Enquire of the Printer

June 8

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

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

Freeman’s Journal (June 8, 1776).

“A likely healthy NEGRO MAN … Enquire of the printer. 3 5”

Benjamin Dearborn published the third issue of the Freeman’s Journal on June 8, 1776.  Among the various advertisements that appeared in that issue, one announced, “TO BE SOLD, (for want of employ) A likely healthy NEGRO MAN, aged about twenty five, and understands farming business well.”  For interested parties who wanted to know more, the notice instructed them to “Enquire of the printer” at his printing office in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  The previous issue of the Freeman’s Journal featured an advertisement in which Samuel Hall described Seneca, an enslaved man who liberated himself by running away from his enslaver on May 29, and offered a reward for his capture and return.  In the course of the first three issues, Dearborn went from proclaiming “the most sacred rights of a free people” in an address to readers to encouraging the surveillance of Black men in a notice placed for the purpose of capturing a fugitive from slavery to actively participating in the slave trade as a broker and proxy for an anonymous advertiser.

Notations in both advertisements suggests that each met with success.  Hall’s advertisement concerning Seneca concluded with “2–4,” a notation intended for the compositor who set type rather than for readers.  It indicated that Hall’s advertisement should appear in issue “No. 2” through issue “No. 4.”  However, Hall’s advertisement did not run in any subsequent issue, suggesting that Seneca had been captured and returned and, in turn, the notice withdrawn.  The anonymous “enquire of the printer” advertisement concluded with a similar notation, “3 5.”  It first appeared in issue “No. 3” and should have appeared in the next two issues as well.  It did not run the following week, but a note from the printer promised that “Advertisements &c. omitted, will be in our next.”  The advertisement did indeed appear in issue “No. 5” the following week, with the notation revised to “3 6” to allow for the week it did not run.  That meant that it should have appeared in the third (June 8), fifth (June 22) and sixth (June 29) issues of the Freeman’s Journal.  The advertisement did not run again, suggesting that someone had indeed enquired of the printer and completed the transaction.  Dearborn commenced advertising the “Books so much admired, entitled COMMON SENSE,” the most influential political pamphlet advocating for the colonies to declare independence, on June 22, the last issue that carried the advertisement offering the enslaved man for sale.  Dearborn deployed the power of the press to promote the liberty of some Americans while restricting the liberty of others.

May 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (May 28, 1776).

“TO be SOLD, a NEGRO BOY, about four or five years of age.”

Advertisements placed for a variety of purposes appeared in the May 28, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Hyns Taylor, an upholsterer, and Ameia Taylor, a milliner and mantuamaker, once again offered their services.  Charles Eddy offered a reward for the return of a lost “RED MOROCCO LEATHER POCKET BOOK” and the papers it contained.  Andrew Robeson, the secretary of the Library Company of Philadelphia, called on members to attend a meeting later in the month.  Mary Jenkins advertised a vendue or auction of household goods and furniture.  An anonymous advertiser sought a buyer for “a NEGRO BOY, about four or five years of age, who had had the smallpox and measles,” instructing interested parties to “Inquire of the printer.”

That advertisement appeared immediately below one for a wet nurse and above one selling hay, undifferentiated from any of the paid notices in that issue of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  News items in that issue concerned the war and meetings of provincial congresses or conventions held in other colonies.  A unanimous resolution from North Carolina, for instance, stated, “That the Delegates for this colony in the Continental Congress be empowered to concur with the Delegates of the other colonies in declaring independency, and forming foreign alliances, reserving for this colony the sole and exclusive right of forming a constitution and laws for this colony.”  A unanimous resolution, this one from Virginia, declared, “That the Delegates appointed to represent this colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body TO DECLARE THE UNITED COLONIES FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependance upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great-Britain.”  Readers were thinking about their own freedom as they perused the advertisement offering “a NEGRO BOY, about four or five years of age,” for sale.

