Black, White, and Freedom: Seeing the Color of Slavery Through Advertisements
Footnote:
1. Lawnrence N. Hyland,The Development of the runaway slave management system in the Deep South:1820-1865, p. 24-25.
Transcription:
4 May 1839
Columbus Democrat (May 4, 1839)
[Columbus, Miss.]
$125 Dollars Reward.
ABSCONDED from the subscriber living near Mullin’s Bluff, in Lowndes county, on the night of the 22d inst. FOUR NEGROES, of the following description to wit.
JIM, thirty five years old. Five feet nine or ten inches high, inclined to be yellow, his face rather rough.
Also his wife, MILLEY OR ISABELLA, about 24 or 25 years of age, of the same complexion, stout and likely, lisps slightly; Also her two children, GIRLS. one an Infant, five months old; the other about five years old; has had eyes and has had holes in her ears.
I have cause to suspect they were decoyed off by some vitainous LOAFER, as they left without provocation. The above reward will be given upon the arrest and conviction of the thief, and twenty-five dollars for any information of the negroes, so that I get them.
JOHN FORTSON.
Columbus, Mi. April 30, 1839.
43w4
The relationship between the slave family and advertisements is significant. The very idea of a slave family was antithetical to slavery, since the value of slaves was in what they brought on the open market, or the slave market. The ability to turn slaves into money by selling on the open market was an essential aspect of slavery. However, slave ads made it clear that southern readers were reminded again and again that slaves valued their families because so many slave ads describe slaves running away to be with them. Historian Lawrence Hyland stated that "the advertisements in southern newspapers in the antebellum era are strongly suggestive that the concept of ‘slave family’ was not offensive to readership."1
Advertisements shed light on one of the conundrums of slavery, which stated that slaves were not real people in that they did not feel familial connections as strongly as whites, which is why it was okay to sell them away from their family. What family connections can you infer from the advertisement above? Why would a woman chose to run away with two young children given how difficult it would make her escape?