What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago this week?
Freeman’s Journal (July 6, 1776).
“The Book so much admired, entitled COMMON SENSE, may be had at the Printing Office.”
The July 6, 1776, edition of the Freeman’s Journal concluded with an advertisement for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the most influential political pamphlet published during the era of the American Revolution. Benjamin Dearborn, the printer of the newspaper, repeated the advertisement that first appeared a week earlier: “The Book so much admired, entitled COMMON SENSE, may be had at the Printing Office.” He apparently stocked copies produced by other printers since no records exist of a local edition published in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1776.
The same advertisement appeared in the next two issues of the Freeman’s Journal on July 13 and July 20. The type for the fourth page of the July 13 edition, the page that carried the advertisement, may have already been set by the time that Dearborn received word, via Boston, that the Continental Congress declared independence. He reprinted news from the July 11 edition of the New-England Chronicle: “We are assured that on July the 2d, the Congress voted for INDEPENDENCY, not one colony dissenting; but the delegates of New-York remaining neuter, for want of being instructed on the head.” In the next issue, Dearborn’s final advertisement for Common Sense moved from the bottom of the last page to the bottom of the first page. He devoted the entire final page to the Declaration of Independence (with the colophon running across the bottom). Dearborn offered readers one last chance to acquire the pamphlet that had played such an important role in the decision to declare independence.
What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Pennsylvania Evening Post (July 6, 1776).
“TO be SOLD, the brigantine TWO FRIENDS.”
After the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, John Dunlap, the printer of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, set about printing approximately two hundred broadside copies. By the next morning, they were ready to dispatch to colonial assemblies, provincial conventions, and military commanders to inform them of the reasons and rationale for declaring independence. The Dunlap Broadside was the first printing of the Declaration of Independence … but Dunlap was not the first printer to publish the Declaration of Independence in a newspaper. He did indeed print it in the next edition of his weekly newspaper on July 8, but he did not move up the publication day, nor did he issue a supplement or extraordinary issue to disseminate the Declaration of Independence to his subscribers before the usual publication day.
Benjamin Towne, the printer of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, was the first to publish the Declaration of Independence in a newspaper. His newspaper had also been the first to inform the public that the Continental Congress voted in favor of independence on July 2. Unlike other newspapers published in Philadelphia and most other newspapers published in America at the time, the Pennsylvania Evening Post was not a weekly newspaper. Instead, Towne distributed new issues on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Without deviating from its usual publication schedule, the Pennsylvania Evening Post was the first newspaper to (twice!) deliver momentous news about independence to the public.
This timeline shows when the news circulated in newspapers printed in Philadelphia and cities with their own newspapers nearest Philadelphia:
Wednesday, July 3 – The Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal both report that the Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain.
Thursday, July 4 – The Pennsylvania Evening Post makes no mention of a declaration of independence. Towne does not repeat the same-day scoop he managed two days earlier.
Friday, July 5 – Henrich Millers Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote, published in German, reports that the Continental Congress declared independence and makes first mention of the Declaration of Independence in a newspaper: “Die Declaration in Englisch ist jetzt in der Presse; sie ist datirt, den 4ten July, 1776, und wird beut order morgen im deuct erscheinen.” [The Declaration in English is now in the press; it is dated July 4, 1776, and will appear in German today or tomorrow.]
Saturday, July 6 – The Pennsylvania Evening Post publishes the Declaration of Independence. The Pennsylvania Ledger does not.
Monday, July 8 – Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet publishes the Declaration of Independence and announces a public reading: “THIS DAY, at Twelve o’clock, the DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE, will be PROCLAIMED at the STATE-HOUSE.”
Tuesday, July 9 – The Pennsylvania Evening Post reports, “Yesterday, at twelve o’clock, INDEPENDANCY was declared at the State-House in this city, in the presence of many thousand spectators, who testified their approbation of it by repeated acclamations of joy.” Henrich Millers Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote publishes a translation of the Declaration of Independence in German. Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette, printed in Baltimore, publishes the Declaration of Independence. News quickly spread beyond Philadelphia. Newspapers in Philadelphia adhered to their regular publication schedules. That meant that some did not publish the Declaration of Independence until after it appeared in newspapers in other cities.
Wednesday, July 10 – The Maryland Journal, another newspaper printed in Baltimore, publishes the Declaration of Independence.
Thursday, July 11 – The Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal publish the Declaration of Independence. The New-York Journal and the New York Packet also publish the Declaration of Independence. The Pennsylvania Evening Post reports on the reception the “DECLARATION OF INDEPENDANCY” received in Easton, Pennsylvania. After a public reading, a “great number of spectators … gave their hearty assent with three loud huzzas.”
