Liberty and Slavery

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.

September 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Postscript to the Baltimore Journal, &c. (September 5, 1775).

“TO BE SOLD, A Likely young NEGRO BOY, about 14 years of age.”

On September 5, 1775, Mary Katharine Goddard, the printer of the Maryland Journal, and the Baltimore Advertiser, published a two-page Postscript to the Baltimore Journal, &c. to supplement the news and other content that appeared in the standard edition.  It appeared a day ahead of the weekly edition.  Goddard apparently believed that she had news that could not wait as well as not enough space to print it all, making the Postscript necessary.  The first page of the supplement featured news from New York and Watertown, Massachusetts, in a larger font, while the second page consisted almost entirely of news from the “PROVINCIAL CONVENTION” held in Annapolis in a smaller font.  A note preceding the headline indicated that coverage was “Continued from our last.”  Even devoting an entire page in smaller font to that news did not allow Goddard to print all of it.  A note at the end promised, “To be continued.”

That left just enough space for Goddard to insert one advertisement.  An advertisement about a “Likely young NEGRO BOY” and a “HORSE and CHAIR” (a kind of carriage) that ran in the previous issue was the right length to complete the final column on the second page of the Postscript.  It did not provide much information about the enslaved young man, noting only that he was “about 14 years old” and “has had the small pox” so he would not contract that disease again.  Interested parties should “Enquire of the publisher of this paper” the advertisement instructed.  Like other printers who published newspapers from New England to Georgia, Goddard not only disseminated advertisements about enslaved people but also served as a broker who facilitated sales when those advertisements directed readers to learn more at the printing office.  In this instance, publishing news from Maryland’s provincial convention meant greater circulation for an advertisement offering an enslaved youth for sale.  That advertisement ran once again in the standard issue the next day, placing it before the eyes of readers with greater frequency than any other notices in that newspaper.  Even as the provincial convention met to discuss how to defend the liberties of colonizers and the Maryland Journal carried the news, the newspaper also worked to constrain the freedom of enslaved people, including one “Likely young NEGRO BOY” in particular.

July 4

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

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

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (July 4, 1775). NB: The compositor mistakenly updated the masthead to “TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1775,” instead of “TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1775.”

“SOLOMON, a negro, … will make for Boston to the soldiers.”

They made their escape together.  Solomon, an enslaved man, and Richard Dawson, a “white servant man” and “an English convict,” ran away from Thomas Cockey, Sr., and Thomas Cockey, Jr., in Baltimore County in the spring of 1775.  Their advertisement describing Solomon and Dawson first appeared in the May 16, 1775, edition of Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette.  The two men apparently eluded capture because the notice ran regularly for the next several months, including in the July 4 edition.

When they departed, both Solomon and Dawson had an “iron collar double rivetted.”  Solomon had also been outfitted with “a darby” or fetters “on each leg with a chain to one of them,” probably because the Cockeys correctly considered him likely to attempt to liberate himself.  He did, after all, have a history of making a break for freedom.  According to the Cockeys, Solomon previously made it to New Castle in Delaware, remaining there for “twelve months and upwards,” but then in July 1774 went to Somerset County, Maryland.  There he was captured, jailed, and “brought home in November.”  Within months, he became a fugitive seeking freedom once again.  The Cockeys believed that Solomon “has been in Philadelphia.”

Solomon was a young man, “about twenty-two years of age,” who had been in the colonies “about four years.”  Dawson, in contrast, was older, “about 55 years of age.”  He had served as a soldier “under the King of Prussia [during the] last war.”  The Cockeys did not indicate which crimes Dawson committed to merit punishment as a convict servant transported to America.  They did speculate that Solomon and Dawson “will make for Boston to the soldiers, as they have often been talking about them,” though they did not reveal the particulars of what the enslaved man and the former soldier had to say about the British troops or when their conversations first occurred.  Had they taken place after learning of the battles at Lexington and Concord?  Did Dawson think that British soldiers might feel some sympathy for a former comrade?  Did Solomon believe that regulars would shelter him from the colonizers who put him in bondage?  Even if they did not hope for aid, Solomon and Dawson might have considered the upheaval in New England the best opportunity to avoid detection and capture.  The Cockeys anticipated that both men would “get their irons off, get other cloaths [to disguise themselves], change their names, and deny their master.”  Since Solomon “talks pretty good English” and evaded capture for so long during his previous attempt to liberate himself, he had likely learned to tell plausible stories.

Some advertisements about enslaved men and women who liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers during the era of the American Revolution suggested that they received assistance from enslaved relatives and friends.  On occasion, other advertisements recorded enslaved people and unfree colonizers (indentured servants, convict servants, apprentices) working together.  The role that the battles at Lexington and Concord and the siege of Boston played in Solomon’s decision to make common cause with Dawson cannot be determined from the narrative the Cockeys presented in their advertisement.  What is clear, however, is that Solomon repeatedly made his own declarations of independence.