That was one of countless juxtapositions of liberty and enslavement in American newspaper published during the era of the Revolution.  Jordan E. Taylor notes that “was not unusual.  Many newspaper notices for enslaved people appeared alongside high-minded essays about politics and news of revolutions at home or abroad.”[1]  That did not seem as jarring to eighteenth-century readers as modern readers, he explains, because newspapers “provided a model of the mental compartmentalization that Americans needed to embrace in order to avoid recognizing their own hypocrisy and complicity.  …  Vertical and horizontal lines divided these items, drawing distinctions and signaling difference.  In this mapping of the public consciousness, newspaper printers assured readers that the topics were unrelated.”[2]  The business of the slave trade and the business of advertising enslaved people for sale continued to thrive during the era of the American Revolution.  The same newspapers that were engines of liberty for Patriots simultaneously played a significant role in perpetuating slavery.

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[1] Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704, 1807,” Early American Studies 18, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 314-315.

[2] Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer,” 291.

May 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (May 21, 1776).

“Enquire of the Printer.”

John Dunlap’s printing office in Baltimore was a busy place.  The colophon for Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette informed readers that in addition to printing the newspaper there, it was the place to purchase subscriptions and submit advertisements.  In addition, they could have “all manner of Printing Work done with the utmost Expedition.”  Yet those were not the only services available at the printing office.  Even more information flowed in conversations with the printer than in the newspapers, broadsides, and handbills that came off the press.  Advertisements placed for a variety of purposes instructed interested parties to “Enquire of the Printer” for more details.

That included employment advertisements.  Consider those that appeared in the May 21, 1776, edition of Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette.  One prospective employee, “A PERSON regularly bred to the mercantile business,” hoped to gain a position “in the writing way.”  In other words, he sought work as a bookkeeper, advising “[a]ny merchant or trader having their books unposted, or wanting them put in proper order, or accounts drawn, may depend on their being speedily and well done at a reasonable rate.”  The advertiser did not reveal his identity but instead asked such merchants and traders to “Enquire of the Printer” for an introduction.  The headline “WANTED” started another advertisement, that one seeking a distiller who “mist be a single Man, honest, capable, and sober.”  His “chief employment will be to make Whiskey from rye, apples and peaches” in exchange for a “good salary and kind treatment” by his employer.  To learn more, prospective applicants had to “Enquire of the Printer.”  Another “WANTED” notice sought a “Person properly qualified to teach a SCHOOL.”  Candidates needed references.  Upon “being well recommended,” one would “meet with great encouragement by applying to the Printer.”  The advertisement did not specify whether the printer would make the call about what qualified as “being well recommended” before making an introduction to the prospective employer.

The printing office was not a brokerage, an intelligence office, or an employment agency, but it served some of those functions, especially when printers acted as intermediaries who supplied details that did not appear in advertisements and made introductions.  Early American printers trafficked in information via conversations in their bustling offices and correspondence directed there in addition to printing and distributing newspapers and other advertising media.

October 25

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

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

Constitutional Gazette (October 25, 1775).

“RUN-AWAY … a Negro man, named MINGO.”

“FOR SALE, A VERY healthy Negro Girl.”

In the fall of 1775, John Anderson joined the ranks of newspaper printers who helped perpetuate slavery by disseminating advertisements about enslaved people in their publications.  In this case, one advertisement concerned “a Negro man, named MINGO,” who liberated himself from Benjamin Hutchinson by escaping from Hutchinson of Southold in Suffolk County on Long Island in early October.  The enslaver described the young man, both his physical features and his clothing, and offered a reward for his capture and return.  Another advertisement offered a “healthy Negro Girl, about 18 years of age,” for sale.  She was capable of “all sorts of house work” and sold “only for want of employ” rather than any deficiency.

Those advertisements first appeared in the October 25 edition of the Constitutional Gazette, a newspaper that commenced publication near the beginning of August.  The new publication initially did not carry advertisements, though Anderson began soliciting them by the end of the month.  Local entrepreneurs who had experience advertising in other newspapers, including goldsmith and jeweller Charles Oliver Bruff and Abraham Delanoy, who pickled lobsters and oysters, soon placed notices in the Constitutional Gazette.  Beyond marketing consumer goods and services, others ran advertisements for a variety of purposes, replicating the kinds of notices found in other newspapers of the period.