Saturday, July 13 – The Pennsylvania Ledger publishes the Declaration of Independence a week after it appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post. The Pennsylvania Ledger was the last newspaper published in Philadelphia to print the Declaration of Independence. On the same day, the Pennsylvania Evening Post carries a report of “INDEPENDANCY proclaimed under a triple volley of musketry” in Princeton, New Jersey. It met with “universal acclamation for the prosperity of the UNITED STATES.”
What was the connection to advertisements that appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on July 6 when it became the first newspaper to publish the Declaration of Independence? John Parry’s advertisement for the sale of two ships, the brigantine Two Friends and the schooner Mary Ann, followed the Declaration of Independence, immediately below the signature of “JOHN HANCOCK, President.” Parry’s advertisement previously appeared right after that newspaper’s announcement on July 2, the first in print, that the “CONTINENTAL CONGRESS declared the UNITED COLONIES FREE and INDEPENDENT STATES.” That was almost certainly by coincidence rather than by design. Quite by accident, Parry’s advertisement twice followed the first publication of one of the most consequential stories ever reported in American newspapers.
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 revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.
Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution. Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament. Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.
Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies. Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776. Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.
Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely. As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Projectchronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.
These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.
What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Massachusetts Spy (July 5, 1776).
“The freshest and most important advices will be propagated TWO DAYS SOONER.”
After the siege of Boston ended, Isaiah Thomas considered seeking new opportunities in the city where he had formerly operated a printing office or perhaps in Salem or elsewhere along the coast. In the spring of 1775, he relocated to Worcester just before the battles at Lexington and Concord. He had already planned to open a printing office there, establish the town’s first newspaper, and install a junior partner to oversee both endeavors, but the outbreak of hostilities caused him to transfer the Massachusetts Spy from Boston to Worcester and print it himself. Once the British evacuated Boston in March 1776, Thomas contemplated what to do next. In June, he transferred the Massachusetts Spyto William Stearns and Daniel Bigelow.
Two weeks after publishing their first issue, Stearns and Bigelow inserted an announcement in the July 5 edition to inform readers that they were changing the publication day of the weekly newspaper from Friday to Wednesday. They explained the “motive inducing us to make this alteration is, that, most probably, the scene of ACTION will, for a considerable time to come, be in the Southern, Western, and Northern parts of the Continent; which, consequently, will be our greatest sources of intelligence.” In other words, now that Boston was not at the center of the war, the printers adjusted the publication day to accommodate when they received news from the south, through networks that included New York and Philadelphia, rather than from Boston and its surrounding towns to the east. “The reason of the Publication of this paper on Friday,” Stearns and Bigelow elaborated, “was, that HEAD-QUARTERS were then in this colony, the principal Seat of Military operation.” Since that was no longer the case, “the Propriety [of publishing the Massachusetts Spy on Friday] ceases.” Instead, the “Southern Mail (containing the most material news from all the parts abovementioned) arrives here regularly every Tuesday night.” By moving publication to Wednesday, “the freshest and most important advices will be propagated TWO DAYS SOONER, than in the present practice.” Stearns and Bigelow framed this as part of their “uninterrupted endeavour to serve the PUBLIC with the utmost fidelity.” The printers planned to make the change immediately. The next issue would be published on Wednesday, July 10, just five days after the issue announcing the change.
At the same time, Stearns and Bigelow attempted to increase the number of subscribers. In addition to receiving subscriptions at the printing office in Worcester, they also designated local agents in a dozen towns in central Massachusetts and noted that “other gentlemen in various parts of the colony” collected the names of subscribers. They also planned to hire riders to carry the Massachusetts Spy to other towns on Wednesday night “[i]f a sufficient number of subscribers should appear.”
Thomas had built his reputation through his long experience as a printer. Stearns and Bigelow did not have the same advantage, yet they likely hoped that proactively adjusting the day of publication, enlisting local agents to accept subscriptions, and hiring riders to deliver newspapers if the number warranted doing so would cultivate confidence among current and prospective subscribers. They did not have Thomas’s experience, but they demonstrated that they were responsive to changing conditions and would cater to the convenience of their customers.
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 revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.
Who was the subject of an advertisement in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Maryland Gazette (July 4, 1776).
“RUN AWAY … [a] negro fellow named WILL.”
On July 4, 1776, the delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia voted to approve a revised version of a declaration of independence written by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and others appointed for that task. In the 250 years that have passed since that momentous event, the document they approved has become known as the Declaration of Independence and July 4 has been celebrated as the day the colonies, now states, declared their independence from Great Britain. Celebrations and commemorations of that event often overlook other declarations of independence made on July 4, 1776. On that day, American newspapers published more than half a dozen advertisements concerning enslaved people who declared their independence by running away from their enslavers.
Maryland Gazette (July 4, 1776).
The Maryland Gazette, published in Annapolis, carried two such notices. In one, Alexander Ogg of Calvert County offered a reward for the capture and return of Will, a “negro fellow” who liberated himself three weeks earlier on June 10. Ogg described what Will wore when he departed, but he also reported that “‘tis probable he may alter his dress” to avoid detection. In so doing, Ogg acknowledged that Will was clever as well as courageous. In the other advertisement, Anne Gaither of Annapolis sought the return of “a negro fellow named FLANDERS.” She mentioned that he “has been used to go by water,” indicating that he had experience working on boats or ships just like many other enslaved men who lived on or near the Chesapeake Bay. Gaither also reported that Flanders “has no toes,” though she did not elaborate on that detail. Flanders, no doubt, would have told a much more robust story about who he was and what he had experienced if given the opportunity.
New-York Journal (July 4, 1776).
Enslaved people in southern colonies were not the only ones who liberated themselves by running away at the same time that the Continental Congress voted to declare independence. The New-York Journal carried Jacob Wilkins’s advertisement regarding “a negro man named JACK” who liberated himself from his enslaver on June 20. Jack “carried off with him his master’s gun, fitted for, but without a bayonet, and a grenadiers broad sword, brass mounted.” Wilkins suspected that Jack made his way out of the city and was “sculking in the country, or among the troops, where several of his colour have been observed to be very fond of his company.” The many disruptions caused by the war presented opportunities for enslaved people to free themselves by fleeing from their enslavers. To help readers recognize Jack, Wilkins gave his age, “about 35 years,” and mentioned some distinguishing physical characteristics. Having been “born in Guinea,” Jack had “his country’s marks” or ritual scarring “across the middle of his forehead, [and] towards his nose.” At some point, he “lost one of his under fore teeth.” During his enslavement, Jack learned to speak “broken English.” He also developed valuable skills: he “understands something of the brass founders business, [and] can handle the file very well.” Many enslaved people were skilled artisans. Wilkins lamented that Jack “will endeavour to pass for a freeman.” Jack made himself a free man with his decision to escape from Wilkins.
New-York Packet (July 4, 1776).
The New York Packet carried another advertisement, this one regarding “a Negro Man, named BEN,” placed by John Taylor of “New Germantown, Hunterdon county, West Jersey.” Ben liberated himself on June 5 and had evaded capture for a month. Taylor focused primarily on describing Ben and his clothing, noting the young man’s height, age (“twenty-two years old”), and a left leg “considerably larger than the other, with a large scar on the small of said leg.” Ben wore a blue coat, red jacket, black breeches, and “calf skin shoes, [with] a pair of carved silver buckles,” though he also took another coat and jacket, “a fine shirt with ruffles at the bosom, a pair of woollen trowsers, [and] a half worn wool hat” in a bag “marked I.T. near the mouth.” Given a chance to write about himself, Ben certainly would have chosen to a tell a different story than the one that Taylor relayed. If readers detected a young black man carrying a bag with his former enslaver’s initials, Taylor offered a reward for securing him in any jail until he could retrieve him.
Continental Journal (July 4, 1776).
The Continental Journal, published in Boston after the siege of that city ended, carried two advertisements about enslaved people who liberated themselves. Silas Atkins described Cloe, “a Negro Woman” who was “likely gone in the Country, as she took her best Cloaths and left her old.” Atkins gave Cloe’s age (“37 Years’), provided a physical description, and noted that she “speaks good English,” all characteristics that would aid readers in identifying her. Cloe had been gone since the middle of June. Atkins promised that anyone who “will take up said Negro, or give information where she may be found, shall have Four Dollars for their Trouble” as well as any expenses they incurred. In a nota bene, he added a standard warning that appeared in many such advertisements: “All Persons are hereby cautioned not to conceal, harbour or carry off said Negro, as they would avoid all trouble.” The “trouble” would not come from Cloe but rather from legal action undertaken by Atkins.
Continental Journal (July 4, 1776).
