Abolition

April 5

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , , , ,

Who was the subject of an advertisement in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Connecticut Gazette (April 5, 1776).

“DICK (a Negro) … is now made free from Slavery by the Charity of the People.”

It was an unusual advertisement about an enslaved person that ran in the April 5, 1776, edition of the Connecticut Gazette.  In the decade prior to the colonies declaring independence from Great Britain, more than thirty thousand advertisements about enslaved men, women, and children ran in American newspapers.  Almost all of them belonged to one of two categories: buying and selling enslaved people or capturing and returning enslaved people who liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers.  In the first category, most notices offered enslaved people for sale, though some offered to hire them out by the month or year and others sought to purchase enslaved people.  In the second category, most advertisements described enslaved people who liberated themselves and offered rewards for their capture and return with a smaller number giving descriptions of Black people confined to jails and workhouses on suspicion of running away and asking their enslavers to claim them and pay expenses.  The April 5 edition of the Connecticut Gazette carried an advertisement about “a Melatto Fellow named SY” who liberated himself from Joshua Powers and another that offered to sell “A Negro Man Servant, at a very reasonable Price.”

It also featured a notice “to inform the Public, That … DICK (a Negro) was of late a Servant to Mr. Stephen Bacon, of Middletown, but is now made free from Slavery by the Charity of the People, and by virtue of his Freedom, has Liberty to procure the necessaries of Life by his own Industry, as other free born Subjects have.”  The advertisement did not go into detail about the circumstance of Dick receiving his freedom, though it suggested that residents of Middletown took up a collection to purchase him from Bacon.  During the era of the American Revolution, some colonizers in New England recognized the enslavement of African, African American, and Indigenous people as inconsistent with the rhetoric of freedom that they embraced concerning their own experiences within the British Empire.  In the spring of 1775, for instance, Black people in the counties of Bristol and Worcester “petitioned the Committees of Correspondence for the county of Worcester … to assist them in obtaining their freedom.”  According to a notice in the June 21 edition of the Massachusetts Spy, the colonizers who gathered for a county convention passed a resolution stated that “we abhor the enslaving of any of the human race, and particularly of the NEGROES in this country.”  Accordingly, “whenever there shall be a door opened, or opportunity present for anything to be done toward the emancipating the NEGROES; we will use our influence and endeavour that such a thing may be effected.”

Stephen Bacon of Middletown, Connecticut, did not seem to share those sentiments.  Perhaps members of his community did not either, but at the very least they apparently formed some sort of bond with Dick that prompted them to seek his freedom.  The announcement that ran in the Connecticut Gazette came with a caveat.  The men who placed it, Zaccheus Higbe and Joseph Graves, cautioned that “all or any Person or Persons that do or shall Trade, Bargain, or make Contract with [Dick], will be liable themselves to bear all the loss that he or they do sustain by so doing.”  Higbe and Graves did not specify what role, if any, they played in Dick becoming free, nor did they indicate their primary motivation for placing the advertisement.  Was it to aid Dick in asserting his new status?  Or to caution anyone who might do business with him that Bacon was no longer ultimately responsible for Dick’s “own Industry”?  Whatever their intention, the advertisement in Connecticut Gazette supplemented other documents testifying to his freedom that Dick almost certainly safeguarded in society where enslavement continued.

June 21

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

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

Massachusetts Spy (June 21, 1775).

“RESOLVED, That we abhor the enslaving of any of the human race, and particularly of the NEGROES in this county.”

Nathaniel Read’s advertisement describing Tower, an enslaved man who liberated himself by running away, and offering a reward for his capture and return ran in the Massachusetts Spy a second time on June 21, 1775.  It was the last time that advertisement appeared.  Perhaps the notice achieved its intended purpose when someone recognized the Black man with “a little scar on one side [of] his cheek” or perhaps Read discontinued it for other reasons.

