{"id":38,"date":"2023-12-14T19:27:09","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T19:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/resistance-in-early-american-history\/?page_id=38"},"modified":"2023-12-18T23:07:37","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T23:07:37","slug":"the-boston-gazette","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/resistance-in-early-american-history\/the-boston-gazette\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boston Gazette"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Helena Halucha & Oak Soe Naing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"A
The Boston Gazette newspaper published on June 13, 1774 contains advertisements for buildings\/land, oats, and watches alongside employment offers and runaway slave descriptions. There is little to no contact information for many of the goods being sold, but advertisements describing enslaved people who ran away contain plenty of contact information and include the price of a reward.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Boston Gazette<\/em> was one of the six newspapers published within the city of Boston in the 1770s.[1]<\/a><\/sup> The publishers, Benjamin Edes and John Gill, contributed greatly to the cultivation of independent American identity and colonial patriotism during times of increasing tension between Britain and the North American colonies before the Revolutionary War.[2]<\/a><\/sup> Despite the paper\u2019s revolutionary character and spread of such ideas, at the time of publishing, enslaved people were not yet freed in the North or the South. In fact, the numbers of enslaved Africans and African Americans were exponentially increasing.[3]<\/a><\/sup> Some enslaved people ran away from the plantations and homes of their enslavers to resist this system of oppression and to seek freedom. This edition of the Boston Gazette<\/em> from June 13, 1774 includes a wide array of advertisements from people selling various goods\u2013 houses, land, oats, and watches\u2013 alongside many advertisements seeking the return of runaway enslaved people.[4]<\/a><\/sup> \"\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although strikingly similar to ads for land or market goods, these ads for runaways always were different in two ways: they included a value for the capture of the runaways and they mentioned an individual or group to contact for more information, whereas other ads simply say: \u201cfor further intelligence, inquire of the printers.\u201d This additional information within the runaway ads indicates the importance of enslaved people in the eyes of the enslavers as they were concerned about financial losses. It also demonstrates that people in the larger Boston community\u2013 printers, subscribers, and readers of the Boston Gazette<\/em>\u2013 had a vested interest in the maintenance of the system of slavery at this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historian Jonathan Prude has examined similar runaway advertisements in his article To Look Upon the “Lower Sort”: Runaway Ads and the Appearance of Unfree Laborers in America, 1750-1800. <\/em>He has worked to decode the meanings behind these advertisements and describes them as \u201cunimaginably rich in detail.\u201d He explains that these advertisements were meant to draw more attention than a regular advertisement, but in a familiar way. Hence, the similarities within the spacing, size, and font which contributes to the viewing of runaways in the same manner as oats or watches. These specific advertisements found within the Boston Gazette, <\/em>therefore,  hold a certain significance as \u201cthey call our attention to the vital visual dimension of eighteenth-century culture\u2026\u201d.[5]<\/a><\/sup> The community was intent to facilitate the retrieval of these individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Two of the runaway advertisements published in this June 13, 1774 edition of the Boston Gazette<\/em> describe Prince (left) and Goree (right).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Still, runaways were common based on the prevalence of these ads in the Boston Gazette. <\/em>One man named Prince, who was 26 years old, ran away from his \u201cMaster\u201d in Massachusetts Province. The advertisement specifies that Prince had run away after attending a \u201cFrolick\u201d with other enslaved people. Another advertisement describes a 16 year old named Goree and promises a \u201chandsome reward\u201d for his capture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historian Stephanie Camp\u2019s book Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South<\/em> helps us understand the \u201cgeography of containment\u201d that helped define the system of slavery and the opportunities for enslaved people to resist this form of oppression. Camp investigates how many plantation owners attempted to use their power and land to control the movement of bondspeople.[8]<\/a><\/sup> The newspaper should be seen as an extension of enslavers’ plantations and the power they wielded; they used newspapers as a medium through which they sought control over the movement of bondspeople. They attempted to discourage other bondspeople from thinking about running away by sharing information about other runaways with the community. Nonetheless, the existence of these runaway advertisements demonstrates that despite these dangerous obstacles and risks, many enslaved people still sought freedom by escaping this \u201cgeography of containment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> \u201cBoston Gazette & Country Journal,\u201d Original or Reprint? A Guide to Noteworthy Newspaper Issues, Library of Congress Research Guides<\/em>, https:\/\/guides.loc.gov\/noteworthy-newspaper-issues\/boston-gazette-and-country-journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> \u201cBenjamin Edes | American Publisher,\u201d Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> David J. Hacker, \u201cFrom \u201820. And Odd\u2019 to 10 Million: The Growth of the Slave Population in the United States\u201d  Slavery & Abolition<\/em> 41, no. 4 (2020): 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> June 13, 1774, The Boston Gazette<\/em>, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Jonathan Prude, \u201cTo Look upon the “Lower Sort”: Runaway Ads and the Appearance of Unfree Laborers in America, 1750-1800\u201d The Journal of American History <\/em>78, no. 1 (1991): 125-27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> Stephanie Camp, Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South<\/em> (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Helena Halucha & Oak Soe Naing The Boston Gazette was one of the six newspapers published within the city of Boston in the 1770s.[1] The publishers, Benjamin Edes and John Gill, contributed greatly to the cultivation of independent American identity and colonial patriotism during times of increasing tension between Britain and the North American colonies before … <\/p>\n

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