Who was the subject of an advertisement in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“RAN AWAY … a NEGRO MAN, named Seneca.”
Benjamin Dearborn published the first issue of the Freeman’s Journal or New-Hampshire Gazette on May 25, 1776. In a note that followed his address to readers, he “requested that those who would have advertisements, &c. [including letters and poetry] inserted in this paper will send them” to the printing office in Portsmouth “before the Post arrives, (which is on Friday afternoon) as it’s proposed to publish the paper on Saturday mornings.” Several advertisers heeded those instructions. The following week the second issue of the Freeman’s Journal featured more than half a dozen advertisements, a good start for a printer seeking to establish multiple revenue streams for his new newspaper.
Samuel Hall of Portsmouth was among those advertisers. He published a notice that described Seneca, a “NEGRO MAN” who liberated himself by running away from his enslaver, and offered a reward for his capture and return. Such advertisements encouraged readers to engage in surveillance of Black men and women to determine whether they matched the descriptions that appeared in the public prints. In this case, Hall included Seneca’s age and height, noting as well that he was “a stout thick sett fellow.” Readers might also recognize him by the clothing that he wore and took with him, including “two coats, one red the other blue; one blue pea Jacket; … 2 pair leather breeches; 2 pair worsted, and 2 pair yarn stockings; [and] a mill’d cap turn’d up with fur.” In addition, Seneca “talks good English.” Hall intended for all those details in aid in identifying the fugitive from slavery.
Enslaved men and women liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Advertisements describing Black men and women who emancipated themselves in this way began appearing in newspapers soon after the Boston News-Letter commenced publication in 1704. Seneca likely knew of other enslaved people who escaped from slavery by fleeing from their enslavers. He may have taken advantage of the disruptions caused by the Revolutionary War to increase his chances of evading detection. At the same time Seneca made his decision, Dearborn set about a new venture made possible in part by the war, establishing a newspaper called the Freeman’s Journal. The title made a political statement about liberty on the eve of the colonies declaring independence, yet in the second issue Dearborn joined every other American newspaper printer, Patriots and Tories, who generated revenues and played a role in perpetuating slavery by publishing advertisements about enslaved people.