Whatever the explanation, Read’s advertisement starkly contrasted with a new notice that relayed a resolution passed “In County Convention” on June 14.[1]  “[T]he NEGROES in the counties of Bristol and Worcester, the 24th of March last, petitioned the Committees of Correspondence for the county of Worcester (then convened in Worcester) to assist them in obtaining their freedom.”  As the imperial crisis intensified and colonizers invoked the language of liberty and freedom from (figurative) enslavement, Black people who were (literally) enslaved in Massachusetts applied that rhetoric to themselves and initiated a process that challenged white colonizers to recognize their rights.  They did so before the Revolutionary War began with the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, though it took a few months for the County Convention to pass a resolution.  That resolution supported the petition: “we abhor the enslaving of any of the human race, and particularly of the NEGROES in this county.”  Furthermore, “whenever there shall be a door opened, or opportunity present, for any thing to be done toward the emancipating the NEGROES; we will use our influence and endeavour that such a thing may be effected.”

During the era of the American Revolution, the press often advanced purposes that seem contradictory to modern readers.  Newspapers undoubtedly served as engines of liberty that promoted the American cause and shaped public opinion in favor of declaring independence, yet they also played a significant role in perpetuating the enslavement of Africans, African Americans, and Indigenous Americans.  News articles reported on the dangers posed by enslaved people, especially when they engaged in resistance or rebellion, and advertisements facilitated the slave trade and encouraged the surveillance of Black men and women to determine whether they matched the descriptions of enslaved people who liberated themselves.  Revenue from those advertisements underwrote publishing news and editorials that supported the patriot cause.  Yet the early American press occasionally published items that supported the emancipation of enslaved people and abolishing the transatlantic slave trade as some colonizers applied the rhetoric of the American Revolution more evenly to all people.

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[1] Although it resembles a news article, this item appeared among the advertisements.  In addition, it ran more than once, typical of paid notices rather than news printed just once.  Newspaper advertisements often delivered news, especially local news, during the era of the American Revolution.

October 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Oct 12 - 10:12:1767 Boston-Gazette Supplement
Supplement to the Boston-Gazette (October 12, 1767).

“The Calamitous State of the Enslaved NEGROES in the British Dominions.”

American colonists became increasingly preoccupied with their own liberty and potential enslavement by Parliament in the 1760s and 1770s. Among their many methods of protest, they gave voice to their anxieties in newspapers. For instance, Edes and Gill printed a lengthy letter warning against “parliamentary slavery” resulting from the “corruption of Parliament” alongside the text of the an “ACT OF PARLIAMENT, for granting certain Duties in the British Colonies and Plantations in America,” better known today as the Townshend Act.

Colonists concerns about the enslavement they believed they experienced stood in stark contrast to advertisements concerning enslaved Africans that appeared in newspapers throughout the colonies, including those published in New England. In the same issue of the Boston-Gazette that Edes and Gill paired the Townshend Act with a spirited critique of Parliament, four advertisements presented slaves for sale. Whether for “a very likely Negro Boy” who could “sort & cut & spin all Sorts of Tobacco” or a “healthy, stout Negro Man … who has been in this Country about three Months,” all four advertisements instructed interested buyers to “inquire of Edes and Gill” for more information. A fifth advertisement offered “A fine Negro Male Child, well provided with Cloathing” for free, “To be given away.” Again, the advertisement concluded with “inquire of Edes & Gill.” The printers who gave voice to Anglo-American colonists’ objections to the tyranny of Parliament not only generated revenues by selling advertisements for slaves but also served as agents who facilitated the trade for anonymous sellers.

Edes and Gill could not have been completely oblivious to this contradiction. After all, one additional advertisement mentioned slavery. The printers announced that they sold “A CAUTION and WARNING to Great-Britain and her Colonies, in a short Representation of the Calamitous State of the Enslaved NEGROES in the British Dominions.” Anthony Benezet, a Quaker abolitionist from Philadelphia, penned this pamphlet in 1766. Originally published in Philadelphia, it was reprinted in London the following year. Based on the supplementary materials mentioned in the advertisement, Edes and Gill sold yet another edition, this one printed by Hall and Sellers in Philadelphia in 1767.

As many colonists fretted over the tension between their own liberty and imagined enslavement, some applied such rhetoric more broadly to include enslaved Africans and their descendants in the colonies. Others conveniently ignored any contradictions. Printers like Edes and Gill, through the advertisements and pamphlets they sold and the exchanges they facilitated, stood to gain financially from the activities of slaveholders and abolitionists alike.