Constitutional Gazette (October 25, 1775).

That included advertisements about enslaved people.  Two months after first soliciting advertisements (and less than three months after publishing the inaugural issue), Anderson disseminated Hutchinson’s advertisement about Mingo’s escape from slavery and another notice offering an enslaved young woman for sale.  Like printers from New England to Georgia, he compartmentalized the contents of his newspaper, not devoting much thought to the juxtaposition of news and editorials advocating on behalf of the American cause and advertisements placed for the purpose of perpetuating slavery and the slave trade.

Even as Anderson used his newspaper to advocate for liberty for colonizers who endured the abuses perpetrated by Parliament, he used it to constrain the freedom of Black men, women, and children.  The advertisement about Mingo encouraged readers to engage in surveillance of Black men to determine if any they encountered matched his description.  In addition to publishing advertisements about enslaved people, Anderson also served as a broker.  The advertisement for the young enslaved woman whose name was once known instructed interested parties to “Enquire of the Printer.”  Anderson did more than merely disseminate information.  He actively participated in the sale of the young enslaved woman as one of the services he provided as printer.

June 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Story and Humphreys’s Pennsylvania Mercury (June 16, 1775).

“Enquire of the PRINTERS.”

Printing offices were busy places.  In addition to the master printers, journeymen, apprentices, and others who worked in them, a variety of associates and customers frequently visited to share news and information or to conduct business.  That was almost certainly the case in the printing office operated by Enoch Story and Daniel Humphreys in Norris’s Alley in Philadelphia when the American Revolution began.  The colophon on the final page of their newspaper, Story and Humphreys’s Pennsylvania Mercury, advised that “Subscriptions, … Advertisements, [and] Articles and Letters of Intelligence” were “gratefully received” there.  A constant stream of people likely visited their printing office.

Some of them arrived seeking more information about advertisements that ran in the Pennsylvania Mercury.  In addition to printing and disseminating notices on behalf of advertisers, the printers also served as brokers who provided additional information beyond what appeared in the public prints.  The June 16, 1775, edition, for instance, carried two advertisements that instructed interested parties to “Enquire of the Printers” to learn more.  One gave sparse details about “BOARD AND LODGING TO BE HAD, With GENTEEL APARTMENTS, on reasonable terms.”  Which additional details did Story and Humphreys give to those who did enquire?  Did they merely facilitate an introduction to the advertiser?  Did they have details about price, furnishings, or the schedule for meals?  The advertisement does not reveal how much information they relayed, only that both the printers and the advertiser anticipated that Story and Humphreys would have some involvement beyond publishing the advertisement.

Another advertisement offered for sale an “excellent Eight-Day CLOCK made by HADWEN of Liverpool” that “shews the moon’s age” and the “day of the month” in “a neat mahogany case” with “suitable ornaments.”  Again, the advertisement did not indicate which additional details Story and Humphreys relayed to those who did “Enquire of the Printers,” but it testified to their additional involvement in the transaction after publishing the advertiser’s notice in their newspaper.  Eighteenth-century printers brokered information both in print and in person, the latter an element of the customer service available to advertisers.

June 6

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (June 6, 1775).

“TO BE SOLD, A NEGRO GIRL…  Inquire of the Printer.”

The June 6, 1775, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post carried only two advertisements.  One announced that the Ann from Bristol arrived with a “NUMBER of healthy Men and Women SERVANTS, among whom are Tradesmen, also Sawyers, Footmen, [and] Labourers.”  William and Fisher and Son sold the “Times” of these indentured servants, each of whom willingly made the voyage across the Atlantic.  In exchange for their passage, they agreed to serve for a certain number of years, their “Times,” as specified in their indentures or contracts.

The other advertisement offered a “NEGRO GIRL, about one and twenty Years of Age,” for sale, describing her as “very handy in all Manner of Household Work.”  In addition, she “has had the Smallpox,” which meant that she would not contract the disease again.  As a result, potential buyers could feel more secure in their investment if they bought her.  Furthermore, the advertisement explained that the young woman “is sold for Want of Employ, her Mistress having left off Housekeeping.”  Again, the seller sought to offer reassurances.  The enslaved woman was not sick nor disobedient, just unnecessary.  Rather than free the young woman, her enslaver opted to sell her.  Unlike the servants featured in the other advertisement, she would not gain her freedom in a few years.  She did not have a contract.  She did not serve willingly.

Benjamin Towne, on the other hand, willingly acted as a slave broker in facilitating the transaction.  The advertisement instructed anyone interested in purchasing the enslaved woman to “Inquire of the Printer.”  Towne had been printing the Pennsylvania Evening Post, one of the first tri-weekly newspapers in the colonies, since late January 1775.  This advertisement was the first that offered an enslaved person for sale as well as the first that positioned the printer as a broker.  That it took more than four months does not seem to have been the result of any principles exercised by Towne, though that could have been a factor initially.  Instead, the Pennsylvania Evening Post, printed on a smaller sheet than other newspapers published in Philadelphia, carried fewer advertisements than its competitors.  That seems like the most probable explanation for taking so long to carry an “Inquire of the Printer” advertisement that presented an enslaved person for sale.  Even if Towne had misgivings about such notices when he embarked on publishing the newspaper, the need to generate revenue and remain competitive with Philadelphia’s other newspapers won out.

April 14

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

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

Story and Humphreys’s Pennsylvania Mercury (April 14, 1775).

“A Stout, healthy, Young NEGRO MAN … to be SOLD … Enquire of the Printers.”

On April 14, 1775, Enoch Story and Daniel Humphreys published “VOL. I.  NUMB. 2,” the second issue of their new newspaper.  They updated the title in the masthead from The Pennsylvania Mercury; and the Universal Advertiser to Story and Humphreys’s Pennsylvania Mercury, and Universal Advertiser.  The colophon running across the bottom of the final page remained the same, advising readers that they “gratefully received” subscriptions, advertisements, articles, and “Letters of Intelligence” at their printing office in Norris’s Alley in Philadelphia.  Their first issue featured a significant number of advertisements.  The second issue contained even more.  Advertisers were willing to take a chance with this new newspaper, apparently believing that its circulation justified the investment in purchasing space to disseminate their notices.

Among the advertisements that ran for the first time in the second issue of Story and Humphreys’s Pennsylvania Mercury, one offered “A Stout, healthy, Young NEGRO MAN, who has had the small-pox, to be SOLD for no other reason, but want of employ.”  It advised interested parties to “Enquire of the Printers” to learn more.  The notice was dated “April 14” and had a notation, “3 w,” that let the compositor know to include it in three issues.  Last week, Story and Humphreys’s Pennsylvania Mercury made its first appearance in the Adverts 250 Project to examine the advertisements in it (or its second appearance when counting subscription proposals that ran in another newspaper).  Today, the Adverts 250 Project features that newspaper once again because it is making its first appearance in the Slavery Adverts 250 Project.

Yet Story and Humphreys did not merely publish an advertisement that offered an enslaved man for sale.  They published an “Enquire of the Printers” advertisement that made them active participants in the sale.  They may have facilitated an introduction, or they may have negotiated on behalf of the advertiser.  The notice does not reveal the extent of their involvement, but it does indicate that they were involved beyond publishing the advertisement and earning revenue for doing so.  As Jordan E. Taylor documents, American printers acted as slave brokers in thousands of advertisements in newspapers published throughout the colonies and, later, states in the eighteenth century.[1]  Participating in the slave trade was part of the business model for operating a viable newspaper.  Taylor could not identify any printers who refused to run advertisements that offered enslaved people for sale as a matter of principle; the financial incentives were too strong to ignore.  Story and Humphreys very quickly incorporated perpetuating slavery into the practices for their press, both as printers who disseminated advertisements offering enslaved people for sale and as printers who served as slave brokers via “Enquire of the Printers” advertisements.

