Black, White, and Freedom: Seeing the Color of Slavery Through Advertisements
Runaway and committed slave advertisements documented resistance throughout the antebellum era. Resistance came in many forms and running away was certainly one of them. Slaves sometimes retaliate. For example, in July 1842 a "boy" slave named Willey was wanted because he murdered "Leroy Shackelford," presumbaly a white man since he had a last name. On Sept. 3, 1839, the slave Alfred was wanted for having been an accessory to the murder of his master, Flavial Vivion. These runaway ads prove that slaves were not passive victims; they actively pursued retaiation and freedom.
Like slave ads, ex-slave narratives, like that of Frederick Douglass, tell us that the effort to control slaves only made slaves desire freedom all the more.
Douglass summarized how many felt when he wrote:
"O, that I were free!... O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O God, save me! God deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught, or get clear; I’ll try it… I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing."1
Along with the desire for freedom, many slaves desired retaliation after violence was done to them or their loved ones by masters, mistresses, overseers or drivers. Slave advertisements revealed the violence that undergirds slavery. The physical description of slave bodies displayed the violence that was done to them by slave owners and managers. Sometimes the ads revealed how some slaves (not all) used violence to escape slavery.
Courtesy of the Local History Department at the Columbus-Lowndes County Public Library in Mississippi.
Footnote:
1. John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation LIfe in the Antebellum South. p. 104.
