"Will Likely Endeavor to Pass for Free": Runaway Slave Advertisements in New Jersey Newspapers, 1777-1808

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The American experiment in liberty was imperfect from the start: the Revolution advanced ideals of universal human equality, but left intact the economic and social underpinnings of slavery. Those ideals nevertheless had their effects on all sides: enslaved people and slaveholders, slave traders and abolitionists all had to grapple with the reality and promise of freedom in a post-Revolutionary landscape.

This project documents the moral and intellectual tensions between slavery and liberty in New Jersey in the period between the first continuously printed newspaper in the state and the official end of the United States' involvement in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The time frame between the signing of the Treaty of Paris and the end of the international slave trade was free of major warfare, but it witnessed vibrant debates about slavery and liberty—debates that tested New Jersey's founding principles. Fugitive slave advertisements provide a unique perspective on those principles.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology