Month: September 2023

September 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Supplement to the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (September 30, 1773).

“At such Rates as may encourage all Retailers in Town and Country … to complete their Assortments.”

Smith and Atkinson encouraged shopkeepers in and near Boston to augment their inventories for the fall season.  In an advertisement that appeared in several newspapers in September 1773, the merchants announced that they carried a “large and general Assortment of Piece GOODS, suitable for the FALL TRADE” that they “Imported in sundry Vessels lately arrived from England.”  These were not leftovers from last year, Smith and Atkinson suggested, but instead new merchandise to enhance the offerings of “all Retailers in Town and Country.”  Those prospective customers needed such items “to complete their Assortments” and attract the attention of consumers.  They knew that shopkeepers emphasized providing choices for consumers in their own advertisements.

For their part, Smith and Atkinson did not deal with shoppers directly.  The merchants confined their business to wholesale purchases only, supplying shopkeepers with goods at advantageous prices.  Smith and Atkinson proclaimed that they acquired their shipments “on the very best Terms” and planned to pass along the bargains “at such Rates as may encourage” shopkeepers to do business with them rather than their competitors.  As further inducement, the merchants declared that they gave “Due Encouragement … to those who pay ready Money.”  In other words, cash purchases qualified for additional discounts.

Smith and Atkinson competed with other merchants who made similar appeals while also attempting to distinguish themselves in the marketplace.  In the September 30, 1773, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, James and Patrick McMasters and Company similarly advertised a “large and general Assortment of English, India, and Scotch GOODS, suitable for the Season” that they “imported in the last Ships from LONDON.”  While they did not specify that they sold “by Wholesale only” like Smith and Atkinson, McMasters and Company did assert that “Town and Country Merchants and others who are pleased to favour them with their Custom, may depend on the best Usage, and handsome Allowance to those who buy by the Quantity.”  They offered discounts for purchasing in volume rather than discounts for cash.  Some retailers may have found that marketing strategy more appealing.

In another advertisement, Amorys, Taylor, and Rogers declared that they sold a “general Assortment of GOODS Suited to the Season … at the lowest Rates, by Wholesale or Retail.”  Other merchants inserted advertisements with their own variations in their efforts to move their merchandise.  They did not expect that they could merely announce that they had goods for sale and then expect retailers to purchase them.  Instead, merchants devised marketing strategies to entice shopkeepers to acquire merchandise from them.  In turn, shopkeepers crafted strategies for inciting demand among consumers rather than relying on incipient demand.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 30, 1773

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.

Maryland Gazette (September 30, 1773).

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Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (September 30, 1773).

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New-York Journal (September 30, 1773).

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Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (September 30, 1773).

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Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Rind] (September 30, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Rind] (September 30, 1773).

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Supplement to the Virginia Gazette [Rind] (September 30, 1773).

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Supplement to the Virginia Gazette [Rind] (September 30, 1773).

September 29

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

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

Pennsylvania Journal (September 29, 1773).

“At the Sign of the Golden Key.”

In the fall of 1773, William Ross, a shoemaker, informed readers of the Pennsylvania Journal that he imported a “Very neat assortment of BOOT LEGS and BEN LEATHER SOALS” and “double CALLIMANCOE for ladies shoes.”  He asserted that he stocked “an assortment of the best articles in the business” for the benefit of “his friends and customers.”  The copy for Ross’s advertisement occupied less space than the image that accompanied it.  A woodcut depicting the sign that marked his location on Walnut Street included a shoe and the words “W. ROSS FROM SCOTLAND.”  The shoemaker enhanced his advertisement by investing in a woodcut associated exclusively with his business, unlike the stock images of ships at sea included in some of the other advertisements on the same page.

Pennsylvania Journal (September 29, 1773).

Ross was not the only entrepreneur whose advertisement featured an image of a shop sign in the September 29 edition of the Pennsylvania Journal.  Harper and Jackson adorned their notice for their “WET and DRY GOODS STORE, At the sign of the Golden Key” on Water Street with a woodcut of an ornate key.  Their names flanked the key, further associating the device with their business.  Unlike Ross, Harper and Jackson devoted most of their advertisement to copy, listing dozens of items among their inventory.  In addition, they promised “a variety of other goods, too tedious to mention,” that they sold “at the most reasonable rates.”  The merchants pledged “their utmost endeavours … to give general satisfaction to those who will please to favour them with their custom.”  As much as prospective customers may have appreciated such appeals, it was likely the image of the key that initially attracted their attention to the advertisement and made it memorable.

These two advertisements testify to some of the advertising images that colonizers encountered as they navigated the streets of Philadelphia during the era of the American Revolution.  Many merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and tavernkeepers adopted, displayed, and promoted devices that became synonymous with their businesses, precursors to logos associated with corporations.  Relatively few included images of their shop signs in their newspaper advertisements, though greater numbers did mention the symbols that marked their locations.  Readers of the Pennsylvania Journal and other newspapers glimpsed truncated scenes of the commercial landscape of the bustling port as they perused the pages of the public prints.

September 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

What was advertised in colonial America 250 years ago today?

Handbill: Mr. Bates, “Horsemanship,” (Boston: [likely Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks], 1773). Courtesy American Antiquarian Society.

“He will perform on ONE, TWO, THREE, and FOUR HORSES.”

In the course of examining newspaper notices, the Adverts 250 Project also explores all sorts of advertising media that circulated in the eighteenth century, including trade cards, billheads, broadsides, handbills, magazine wrappers, subscription papers, and shop signs.  Those media likely circulated more widely in early America than the examples that survive in research libraries, historical societies, and private collections suggest.  Unlike newspapers that have been preserved in complete or nearly complete runs, other advertising media were much more ephemeral.  In addition, those available for study often lack dates, while the mastheads declare dates for newspaper notices.  Sometimes manuscript additions, such as a receipted bill on the back of Mary Symonds’s elegant trade card, testify to when an advertisement circulated, though additional research suggests that the trade card quite likely had been produced earlier.

Exceptions exist.  For instance, a broadside announcing the auction of enslaved men, women, and children in Charleston, South Carolina, bears the date the slave traders composed the copy, July 24, 1769, and the date of the sale, August 3, indicating the period that the broadside circulated.  Similarly, a handbill that advertised feats of horsemanship performed by Mr. Bates in Boston includes a date, “TUESDAY next the 28th. of September.”  Though lacking a year, the advertising copy corresponds to a series of newspaper notices that ran in several publications in the fall of 1773.  That makes this a rare occasion that the Adverts 250 Project presents an advertisement other than a newspaper notice that definitely circulated 250 years ago today.  As colonizers traversed the streets of Boston, they encountered Bates’s handbills.  They likely saw a variety of other advertising media, including broadsides posted around town, trade cards and billheads distributed by merchants, shopkeepers, and artisans, and signs that marked the locations of shops and taverns.  Bates’s handbill testifies to the presence of advertising beyond newspapers in the busy port on the eve of the American Revolution.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 28, 1773

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.

Connecticut Courant (September 28, 1773).

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Connecticut Courant (September 28, 1773).

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Connecticut Courant (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (September 28, 1773).

September 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Boston-Gazette (September 27, 1773).

“A PAMPHLET, Intitled, BATES and his HORSES weighed in the Balance.”

Mr. Bates did not receive a universally warm welcome when he performed his feats of horsemanship in Boston in the fall of 1773.  Bates advertised in several newspapers in the city, announcing his presence and informing prospective audiences of his considerable experience performing at courts in Europe.  On September 27, his advertisement for an exhibition scheduled for the next day ran in all three newspapers published in the city that day.  Although it appeared on its own in the Boston Evening-Post, another advertisement concerning Bates ran in the Boston-Gazette and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  That notice offered a brief critique of Bates and promised a more extensive treatment in a pamphlet.  The cheeky compositors conveniently placed the advertisements next to each other in the Boston-Gazette and at the top and bottom of the same column in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.

The new notice announced the anticipated publication of a pamphlet, “BATES and his HORSES weighed in the Balance” in a few days.  The pamphlet would demonstrate that “his Exhibitions in Boston are impoverishing, disgraceful to human Nature, and down-right Breaches of the Sixth Commandment.”  The advertisement concluded with an admonition, “Oh be a Man,” from Edward Young’s The Complaint: Or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality.  The line from the poem may have been intended to mock Bates and demean the sense of masculinity that defined him and supposedly made it possible for him alone to perform “a Variety of manly Exercises” never before seen in Boston.  Alternately, it may have condemned the pride that he exhibited, both in person and in newspaper advertisements and handbills.  For his part, Bates may have welcomed the additional attention for his act instead of experiencing embarrassment over the attack in the public prints and the imminent publication of the pamphlet.

Whatever Bates’s reaction might have been, the pamphlet may not have gone to press.  The advertisement stated that it “will be Printed, and Sold at the Printing-Office in Hanover-Street.”  Joseph Greenleaf ran that printing office.  The pamphlet is not among his known imprints, nor among those produced by other printers in Boston.  If Greenleaf or another printer did print “Bates and His Horses,” the pamphlet proved even more ephemeral than the handbills that the performer distributed in the city.  On the other hand, whoever wished to critique Bates may have considered it sufficient to run disparaging newspaper advertisements without investing additional time, money, and resources into the endeavor.  Bates did not remain in Boston much longer.  Before long, he took his act to Newport, Rhode Island.  At least one colonizer there did not welcome his arrival, according to manuscript additions to a newspaper advertisement that the Adverts 250 Project will feature in the coming weeks.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 27, 1773

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.

Supplement to the Boston-Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Newport Mercury (September 27, 1773).

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Newport Mercury (September 27, 1773).

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Newport Mercury (September 27, 1773).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (September 27, 1773).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the Pennsylvania Packet (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the Pennsylvania Packet (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (September 27, 1773).

September 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (September 20, 1773).

“The Royal American Magazine is likely in a short Time to make its Appearance.”

Throughout September 1773, Isaiah Thomas, printer of the Massachusetts Spy, continued marketing the Royal American Magazine.  He hoped to attract enough subscribers to make the publication a viable venture.  Although printers from New Hampshire to Georgia supplied colonizers with more than two dozen newspapers, including five printed in Boston, none of them published a magazine.  Instead, printers, booksellers, and shopkeepers imported magazines from England.  Realizing that he likely needed subscribers from beyond Massachusetts if he wished to take the magazine to press, Thomas advertised in several colonies.

In the first half of September, Thomas ran the proposals for the Royal American Magazine six more times, inserting them in four newspapers in two colonies.  The proposals appeared for the first time in the Connecticut Journal, published in New Haven, on September 3 and in the Pennsylvania Journal, published in Philadelphia, on September 8. By the end of the month, they had their second and third insertions in the Connecticut Courant, published in Hartford, and the New-London Gazette.  The proposals may have run again in the Connecticut Journal on September 17 and 24.  Those issues are not available via America’s Historical Newspapers.  While Thomas may have sent subscription papers in the form of broadsides, handbills, or pamphlets to local agents in other colonies, he did not arrange to have the proposals printed in newspapers south of Pennsylvania.  The proposals did state that “the printers and booksellers in Americas” accepted subscriptions.