The other advertisement in the Continental Journal concerned “a Negro Man named CATO, about twenty-five Years of Age,” who liberated himself from Andrew Mitchel of “Balstown [Ballston], in the County of Albany, about 5 Weeks ago.” Mitchel described Cato’s features and clothing, but he did not provide other details. He devoted nearly as much space to the network of associates who agreed to aid him by holding Cato until he could retrieve him if a reader managed to capture him. Those seeking the reward could deliver Cato “to Capt. Daniel Hubbard of Pittsfield, [Massachusetts], or Mr. Thomas Luttridge at Albany Ferry, or J. GILL, Printer in Queen Street, BOSTON, or secure him in any Goal [Jail]” and notify Mitchel. In a nota bene, the enslaver reported that Cato “was seen one day last Week at Lanesborough [in western Massachusetts], and is a sly Rogue, and whoever takes him, is desired to be careful of him.” Mitchel meant “sly Rogue” as an insult, not intending to compliment Cato on the ingenuity and perseverance he expected the young Black man to demonstrate in attempting to escape if captured.
New-England Chronicle (July 4, 1776).
One more advertisement in a newspaper published in Boston, the New-England Chronicle, identified an enslaved man who liberated himself by running away from his enslaver. This one concerned Sam, “a Negro man” who escaped from John Hunter of Londonderry, New Hampshire, in late June. Hunter did not know Sam’s age, estimating that he was “30 or 40 years old,” but he did know that Sam “has been 19 years from Africa” and in that time learned to speak “good English.” Readers might recognize Same from his “upper fore teeth” that stuck out or by the “light crimson-coloured coat” that he wore. Hunter inserted a nota bene with a warning like the one that appeared in Atkins’s advertisement about Cloe: “All masters of vessels are hereby desired not to harbour, conceal or carry off said Negro, so as to avoid the Penalty of the Law.” Hunter included an evocative phrase when he said that Sam “has been 19 years from Africa.” What kind of stories would Sam have told about his own life and his decision to liberate himself after so many years of bondage?
The men who gathered in the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) to declare independence from Great Britain are often called the founders of the nation, yet they were not the only ones who envisioned freedom from oppression. They were members of a founding generation that included soldiers and farmers, women and youth, and many others from diverse backgrounds who contributed to the American cause. Will, Flanders, Jack, Ben, Cloe, Cato, and Sam were all founders as well. They made their own declarations of independence during the era of the American Revolution and their former enslavers published those declarations of independence on July 4, 1776. Will, Flanders, Jack, Ben, Cloe, Cato, and Sam joined countless other enslaved men and women who seized their liberty during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Those courageous and resilient men and women sought freedom long before the American Revolution and continued seeking freedom long after the American Revolution. Their stories matter and must be told alongside the stories of other founders as we celebrate and commemorate 250 years of independence.
For other stories of enslaved people liberating themselves originally published on July 4 during the era of the American Revolution, see:
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 revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.
What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Connecticut Journal (July 3, 1776).
“Said Deforest expects a good Assortment of Chintz by the 10th of July.”
The Continental Congress made a momentous decision when it voted to declare independence on July 2, 1776. News would spread as quickly as it could via the communication infrastructure in place in the late eighteenth century, yet it would take time to reach all the former colonies and their residents. Thomas Green and Samuel Green, the printers of the Connecticut Journal in New Haven, did not yet have access to the news when they distributed the July 3 edition of their newspaper. They could not pass it along to their readers. They did publish updates from London, Halifax, Boston, Williamsburg, New York, and Philadelphia, some of them more recent than others. The first column on the first page of that issue, however, featured the paid notices that underwrote publication of the newspaper rather than updates and editorials.
The first of those advertisements came from Benjamin Deforest, Jr. He promoted an array of goods for sale at his store in Ripton (now Shelton), providing a long list that included several textiles, “Silk Gloves and Mitts,” “Buttons of various Kinds,” “Shoe and Knee Buckles,” “Sattin Ribbons of various Sorts,” “Crockery and Earthen Ware,” and “pewter Platters, Plates, Pots, Porringers, Basons, [and] Chamber Pots.” He also stocked grocery items, such as wine and spirits, “Loaf Sugar,” coffee, and chocolate, but not tea for the “Tea Pots” that appeared among his inventory of housewares. Deforest concluded his account of his merchandise with an assertion that customers would also discover “sundry other Articles too tedious to mention” when they visited his store. That familiar refrain harkened back to some of the longest and most elaborate newspaper advertisements that encouraged readers to participate in the transatlantic consumer revolution. It encouraged them to engage their imaginations in hopes of prompting them to browse the shelves at Deforest’s store to see what they might discover. Deforest did even more to elicit a sense of wonder and anticipation for his wares. He added a nota bene to inform prospective customers that he “expects a good Assortment of Chintz,” a fashionable fabric, “by the 10th of July,” giving them another reason to shop at his store. Current events, neither the war nor the decision to declare independence, brought commerce and consumption to a halt. Despite the disruptions, Deforest and other retailers attempted to continue with business as usual (or as close to usual as possible), devising advertisements that deployed familiar marketing strategies.
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 revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.
