Prince an Enslaved Man Who Liberated Himself

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.

August 20

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

Who were the subjects of advertisements in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Maryland Journal (August 20, 1773).

“A NEGRO GIRL, about 12 years old.”

“RAN away … Negro PRINCE.”

After many months of disseminating subscription proposals and promoting the Maryland Journal, the first newspaper published in Baltimore, William Goddard printed and distributed the first issue on August 20, 1773.  In addition to subscribers, he sought advertisers to generate revenues that would make the enterprise viable.  In an update that appeared in the May 20 edition of the Maryland Gazette, for instance, Goddard pledged that “seasonable notice will be given in this gazette, to give gentlemen an opportunity to advertise in the first number.”  Just as John Dunlap managed to do when he launched the Pennsylvania Packet, Goddard attracted a significant number of advertisers for the first issue of the Maryland Journal.  Advertising accounted for a little more than four of the twelve columns in the inaugural issue.

Those advertisements included some that previously appeared in other newspapers, including Daniel Grant’s notice that he opened an inn and tavern “at the Sign of the Fountain” in Baltimore and a lengthy notice concerning land in the Ohio River valley placed by Virginia planter and land speculator George Washington.  Other advertisers included Christopher Hughes and Company, “GOLDSMITHS and JEWELLERS,” David Evans, “CLOCK and WATCH-MAKER,” Francis Sanderson, “COPPERSMITH,” Grant and Garrison, “TAYLORS,” and Mr. Rathell, “Teacher of the ENGLISH Language, Writing-master and Accomptant.”

Maryland Journal (August 20, 1773).

In addition, Thomas Brereton, “COMMISSION and INSURANCE BROKER,” placed a short notice in which he “GRATEFULLY acknowledges the favours of his friends, and hopes for a continuance of their correspondence.”  He also reported that he “has now for sale, a Pocket of good HOPS, a 10-inch new CABLE – and wants to buy a NEGRO GIRL about 12 years old.”  In another advertisement, Richard Bennet Hall described a Black man, Prince, who had liberated himself the previously December.  Prince was captured once “at Susquehanna Lower Ferry, but made his escape, and is often seen in the neighbourhood.”  The formerly enslaved man managed to elude capture, but Hall hoped his advertisement would help put an end to that. He offered five dollars who anyone who detained Prince in a local jail “so that that the owner may get him again” or ten pounds and “reasonable charges” to anyone who delivered Prince to Hall in Prince George’s County.  In its very first issue, the Maryland Journal became an instrument for perpetuating slavery with both a brokerage notice related to the slave trade and an advertisement encouraging readers to engage in surveillance of Black men in order to identify an enslaved man who liberated himself and assist in returning him to captivity.  Goddard had prior experience publishing such advertisements in the Providence Gazette and the Pennsylvania Chronicle.  From New England to Georgia, no newspaper printer in the colonies rejected advertisements about enslaved people.  Instead, they solicited and accepted them as an integral part of generating revenues that underwrote publishing news and editorials.

February 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

Who were the subjects of advertisements in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Essex Gazette (February 11, 1772).

“A Negro Man named Prince … A Negro Man named Cesar.”

Colonizers placed advertisements in the Essex Gazette, published in Salem, Massachusetts, for a variety of purposes.  In the February 11, 1772, edition, for instance, John Appleton, Andrew Daglish, Weld Gardner, and James Hastie each advertised consumer goods for sale at their stores and shops.  Hastie proclaimed that he carried “An ASSORTMENT of English and India GOODS, suitable to all Seasons of the Year.”  The other merchants and shopkeepers made similar appeals to prospective customers.  Joseph Hiller called on “ALL Persons indebted to, or that have any Demands on the Estate of the Widow ABIGAIL TARBOX, late of Gloucester,” to settle accounts, while John Pratt and John Bacheller, Jr., who described themselves as “Guardians” of Thomas Parker of Reading, cautioned “all Persons from trading” with Parker because they “will not pay any Debts he shall contract.”  Samuel Field sought a family to rent a house that he owned.  An anonymous advertisers offered for sale a “Tavern-House in a goof Place.”

Interspersed among those advertisements, several others concerned enslaved people and contributed to the slave trade and the perpetuation of slavery in New England.  An unnamed advertiser instructed anyone who could supply “a Negro Boy, between 8 and 14 Years old” to “Enquire of the Printer.”  Nicholas Bartlett of Marblehead offered “A Negro Man named Cesar” for sale.  Having been enslaved in a community that depended on maritime trades, Cesar “well understands the Shoreman’s Business of making Fish,” but he possessed other skills as well.  Bartlett described Cesar as “a prime Chimney-Sweeper,” but also reported that he “can work on a Farm very well.”  In another advertisement, Christopher Bubier of Marblehead reported that “a Negro Man named Prince” liberated himself from his enslaver by running away.  Bubier provided a brief description of Prince, encouraging readers to engage in surveillance of any Black men they encountered, and offered a reward for his capture and return.

Like other eighteenth-century newspapers, the Essex Gazette did not organize or classify advertisements according to their purpose or genre.  As a result, advertisements about enslaved men, women, and children were intermixed with other notices about commerce and real estate.  Their dispersal throughout the pages of the Essex Gazette and other newspapers testifies to the extent that slavery was part of everyday life, even in New England, in the colonies on the eve of the American Revolution.

October 17

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR: Daniel Carito

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (October 17, 1771).
“A likely Negro Fellow named PRINCE … he is a Spaniard.”

In the fall of 1771, Robert Donald, an enslaver in Virginia, advertised a reward of forty shillings for Prince, “a likely Negro fellow” who liberated himself by running away.  The advertisement sparked my interest because Donald mentioned that not only did Prince come from Spanish descent but also was “an excellent swimmer, and dives remarkably well” and labeled as a “water Negro.”  My interest grew even further because in “Eighteenth Century ‘Prize Negroes’: From Britain to America,” Charles R. Foy explains how many Black sailors on Spanish vessels were captured by British and North American mariners, labeled as commodities and sold into slavery: “Between 1721 and 1748 at least one hundred and thirty-five black mariners were condemned as prize goods…  Overall, the number of Prize Negroes in North America from 1713 to1783 is estimated to exceed 500.”[1] Also, Foy argues that enslaved Black mariners were sometimes the main instigators when it came to revolting against their enslavers: “Spanish Prize Negroes often were leaders in resisting slavery in British North America.”[2]

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

Enslaved men and women who liberated themselves often left few traces in the archival record.  The advertisements that encouraged colonists to engage in surveillance of Black people to determine if they matched descriptions of runaways in the newspapers and offered rewards for the capture and return of enslaved people may have been the only documents that recorded any aspect of their lives.  In such instances, enslaved people seeking freedom did not tell their own stories, but instead had their experiences mediated through the perspectives of the enslavers who composed the advertisements.

If Prince, as he was called by his enslaver, were indeed a Spanish “Prize Negro” then other kinds of documents may have recorded some of his experiences.  Additional archival work might uncover additional traces of Prince’s life before he arrived in Virginia.  Even if we managed to locate Prince in other sources, his wife and children would likely remain elusive, their stories even more fragmented and obscured than that of their husband and father.  Donald suspected that Prince “took the Road to Charles City, where he had a Wife and Children at Mr. Acrill’s.”  That brief reference to Prince’s family raises more questions than it answers.  How long had Prince and his wife been a couple?  How many children did they have?  How old were the children at the time?  How long had it been since the rest of the family had seen Prince?  Were his wife and children still in Charles City?

Donald recorded several characteristics to identify Prince, including his height, his clothing, and his manner of speaking (“fast and thick”).  The enslaver described Prince as an “excellent Swimmer” and diver who “had on such Clothes as Watermen generally wear.”  Prince’s wife and children in Charles City were just one more detail to Donald and colonists who read the advertisement, but they were not just another detail to Prince or his family.  Donald’s brief narrative about Prince certainly did not match how the enslaved man would have described himself or the most important people in his life.

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[1] Charles R. Foy, “Eighteenth Century ‘Prize Negroes’: From Britain to America,” Slavery and Abolition 31, no. 3(September 2010): 381.

[2] Foy, “Eighteenth Century ‘Prize Negroes,’” 384.