The Slave trade started in the mid-fifteenth century when voyagers went towards West Africa to find gold but what they found was much more important than gold – humans. These humans were sold off in Americas as slaves, soon this became a blooming business and a massive surge of African slaves began. As the invention of plantations grew in America, slave imports became more crucial because the growth of these plantations relied on extreme manual labor for long hours. These slaves who worked in extreme conditions for hours only get paid in grains. Since they were considered living property, they were not subjected to human rights and were starved and kept like animals. As the number of slaves increased, the incidence of their escapes also increased.

This historical source presents one-page runaway slave notices posted by slave owners. It is apparent on the first read how these notices explain the inhuman behaviors of the owners with the slaves. Especially the first two slave notices highlights how any African man who was roaming around the place without any owner was jailed and inquired about their owner. The slave named “Thomas Mills” was jailed despite not doing anything and claiming that he was free. This explains how the idea of free black men was not only impossible but was also a punishable act under the law.

These notices were published in Anti-Slavery Journal along with other short stories to highlight the barbaric behaviors of owners with slaves. Not only these slaves were treated less like humans, but they were also branded with whips. One of the slave notices mentions a 24-year-old African slave named Ned. He was caught and imprisoned in the Jail of Wilkinson because he looked like a black man and yet he was freely walking around. During the inspection of his body, the officers found he was deeply marked by a whip around his thighs and buttocks. Ramesh Mallipeddi in his book “Spectacular Suffering” explains how these Africans were considered “not subjects or citizens but slaves,” which gave their owners permission to treat them like objects.[1]

These notices also explain how it wasn’t only Black men who were targeted to slavery, females and children had no escape as well. Richard Bell in his essay, “Principally Children” writes the horrifying stories of kidnapped and sold children in slavery. He explains the terrible conditions these children were kept in and how they were sold across the countries where their parents had no way to find or report the kidnappers.[2]

This historical source not only addresses notices for different genders of slaves but  also presents the notices from different times and places across America. The first notice is from 1835 while the next one was collected from 1836. Considering it was issued in 1837, which was around the time when many people had started raising their voices against slavery. The Activists used several ways to promote the Anti-slavery movements to the public. These notices were one example of using public platforms to broadcast it because they told the real stories of the escaped slaves, and how they were treated by the owners. According to the Public relation review by Tyler and Adamas, people used many ways to free black Africans from the slave trade including “effective media relations.”[3] During that time many political and religious figures raised their voices for the Anti-slavery movement. Art Budros in his manumission acknowledged the church’s efforts to motivate the believers to free their slaves in Virginia from 1782 to 1808. [4]

In short, these slave notices served a dual purpose by explaining the cruel environment in which slaves had to live, and by doing so, it made readers realize the inhumanity that was happening to slaves. Hence, they were one the few pieces of symbolic evidence for the fight for freedom from the enslaved people and they also mark the birth of Anti- Slavery Movement.

 

 

[1] Ramesh Mallipeddi. 2016. Spectacular Suffering : Witnessing Slavery in the Eighteenth-Century British Atlantic. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=e089mna&AN=1202827&site=eds-live

[2] BELL, R. “Principally Children”: Kidnapping, Child Trafficking, and the Mission of Early National Antislavery Activism. Journal of American History, [s. l.], v. 109, n. 1, p. 46–67, 2022. DOI 10.1093/jahist/jaac116. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=ahl&AN=157886268&site=eds-live\

[3] PAGE, T. G.; ADAMS, E. Public relations tactics and methods in early 1800s America: An examination of an American anti-slavery movement. Public Relations Review, [s. l.], v. 40, n. 4, p. 684–691, 2014. DOI 10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.02.016. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811114000447

[4] BUDROS, A. The Antislavery Movement in Early America: Religion, Social Environment and Slave Manumissions. Social Forces, [s. l.], v. 84, n. 2, p. 941–966, 2006. DOI 10.1353/sof.2006.0008. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=edspmu&AN=edspmu.S1534760505209412&site=eds-live.