Titus

October 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Oct 31 - 10:31:1769 Essex Gazette
Essex Gazette (October 31, 1769).

“RAN-away … a Negro Man named Titus.”

Titus was determined to make his escape from Thomas Jaques, the man who enslaved him. He fled sometime during the night of October 18, 1769, prompting Jaques to pen a notice to insert in the next several issues of the Essex Gazette. Based on the description in the advertisement, Titus would have been difficult to miss if any readers encountered him. According to Jaques, Titus “stutters considerably when he speaks, and hath lost Part of his great Toe on one Foot.” Perhaps most significantly, he also “had a Span of Iron, with a Chain fastned to it on one Leg.” The chain may have been part of an unsuccessful effort to prevent Titus from making his escape. After all, Jaques had some experience with Titus attempting to seize his own liberty. Just a few months earlier, in advertisements dated July 19, Jaques described Titus and offered a reward for his return. He indicated in his new advertisement that “Said Negro is the same that ran away from me the middle of July.”

That Titus had once again found himself under the thrall of Jaques suggests that the advertisement placed in the summer produced results. Jaques did not explain how he managed to capture Titus, but he apparently considered advertising an effective tool because he resorted to it once again. Such advertisements serve as narratives of resistance that often lack definitive conclusions. Modern readers can hope that enslaved people like Titus made good on their escapes, but often the documentary record does not include evidence one way or the other. This particular advertisement does confirm that, unfortunately, Titus did not managed to remove himself from the grasp of Jaques. Yet it also reveals that Titus was not deterred by that setback. He tried again …

… and again and again. Molly O’Hagan Hardy has identified two other advertisements about Titus’s attempts to escape, one from 1772 and the other from 1773. In addition to those instances, Lise Breen has documented two others. As colonists transitioned from resistance to revolution, Titus again fled from his enslavers in 1774 and 1775. Again, newspaper advertisements may have been effective in helping to capture Titus and return him to those who held him in bondage. Advertisements describing him, offering rewards, and warning “Masters of Vessels” against “harbouring, concealing, or carrying off said Negro” appeared alongside news about colonists demanding their liberty and editorials excoriating Parliament for its abuses. Through it all, Titus embodied a revolutionary spirit, repeatedly seeking his own freedom from bondage.

August 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Aug 1 - 8:1:1769 Essex Gazette
Essex Gazette (August 1, 1769).

“Said Negro is the same that ran away from me the first of June.”

As white colonists fretted about their figurative enslavement by Parliament in the late 1760s and early 1770s, a “Negro Man named Titus” chafed under literal enslavement on Cape Ann in Massachusetts. In an advertisement from Gloucester in the Essex Gazette, Thomas Jaques announced that Titus made his escape sometime during the night of July 18, 1769. Titus cleverly timed his departure. Like most other colonial newspapers, the Essex Gazette published only one issue each week, distributing it on Tuesdays. Titus made his escape on a Tuesday night, perhaps realizing that Jaques would not be able to place a notice in the public prints for an entire week. With such a delay in mobilizing the power of the press to enlist other colonists in the surveillance necessary to capture him, Titus gained a bit of a head start. Jaques suspected that the young man was clever in other ways as well, cautioning that he would “change his Cloathing if he has Opportunity.” He was also resilient. Jaques indicated that Titus had attempted to escape in June as well.

Despite his best efforts in 1769, however, Titus did not manage to get clear of those who enslaved him. In an exhibition for the Cape Ann Museum, Molly O’Hagan Hardy identified two other advertisements concerning Titus that ran in the Essex Gazette, one in 1772 and the other in 1773. By that time, John Lee enslaved him in nearby Manchester, but Titus had no more intention of remaining under the authority of Lee than he did Jaques. Both advertisements reported that he “RAN away,” but did not acknowledge his repeated attempts to escape as acts of self-determination. These subsequent advertisements do not reveal how long he managed to make good on his escape in 1769, only that he somehow returned to bondage within the next few of years. Yet they also make clear that he was not dissuaded from his efforts to liberate himself. The final advertisement testified to his continued ingenuity, stating that Titus “has with him a false pass or Bill of Sale.” The enslaved man had either forged the document himself or found an accomplice to aid him in his escape. Lee warned “All Masters of Vessels and others” against harboring or transporting Titus “on Penalty of the Law,” but perhaps the forged document or sympathy for his plight or a combination of the two convinced someone to help him. Given that he made at least four attempts to escape, Titus was not the type to give up on freeing himself. The absence of further advertisements documenting additional attempts to escape suggests that Titus may have finally succeeded.