Starting on September 9, Thomas circulated an update, a much shorter notice that first appeared in the Massachusetts Spy and then in other newspapers published in Boston.  This announcement, addressed “To the PUBLIC,” advised readers that the magazine “is likely in a short Time to make its Appearance” as a result of the “generous Encouragement of a great Number of Gentlemen in this Province.”  Thomas requested that “those Gentlemen and Ladies, who incline to be Promoters of this useful Undertaking” submit their names “with all convenient Speed” because he planned to commenced publication “as soon as he hears what Numbers of Subscribers there are in the other Colonies.”  Subscribers did not need to send any payment “until the delivery of the first Number.”  Thomas published and distributed the first issue of the Royal American Magazine in January 1774.

The printer devised an extensive advertising campaign in preparation of launching the magazine, coordinating newspaper advertisements in several colonies and corresponding with printers and other local agents.  Other printers pursued similar strategies when they set about new projects, using subscription proposals to incite demand.  Those advertisements simultaneously served as market research, informing printers whether they should take a project to press and, if so, how many copies to produce.

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Subscription Proposals

  • September 3 – Connecticut Journal (first appearance)
  • September 3 – New-London Gazette (second appearance)
  • September 7 – Connecticut Courant (second appearance)
  • September 8 – Pennsylvania Journal (first appearance)
  • September 10 – New-London Gazette (third appearance)
  • September 14 – Connecticut Courant (third appearance)
  • September 17 – possible second appearance in Connecticut Journal
  • September 24 – possible third appearance in Connecticut Journal

“To the PUBLIC” Update

  • September 9 – Massachusetts Spy (first appearance)
  • September 13 – Boston Evening-Post (first appearance)
  • September 13 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (first appearance)
  • September 16 – Massachusetts Spy (second appearance)
  • September 20 – Boston-Gazette (first appearance)
  • September 20 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (second appearance)
  • September 27 – Supplement to the Boston-Gazette (second appearance)
  • September 27 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (third appearance)

September 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Postscript to the Maryland Journal (September 25, 1773).

“At the Sign of the CUP and CROWN … in BALTIMORE.”

William Goddard quickly gained advertisers for the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, the city’s first newspaper, when he commenced publication in August 1773.  So many advertisers submitted notices to the printing office that a two-page supplement accompanied the sixth issue.  That Postscript contained advertising exclusively.  In addition, paid notices filled the entire final page of the standard four-page edition, along with a couple advertisements below the prices current on the third page.  A lengthy list of winning tickets and prizes from the Frederick Street Lottery, likely also a paid advertisement, occupied the first page.  Christopher Hughes and Company, “GOLDSMITHS and JEWELLERS, At the Sign of the CUP and CROWN,” joined many others in using the new publication to market goods and services or disseminate information that did not appear among the articles and editorials selected by the editor.

The publication of the Maryland Journal, published on Saturdays, shifts the contours of the Adverts 250 Project.  The project currently incorporates approximately two dozen newspapers published in 1773 and subsequently digitized to make them more accessible.  Of those many newspapers, however, only the Providence Gazette was published on Saturdays.  Once a week, that made the Providence Gazette the only option for selecting an advertisement to feature on the Adverts 250 Project.  That allowed for examining that newspaper, as well as the city and the region it served, in greater depth, but it also resulted in disproportionate representation of the Providence Gazette, one out of seven entries on the Adverts 250 Project, relative to the total number of digitized newspapers currently available.  On occasion, this also significantly narrowed the choices in issues with few advertisements or with many advertisements previously featured on the Adverts 250 Project as a result of running for several weeks.

Goddard published the Maryland Journal on Saturdays for less than a year.  That means that my opportunity to consult both the Maryland Journal and the Providence Gazette when selecting which advertisement to feature will be temporary, but I plan to make good use of that opportunity while it lasts.  In addition, America’s Historical Newspapers provides access to the Maryland Journal into the 1790s, which means that the newspaper will continue to be part of the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project long “after” publication shifts to other days of the week.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 25, 1773

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.

Maryland Journal (September 25, 1773).

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Postscript to the Maryland Journal (September 25, 1773).

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Postscript to the Maryland Journal (September 25, 1773).