For other stories of enslaved people liberating themselves originally published on July 4 during the era of the American Revolution, see:

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.

June 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Spy (June 14, 1775).

“RAN away … a NEGRO MAN, named TOWER.”

Isaiah Thomas, the printer of the Massachusetts Spy, left Boston just before the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.  He had previously advertised that he intended to establish a printing office in Worcester and install a junior partner there to print the town’s first newspaper.  When he decided to leave Boston to escape the ire of British officials he had angered with his advocacy for the Patriot cause, however, he revised his plans.  Instead of a junior partner printing a new newspaper, Thomas moved the Massachusetts Spy to Worcester and continued publishing it there, safely beyond the reach of Tories in Boston.  Although the numbering of the newspaper continued uninterrupted, it gained a new subtitle, American Oracle of Liberty, and a warning that ran across the top of the masthead, “Americans! — Liberty or Death! — Join or Die.”

When published in Boston, the Massachusetts Spy carried advertisements that offered enslaved people for sale and notices that described enslaved people who liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers and offered rewards for their capture and return.  Despite the new subtitle and the admonitions in the masthead, Thomas continued to earn revenue for his newspaper by printing those advertisements in the Massachusetts Spy after moving it to Worcester.  Away from the colony’s largest urban port, colonizers did not resort to such notices as often, but they did submit them to the printing office and Thomas did publish them. The June 14, 1775, edition of the Massachusetts Spy, the seventh issue printed in Worcester, carried an advertisement about a “NEGRO MAN, named TOWER” who “RAN away” from Nathaniel Read of the nearby town of Western.  Read stated that “Whoever will take up said Runaway shall be handsomely rewarded.”  That advertisement appeared immediately below a news update that confirmed that residents of Charleston, South Carolina, had received word of “a skirmish, or in fact rather an engagement, which happened between his Majesty’s troops and the Provincials” on April 19.  The extract of the letter, written by a British officer in Boston and sent to a correspondent in Charleston, acknowledged that “On the whole the Provincials behaved with unexpected bravery.”  Tower also acted with courage, though not necessarily “unexpected bravery,” as he enacted his own plan for “Liberty or Death!”  Neither Read nor most readers allowed for that possibility, though an item that appeared in the next issue of the Massachusetts Spyindicated that some colonizers in Massachusetts did grapple with the meaning of freedom for enslaved people and the applied the rhetoric of the Revolution to them as well.  The Adverts 250 Project will feature that item next week.

June 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Norwich Packet (June 1, 1775).

“One Dollar Reward [for] a Negro Man, named Jack.”

Among its other contents, the June 1, 1775, edition of the Norwich Packet carried an advertisement that offered a “One Dollar Reward” for the capture and return of “a Negro Man, named Jack” who had liberated himself by running away from his enslaver, Joseph Farnham, Jr. of Canterbury, Connecticut, on the morning of April 8.  Farnham provided a description that included Jack’s age, height, other physical characteristics, and clothing.  He also stated that Jack “speaks broken English,” hoping that would assist readers in identifying the fugitive seeking freedom.  In addition, Jack “has formerly been at Sea.”  He had experience as a sailor, making it even more important to include the standard warning that “All Masters of Vessels and others are forbid to harbour or carry off said Negro, or they may depend on being prosecuted.”  Farnham suspected that Jack was headed to Boston.  He departed before the battles of Lexington and Concord and the siege of Boston.  Those events may have worked to Jack’s advantage, distracting colonizers from taking too much notice of him.

What they certainly did notice was that the imperial crisis had entered a new stage.  “HOSTILITIES are at length commenced in this colony,” Massachusetts, “by the troops under command of General Gage,” Joseph Warren, president pro tem of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress declared in an address to “the INHABITANTS of GREAT-BRITAIN.”  He considered it vital that “an early, true, and authentic account of this inhuman proceeding should be known to you.”  He then outlined the recent battles, especially the “ravages of the troops” in “General Gage’s army.” Farnham’s advertisement about Jack appeared immediately below Warren’s address in the June 1 edition of the Norwich Packet, though most readers likely did not grapple with the contradictions.  On behalf of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, Warren lamented that “ministerial vengeance against this colony, for refusing, with her sister colonies, a submission to slavery.”  He meant figurative slavery, yet Farnham’s advertisement concerned the literal enslavement of a Black man, prompted by Jack’s quest for his own liberty.  Time and time again, advertisements about enslaved men, women, and children appeared alongside news and editorials about the dangers that Parliament posed to the freedoms of colonizers.  The revenue from Farnham’s advertisement about Jack, for instance, helped in making it possible for the printers to publish an editorial from the president pro tem of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.

