From the moment that America was founded as a nation, slavery has played a critical role in its economy – especially during the 1800s. During this time, the southern states’ most profitable crop was cotton and plantation owners had slaves to harvest this cotton for them. Unfortunately, the majority of the white plantation owners viewed slaves as property rather than people. That being said, babies of enslaved parents became slaves at birth. Furthermore, it was common for slaves to be moved, sold, rented out, whipped, or even raped at their master’s command. Many slaves also could not leave their owner’s land without permission and were forbidden to learn to read and write.[1]
These harsh conditions eventually led many slaves to find ways to resist. Some ways in which they did this was through faking illnesses, stealing and breaking tools, destroying crops, and slaughtering and eating the livestock. In addition to this, many slaves ran away from their plantations, enraging their masters, but this was no small feat. These runaway slaves would travel mostly on foot, during the night, with little water, food, or shelter. But what was worse for these slaves than the hunger, exhaustion, and confusion was the constant fear of capture [2] During the nineteenth century, slave patrols were formed with the job of capturing runaway slaves and returning them to their owners. These patrollers hunted down slaves with bloodhounds, who could track them through all sorts of terrain. When they encountered runaways, they were allowed to whip them and could even shoot them on sight if they resisted capture. Interestingly, while group slave patrols were common, it was often individuals that were more successful in catching slaves [3] This led many-slave owners to publish public advertisements in their local newspapers offering rewards for the capture of their slaves.
One such of these ads was published in the October 31st 1800 issue of The national intelligencer and Washington advertiser and was titled “Forty Dollars Reward” In this advertisement, slave-owner Zachariah Sothoron offers a reward for the capture of his slave named Nace. The advertisement reads, “aged thirty years, about five feet high, light complexion, wears his hair queued, a well fet truncky fellow” [4] This description of Nace is quite detailed and was common as at the time, as owners tried to be as accurate as possible in describing the attributes of their runaways. Not surprisingly, this advertisement by Sothoron offers a reward for the capture of his runaway slave Nace, but the reward value varies based on where he is found. Sothoron offers twenty dollars if found ten miles from home, thirty dollars if found twenty miles from home, and the title value of forty dollars if found greater than twenty miles. Not only did these slave-owners pay a reward to the slave hunter who returned their slave, but there were many other “hidden” economic consequences of slaves running away. For one, planters were required to pay rewards, jail fees, per diem expenses, and even court costs for captured runaways.[5] On top of this, runaway slaves were a common occurrence for most planters, leaving them with less “workers” to harvest their cotton. This in turn led to a loss in profit for many of these planters. Therefore, it makes sense why these slave-owning planters posted advertisements, as they wanted their slaves returned to them so they could continue working the fields.
All in all, it is clear that the United States of America is a country that was built on and expanded on by slavery. When the institution of slavery first began in the United States, many of the slaves were international and the majority of them were Africans who were brought to the country on slave ships. Over time however, the domestic slave trade began to soar as many southerners felt that international slaves were too rebellious – and many of them actually were, rightfully so. During the early nineteenth century, these slaves were found mostly in the southern states where they were used to harvest cotton, which drove the American economy. The harsh treatment of those enslaved caused many of them to resist, revolt, and even run away. Slave-owners, whose slaves were pivotal to their business as planters, often placed advertisements in their local newspapers offering rewards for the capture and return of their slaves. Once such advertisement, titled “Forty Dollars Reward” and published in the newspaper The national intelligencer and Washington advertiser on October 31st 1800 is able to show us just how pivotal slavery was to the economy and the great lengths slave-owners went to in order to get their slaves back.
References
[1] Shi, D. E. (2018). America: A Narrative History (Brief Eleventh Edition) (Vol. Volume 1). W. W. Norton.
[2] Waxman, Laura Hamilton. How Did Slaves Find a Route to Freedom? : And Other Questions About the Underground Railroad. Six Questions of American History. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications ™, 2011. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=nlebk&AN=353147&site=eds-live.
[3] Rivers, Larry Eugene. “Catch the Runaway.” In Rebels and Runaways: Slave Resistance in Nineteenth-Century Florida, 106-18. University of Illinois Press, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1xcqw1.13.
[4] The national intelligencer and Washington advertiser. (Washington, DC), Oct. 31 1800. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83045242/1800-10-31/ed-1/.
[5] Schweninger, Loren. “Counting the Costs: Southern Planters and the Problem of Runaway Slaves, 1790-1860.” Business and Economic History 28, no. 2 (1999): 267-75 http://www.jstor.org/stable/23703337.