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[1] Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704-1807,” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 18, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 287-323.

February 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Ledger (February 25, 1775).

“A HEALTHY strong young Negro [Woman] … with her male child, one year old.”

Five issues.  It took only five issues for an advertisement offering enslaved people for sale to appear in the Pennsylvania Ledger.  James Humphreys, Jr., launched the newspaper on January 28, 1775.  Four weeks later, he printed an advertisement about a “HEALTHY strong young Negro [Woman], about twenty-four years of age,” to be sold “with her male child, one year old.”  The Pennsylvania Ledger was still such a new publication when it carried this advertisement that the proposals and conditions for subscribing appeared as the first item in the first column on the first page.  An advertisement for a political pamphlet ran immediately below the proposals, followed by the advertisement for the enslaved young woman and her child.  Readers encountered them before news reprinted from the Maryland Gazette or any of the other content in that issue.

Humphreys did not merely print and disseminate the advertisement.  He also acted as a broker in the sale.  The notice instructed interested parties to “apply to the Printer.”  What role Humphreys would play when someone did “apply” to him was not apparent in the advertisement.  He may have referred prospective buyers to the advertiser, he may have provided more details about the sale, including price and credit, or he may have been empowered to agree to a sale should a buyer meet the terms specified by the enslaver who offered the woman and child for sale.  Whatever role he played, Humphreys was actively involved in the sale beyond printing the advertisement in his newspaper.

He may have even consulted with the advertiser in composing the advertisement, though it was formulaic enough that an enslaver looking to sell human property likely did not need such assistance.  After all, such “enquire of the printer” advertisements appeared regularly in newspapers published during the era of the American Revolution.  The anonymous advertiser noted that the enslaved woman “has had the small-pox and measles,” a guarantee of her health in the future since she would not contract those diseases again, and “can be well recommended fort her honesty and sobriety.”  In addition, she was a “plain cook.”  Such language was just as common in advertisements for enslaved people as directions to “apply to the Printer” who would act as a broker in the sale.

For more on such advertisements, see Jordan Taylor’s “Enquire of the Printer: The Slave Trade and Early American Newspaper Advertising.”

May 6

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (May 6, 1773).

“TO BE SOLD, A Very fine Negro Boy.”

Three issues.  That was how long it took James Rivington to become a broker in the slave trade when he launched Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer or the Connecticut, New-Jersey, Hudson’s-River and Quebec Weekly Advertiser in the spring of 1773.  The Adverts 250 Project has examined some of the advertisements that appeared in the first and second issues of that newspaper.  With the third issue, the Slavery Adverts 250 Project begins chronicling advertisements about enslaved men, women, and children that appeared in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer.

Rivington, like other colonial printers, generated revenues by publishing and disseminating such advertisements, yet their complicity in perpetuating slavery and the slave trade did not end there.  When they published advertisements that provided descriptions of enslaved people who liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers and offered rewards for their capture and return, colonial printers encouraged and facilitated the widespread surveillance of Black men and women, including by colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people themselves.  When colonial printers instructed readers to “Enquire of the Printer” for more information about enslaved people for sale, they became brokers in the transactions.

Such was the case with an advertisement in the May 6, 1773, edition of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer.  In just five short lines, Rivington implicated himself in perpetuating slavery and the slave trade: “TO BE SOLD, A Very fine Negro Boy, about seventeen years old, capable of waiting on a gentleman, and in a family extremly useful, he is strong, well built, and remarkably sober, and well worth £. 100.  Enquire of the Printer.”  In his examination of “Enquire of the Printer” advertisements, Jordan E. Taylor notes, “Printers had several reasons to traffic enslaved people.  Many probably viewed this work as a way of encouraging advertisers.  To refuse to perform this service may have led an advertiser to taker his or her business to competitors.”[1]

Rivington’s competitors certainly did not refuse such business.  On the same day that Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer ran its first “Enquire of the Printer” advertisement, an advertisement describing and offering a reward for Cush, an enslaved man who liberated himself from John Foster of Southampton on Long Island, ran in John Holt’s New-York Journal.  Earlier in the week, Hugh Gaine published three advertisements concerning enslaved people in his New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, one seeking a “NEGROE man-servant,” another offering an enslaved woman for sale, and the third describing and offering a reward for Sam, an enslaved man who could speak English and Dutch.  Gaine acted as the broker in the first advertisement, instructing anyone willing to hire out an enslaved “NEGROE man-servant” to learn more “by applying to the printer.”

Still, Rivington made a choice about whether to participate in this aspect of the printing business, just as Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks did when they became proprietors of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  Three days before Rivington published his first advertisement concerning an enslaved person, Mills and Hicks published theirs, joining with other printers in Boston who carried the same notice in their newspapers.  The following week, the fourth issue of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer carried its first advertisement about an enslaved man, Pompey, who liberated himself.  Rivington had made his editorial decision about what he was willing to publish among the advertisements in his newspaper.  He did not seem to hesitate in doing so.

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[1] Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704-1807,” Early American Studies 18, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 296.

April 23

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

Who was the subject of advertisements in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today?

Connecticut Journal (April 23, 1773).

“TO BE SOLD … A likely Negro Man … Enquire of the Printers.”

“TO BE SOLD, A Negro Boy … Enquire of the Printers.”

Timothy Green ran a busy printing office in the early 1770s.  In addition to publishing the New-London Gazette, he sold books, some that he printed but most of them imported.  In the April 23, 1773, edition of his newspaper, Green advertised one of his own imprints, informing readers that “A Faithful HISTORY OF REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, IN THE Captivity and Deliverances OF Mr. JOHN WILLIAMS, Minister of the Gospel in DEEERFIELD” was “Just Published, and to be Sold.”  Green also did job printing, including broadsides, handbills, and blanks (or forms).  Similarly, Thomas Green and Samuel Green oversaw a bustling printing office where they published the Connecticut Journal and New-Haven Post-Boy.  In the spring of 1773, they distributed subscription proposals for a new edition of “A Discourse on Justification by Faith alone. BY THE REVEREND JONATHAN EDWARDS.”  Those proposals also appeared in the April 23 edition of the New-London Gazette, part of a network of printers and others who cooperated in collecting the names of subscribers who reserved copies.

New-London Gazette (April 23, 1773).

Among their many other responsibilities, all three printers also served as slave brokers.  The same day that they promoted important historical and theological works, they also advised readers to “Enquire of the Printers” to learn more about enslaved people advertised for sale in their newspapers.  In the Connecticut Journal, a brief advertisement announced, “TO BE SOLD, (for no Fault, but for want of Employ,) A likely Negro Man, about 26 Years old, fit for Town or Country. Enquire of the Printers.”  An even shorter, but equally insidious, advertisement in the New-London Gazette stated, “TO BE SOLD, A Negro Boy, about 13 Years old, lately brought into the Country.  Enquire of the Printer.”  In both cases, the advertisers declined to identify themselves, instead instructing interested parties to contact the printers for more information.  In turn, the printers facilitated the sales of enslaved people twice over and generated revenue from the advertisements in the process.  First, they disseminated the notices, undertaking the labor required to print and distribute the advertisements and the rest of the newspapers.  Then, they actively participated in the sale of the “likely Negro Man” and the “Negro Boy, about 13 Years old,” responding to messages they received in the printing office and colonizers who visited to learn more.  As these advertisements demonstrate, printers in New England participated in perpetuating slavery during the era of the American Revolution, alongside their counterparts in Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and other colonies with greater numbers of enslaved people.  Such advertisements underwrote the production and dissemination of the news, while those that required readers to “Enquire of the Printers” further enmeshed printers in the slave trade as brokers for sales.

For an extended consideration of such advertisements, see Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704-1807,” Early American Studies 18, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 287-323, and the companion website.