May 19

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

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

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Extraordinary (May 19, 1775).

“NEGROES of different Qualifications.”

Charles Crouch usually published the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal on Tuesdays in 1775, distributing new issues on a different day than his competitors in Charleston.  Peter Timothy delivered the South-Carolina Gazette on Mondays and Robert Wells and Son presented the South-Carolina and American General Gazette on Fridays.  Yet as information about the battles at Lexington and Concord arrived in Charleston, Crouch published a two-page extraordinary issue on Friday, May 19.  He had first broken the news in the May 9 edition, printing “alarming Intelligence” received via “the Brigantine, Industry, Captain Allen, who sailed the 25th [of April] from Salem.”  Subsequent issues of both the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal and the South-Carolina and American Gazette carried news about Lexington and Concord.  (A gap in extant issues between April 10 and May 29 prevents determining when the South-Carolina Gazette reported on those events.)

Many, perhaps most, readers likely heard that British regulars had engaged colonial militia outside of Boston before they read anything in newspapers.  News and rumors spread via word of mouth more quickly than printers could set type, yet readers still clamored for coverage.  After all, the public prints carried more details about what happened, though not all of them were always correct.  Wells and Son printed the South-Carolina and American General Gazette as usual on Friday, May 19, carrying additional news about Lexington and Concord and the aftermath.  Refusing to be scooped, Crouch published his extraordinary issue on the same day.  He specified that the “particulars respecting the Engagement at Lexington, are copied from the Newport Mercury.”

Even as Crouch provided more news for subscribers and the public, he disseminated even more advertisements.  News accounted for only one-quarter of the contents of the May 19 extraordinary issue, with advertisements filling three-quarters of the space.  Those notices included three from Jacob Valk, a broker, looking to facilitate the sales of “ONE of the compleatest WAITING-MEN in the Province,” “Some valuable PLANTATION NEGROES,” and “NEGROES of different Qualifications” at his office.  In another advertisement, William Stitt described Lydia and Phebe, enslaved women who liberated themselves by running away, and offered rewards for their capture and return to bondage.  In yet another, the warden of Charleston’s workhouse described nearly a dozen Black men and women, all of them fugitives seeking freedom, imprisoned there, alerting their enslavers to claim them, pay their expenses, and take them away.  As readers learned more about acts of tyranny and resistance underway in Massachusetts, they also encountered various sorts of advertisements designed to perpetuate the enslavement of Black men and women.  The early American press simultaneously served multiple purposes, regularly featuring a juxtaposition of liberty and slavery that readers conveniently compartmentalized.

January 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (January 10, 1775).

“The Negro Caesar’s Cure for Poison.”

On January 10, 1775, Charles Crouch, the printer of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, advertised “THE SOUTH-CAROLINA ALMANACK, or Lady’s and Gentleman’s DIARY for the Year of our Lord Christ 1775.”  Like many other printers who promoted almanacs, he attempted to incite interest by listing the contents, including the usual astronomical calculations, “High Water at Charles-Town,” “Days for holding Courts in South-Carolina and Georgia,” “Lists of Public Officers,” and a “Description of the Roads throughout the Continent.”  This almanac contained all sorts of useful information for readers to reference throughout the year.

In addition to the contents, Crouch printed a poem that resonated with current events.  That poem (or perhaps a longer version) presumably appeared in the almanac, a piece of inspiration to inculcate support for the American cause.  As the imperial crisis intensified in the wake of the Coercive Acts and the meeting of the First Continental Congress, the poem called on “AMERICANS! for Freedom firmly join, / Unite your Councils, and your Force combine, / Disarm Oppression — prune Ambition’s Wings, / And stifle Tories, e’er they dart their Stings.”  While the poem in Crouch’s advertisement lamented the loss of “Rights and Liberties” for colonizers, the printer simultaneously disseminated two dozen advertisements about enslaved people in that edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal and the supplement that accompanied it.  Yet readers did not need to look beyond the advertisement for the almanac to find references to enslaved people.  The contents included “The Negro Caesar’s Cure for Poison, and the Bite of a Rattle-Snake,” appropriating African knowledge just as so many of the advertisements appropriated African labor.  The exploitation of enslaved people that contributed to the welfare and prosperity of colonizers occurred along multiple trajectories.  Although agricultural labor on plantations has been the most visible of those, newspaper advertisements and other primary sources demonstrate that enslaved Africans and African Americans provided all sorts of knowledge and skilled labor, ranging from remedies like Caesar’s cures for poison and rattlesnake bites to the work undertaken by enslaved coopers, carpenters, cooks, and seamstresses.

November 19

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , ,

What kinds of principles were expressed in advertisements in colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Providence Gazette (November 19, 1774).

