Rhetoric of Liberty

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.

January 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (January 21, 1769).

“RUN away from his Master … a well-set Negro Manm Slave, named Isaac.”

By the time the January 21, 1769, edition of the Providence Gazette was published, Samuel Rose had been placing an advertisement offering a reward for “a well-set Negro Man Slave, named Isaac,” who had run away in late November of the previous year for an entire month. Isaac had “a Scar on his Forehead” and a “thick Beard.” According to Rose, the enslaved man could “play on a Fiddle, and loves strong Drink,” though savvy readers likely realized that many slaveholder exaggerated when it came to that latter detail. Rose also warned “Masters of Vessels, and others” against providing assistance, whether “carrying off or harbouring” Isaac.

The tone of this advertisement advanced starkly different rhetoric than other items published on the same page and elsewhere throughout the issue. John Carter’s advertisement for “A NEW EDITION” of Abraham Weatherwise’s “New-England TOWN and COUNTRY Almanack” filled the entire column immediately to the right. The notable contents of the almanac promoted in the advertisement included “a beautiful poetical Essay on Public Spirit, wrote by an American Patriot” and a Portrait of the celebrated JOHN WILKES, Esq.,” the radical English politician and journalist considered friendly to the American cause during the imperial crisis that led to the Revolution. In the upper left corner of the page, a poem entitled “ADDRESS to LIBERTY” by “AMERICANUS” appeared before any of advertisements. The poem lamented recent encroachments on colonists’ liberty by “tyrant Lords,” but it addressed only the position of white colonists and not enslaved men, women, and children. The poem did not make room for Isaac the justice that was supposed to be extended to English sons who had “cross’d th’atlantic Seas / To Climes unknown.” News filled most of the rest of the issue, including a “humble Address of the House of Commons to the KING.” Parliament stated that it would “be ever ready to hear any real grievance of Your Majesty’s American subjects,” but insisted it was “one of our most important duties, to maintain entire and inviolate the supreme authority of the legislature of Great-Britain, over every part of the British empire.” Colonists considered this enslavement.

Amidst all of this rhetoric circulating in conversations and the public prints, Isaac determined to seize his own liberty. Although Rose did not recognize it, the enslaved man put into action the ideals that so many of his white neighbors espoused in the late 1760s.