-AWAY from the Ship Exeter Galley” and William Pearne offered a reward to “Whoever will bring the said Man” to him in Portsmouth. Readers could recognize Morgan, “pretty tall, well built, about 30 Years of Age,” by his “dark Complexion, & black short Hair” as well as his “blue Jacket, check Shirt, Oznabrigs Trousers, and a new Pair of Shoes.”
The advertisement was dated “Portsmouth, Aug. 5.” The August 6 edition was already in production when Pearne delivered the notice to the printing office. Like other colonial newspapers, the New-Hampshire Gazette consisted of four pages created by printing two pages on each side of a broadsheet and then folding it in half. Daniel Fowle, the printer, and others in the printing office would have selected the contents, set the type, and printed the first and fourth pages on one side of the broadsheet in advance of working on the second and third pages on the other side. They needed to hang the incomplete newspapers to dry after the first printing. Fowle and the rest apparently had the type set for the second and third pages and were ready to take it to press when Pearne’s advertisement arrived. Pearne may have pleaded or insisted that it needed to appear in the August 6 edition rather than wait an entire week for the next issue. That would have given Morgan even more time to make good on his escape.
Fowle or one of the compositors made room for the advertisement in the margin at the bottom of the second page. It consisted of nine lines, too many to appear together, but there was enough space to add three lines below each of the three columns of news on that page. The text of the advertisement featured a larger font, a subtle visual cue to alert readers that they encountered content that was not part of the news items originally planned for that page. The following week, the advertisement did appear as a single piece along with other paid notices on the third page of the August 13 edition. For immediate publication, however, the printing office resorted to the margin to satisfy a customer who submitted a time-sensitive advertisement at the last minute.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (August 5, 1773).
“It was intirely the Printer’s mistake in advertising last week that Mr. BATES would perform only once more.”
On Thursday, July 22, 1773, Mr. Bates ran an advertisement in the New-York Journal to promote his next performance showcasing feats of horsemanship, informing the public that it would take place on Tuesday, July 27. In the same notice, he announced that he “proposes, but twice more, before he leaves this City, to exhibit his Performances in Horsemanship.” He did not indicate the date of his final performance, but the same day he inserted a much shorter advertisement in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer. “MR. BATES,” that notice proclaimed, “PROPOSES to perform on Tuesday next, and on Friday the 30th instant, and no more, before he leaves this City.” The performer placed a longer advertisement, with nearly identical copy to the one in the New-York Journal, in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury on July 26, the day before one of those final performances. In it, he stated that “Mr. Bates’s stay in town will be very short, as he intends performing only twice.” In each advertisement, Bates made it clear that he would remain in New York for a limited time only. Audiences interested in attending his show needed to purchase tickets before it was too late.
The next advertisement that appeared in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer was consistent with Bates’s marketing over the prior week. On Thursday, July 29, that notice encouraged readers to attend his final performance in the city: “MR. BATES PROPOSES to perform tomorrow at the usual place, for the last time.” The New-York Journal did not happen to carry an advertisement from Bates on the day before that final performance. On Monday, August 2, the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury once again ran the advertisement from July 26, with one update. It now stated, “TO-MORROW, being TUESDAY the 3d August, he will perform on One, Two, Three and Four HORSES, at the Bull’s-Head, in Bowery-Lane.” Only the date changed, from “27th of July” to “3d August.” A note at the end still asserted that “Mr. Bates’s stay on town will be very short, as he intends performing only twice.” On August 5, he once again advertised in the New-York Journal. The opening paragraph remained the same as what appeared in the previous two issues, but he updated information about his final performance and departure from New York. “On TUESDAY next, the 10th of August, if the weather permits, if not on the Friday following, which positively will be the last time, as Mr. Bates intends to set out on a tour for Boston the next day,” the advertisement explained, “He will perform on one, two, three and four Horses, at the Bull’s-Head, in the Bowery Lane.”
That same day, August 5, Bates placed a new advertisement in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, the publication that announced a week earlier that he would give his final performance on Friday, July 30. In this notice, Bates stated that he would perform the following Tuesday and allowed for the next Friday as the rain date. He once again underscored that this was the last chance to attend his who, that audiences had a limited time to witness the spectacle for themselves before he left town. He underscored that “the public may be assured this will be his last exhibition, and that he will leave this town on his way to Boston, the day after his finishing performance.” He added that it “was intirely the Printer’s mistake in advertising last week that Mr. BATES would perform only once more.” Was it? The advertisement in the July 29 edition of Rivington’s New-York Gazette accurately reflected the dates from the advertisement that appeared in the previous issue as well as the appeals that Bates made in notices in other newspapers. A savvy marketer like Bates may have intended all along to announce his imminent departure, creating demand for the final shows, and then “extend” his time in New York by a week in order to give two more performances. Alternately, his plans might have changed and that allowed him to sell tickets for two more shows.
The discrepancy in the advertisements and the supposed “Printer’s mistake” in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer raises questions about how closely Bates coordinated his marketing efforts with each of the printing offices. Given the revisions to the advertisements in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury and the New-York Journal, he apparently submitted new instructions. Did he also send updated information to the other printing office only to have it inadvertently overlooked? Or did Bates plan for that newspaper to carry the “Printer’s mistake” as a means of creating confusion to amplify the sense of urgency for purchasing tickets that he wanted audiences to experience? The relief they felt after learning that they had another chance following the “Printer’s mistake” might have convinced some readers to buy tickets for what would actually be Bates’s final performance in New York … but that was not a ploy that the performer could use in more than one newspaper. Bates carefully managed his marketing efforts while in New York. He certainly sought to manipulate audiences into attending his shows after announcing they he would soon leave the city. Was the “Printer’s mistake” an actual mistake or another manipulation intended to incite interest?
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.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Pennsylvania Journal (August 4, 1773).
“MARY GRIFFITH also begs to acquaint the Ladies, that she cleans blonds and gauses.”
Thomas Griffith received top billing in an advertisement addressed “TO THE LADIES” in the August 4, 1773, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, though Mary Griffith also provided services for “the Ladies … at their house … in Christian-street” in Philadelphia.” Thomas’s name served as a secondary headline, making him as visible in his notice as “JOSEPH CRUKSHANK, PRINTER,” “JOHN LAUGEAY,” “SAMUEL SMITH, & SONS,” and other male advertisers were in their own notices. Although Mary’s name did appear in capital letters, it did not appear in a larger font or centered and extended across the column. Instead, “MARY GRIFFITH” ran in the same size font as the rest of the paragraph that described her contributions to the family business.
Thomas introduced himself as a “Fan-Maker from London, but last from Charlestown,” establishing that he had experience serving genteel ladies in both the most cosmopolitan city in the empire and one of largest ports in the colonies. He stocked “every material belonging to the fan-trade” imported from London, including “a new assortment of FAN-MOUNTS of beautiful paintings, and of various coloured grounds, some curiously sprigged and bordered with silver” and “a few cut carved and painted ivory fan-sticks.” That inventory made it possible for customers to create unique fans that reflected their personalities, according to their own tastes and budgets. Thomas invited ladies to find or select “their own sticks” and choose a mount (as well as bindings, rivets, and buttons) that he would then use to construct a new fan “in a few hours … in as compleat a manner as any in London.” His customers could confidently display their fans, knowing that no friends or acquaintances possessed any duplicates. For her part, Mary “cleans blonds and gauses by a new method to look like new.” Prospective customers knew that “blonds” referred to silk lace made of two threads twisted and formed in hexagonal meshes and “gauses” (or “gauzes”) were a very thin, transparent fabric made of silk. Mary advised that ladies could view a specimen of her work, a clever way of enticing them to visit the shop that she shared with Thomas. In addition, she made “all foreign and minionet [or mignonette] laces to the greatest of perfection.”
Between them, Mary and Thomas supplied various kinds of accessories that helped genteel ladies enhance their appearance and distinguish themselves from others in a society enmeshed in consumer culture and conscious of the latest fashions on both sides of the Atlantic. Thomas achieved greater visibility in their shared newspaper advertisement, but Mary likely assisted in cultivating rapport with his customers seeking fans in addition to other customers interested in her laces. The format of the advertisement in the public prints did not necessarily reflect the extent of the partnership in their shop.
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.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Essex Gazette (August 3, 1773).
“A Variety of News-Papers, will be procured for the Amusement of his respectable Customers.”
Many residents of Salem and nearby towns knew Ephraim Ingalls as a tailor, but he launched a new endeavor in the summer of 1773. He took to the pages of the Essex Gazette to announce that he “just opened” the “LONDON COFFEE-HOUSE” on Hanover Street, proclaiming that he provided the “best Entertainment usually met with at Coffee-Houses in large mercantile Places.” In other words, Ingalls’s establishment rivaled its counterparts in Boston, Charleston, New York, Philadelphia, and other major ports. Prospective patrons could “depend upon being treated and entertained with all possible Respect, in the neatest and genteelest Manner” when they gathered to socialize and drink coffee, tea, and chocolate.
Coffeehouses also served as places for conducting business and discussing politics. Ingalls extended an invitation to “Merchants, Captains of Vessels, and all other Gentlemen,” declaring that he outfitted the London Coffeehouse with the “best Accommodations for transacting Business.” That included supplying “English Magazines, and a Variety of News-Papers … for the Amusement of his respectable Customers” as well as for them to consult for the shipping news, entries from customs houses, prices current for commodities in various towns, and other news. Ingalls almost certainly subscribed to the Essex Gazette as well as a couple of newspapers published in Boston. He likely acquired copies of the New-Hampshire Gazette, the Providence Gazette, and the Newport Mercury as well as at least one newspaper from New York, another from Philadelphia, and another from Charleston. Although colonial printers reprinted accounts of current events from newspaper to newspaper, they did not tend to reprint items like marine lists and prices current. That made a “Variety of Newspapers” as well as access to “Captains of Vessels” who carried news that had not yet made it into the public prints especially attractive to merchants.
The London Coffeehouse in Salem, like coffeehouses in other ports in England and the colonies, also functioned as a library for merchants. That library set relatively narrow parameters for its collections, especially compared to the variety of books and magazines available at subscription libraries. Those collections, however, served the needs of the coffeehouse’s clientele … without an additional fee. Throughout the colonies, proprietors of coffeehouses provided newspapers as a service to entice merchants and others into their establishments.