“VOTES and PROCEEDINGS of the AMERICAN CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.”

“RUN away … a Negro Man, named Prince.”

The press was a powerful engine for promoting freedom and rallying colonizers to resist abuses perpetrated by Parliament and, eventually, declare independence from Britain during the era of the American Revolution, yet it simultaneously aided in perpetuating the enslavement of Black and Indigenous people by publishing advertisements offering enslaved people for sale or offering rewards for the capture and return of those who liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers.  The juxtaposition of liberty and slavery in colonial newspapers was common, as Jordan E. Taylor has demonstrated in “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704-1807.”  Among the most stark examples he identifies, Solomon Southwick, the printer of the Newport Mercury, published the Declaration of Independence and an advertisement for a “NEGRO BOY” on July 18, 1776.[1]

Providence Gazette (November 19, 1774).

In addition to news and editorials advocating for liberty while advertisements perpetuated slavery, sometimes other advertisements also stood in such contrast.  On November 19, 1774, for instance, John Carter, the printer of the Providence Gazette, inserted advertisements for “EXTRACTS From the VOTES and PROCEEDINGS of the AMERICAN CONTINENTAL CONGRESS” and “ENGLISH LIBERTIES, OR, The free-born Subject’s INHERITANCE” in the same issue that carried an advertisement that described “a Negro Man, named Prince” who had liberated himself by running away from Thomas Wood earlier in the month.  The Adverts 250 Project has noted the publication and dissemination of the Extracts in several towns in the fall of 1774.  The Providence Gazette certainly was not the only newspaper that advertised this important political pamphlet while simultaneously running notices about enslaved people.  On November 2, William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, were the first to announce that they published the Extracts.  In the same issue they ran two advertisements that sought to capture fugitives seeking freedom, one about “a Negro Man named CAESAR” and another an unnamed “NEGRO MAN” who “speaks Low Dutch.”  Almost all the newspapers carrying advertisements for the Extracts that the Adverts 250 Project has featured so far ran them alongside advertisements about enslaved people.  The juxtaposition of liberty and enslavement in revolutionary print culture that Taylor identifies was not merely incidental or occasional.  It occurred consistently, even in newspapers published in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.

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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): 313-4.

July 4

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 4, 1774).

“RAN AWAY … a Negro Man named GEORGE.”

On June 4, 1774, a “Negro Man named GEORGE” liberated himself from his enslaver, Abraham Lawrence of “Flushing on Long-Island,” by running away.  In hopes of recovering George and returning him to slavery, Lawrence ran an advertisement in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  It first appeared in the June 13 edition and continued for several issues, including the one published on July 4.  The enslaver hoped to enlist the aid of the public, offering “FIVE DOLLARS Reward” and providing a description of George so readers could identify him as they engaged in surveillance of Black men they encounter.  Lawrence also issued a standard warning: “All Masters of Vessels and others, are forbid carrying off, or harbouring said Run-away, as they will be dealt with according to Law.”  Already utilizing the power of the press, Lawrence was prepared to deploy the power of the state to return George to slavery and punish anyone who assisted this fugitive from slavery.

Lawrence’s description of George differed significantly from how George would have described himself, focusing on physical characteristics.  According to the enslaver, George “is of a yellowish Complexion, has black bushy Hair, which he commonly wears tied behind; 5 feet 8 Inches high.”  Lawrence did not indicate George’s approximate age, which language(s) he spoke, any skills he possessed or trades he followed, or whether he had been born in the colonies or Africa, nor did he mention any relations with other enslaved people.  Other advertisements often included such details.  Lawrence devoted the most attention to George’s clothing: “a whitish Linen Coat, a grey homespun Coat, blue Jacket, Buff coloured half-worn Velvet Breeches, with some Patches, black Stockings, and old Shoes.”  The enslaver reporter that George “most commonly wears his Hat cocked” and suspected that he “may change his Coat to a brown.”  In so doing, Lawrence acknowledged that George was clever, but condemned him for applying his intelligence to what the enslaver considered nefarious purposes.

Quite possibly, this may be the only trace of George that survives in the historical record, an account of his escape from slavery written not by himself but by an enslaver seeking his capture and return.  It tells an exceptionally truncated account of George’s life.  Despite the intentions of its author, this advertisement tells a story of courage, resilience, and resistance during the era of the American Revolution.  News coverage and editorials elsewhere in the July 4, 1774, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury focused on the imperial crisis, especially the aftermath of the Boston Port Act devised as punishment for the Boston Tea Party.  George may or may not have heard rumblings about that.  Either way, he made his own declaration of independence on June 4, 1774, much to the dismay of his enslaver.

For other stories of enslaved people liberating themselves originally published on July 4 during the era of the American Revolution, see: