“Slavery was not simply an institution that existed in Britain’s colonies”
An online database of 18th-century newspaper advertisements placed by owners seeking the recapture of their runaway slaves has been launched by the University of Glasgow. Nelson Mundell (left), a researcher on the project, explains more What can these newspaper advertisements tell us about slavery in Britain in the 18th century? The collection of more than 800 advertisements, published over an 80-year period, offers a fascinating glimpse into British views on slavery during the period. Slavery was not simply an institution that existed in Britain’s colonies: slaves and bound people were present and visible in Georgian Britain.
Any reading of the advertisements has to be done cautiously: masters and mistresses will have been particular in how they crafted the advertisements that sought the return of their escaped ‘property’, and they would have been concerned about public perception of how they treated their slaves.
But we can still learn a lot about the runaways. The notices describe the mannerisms, clothes, hairstyles, skin markings, and skills of people who otherwise would have been almost completely absent from the official historical records of the time. They include information about the work of the bound and enslaved – some were sailors and dock workers, others were craftsmen, labourers, washerwomen, servants and maids.
One example, from the Glasgow Journal of 14 August 1766, describes a runaway slave as: “A North American Indian Boy, about 4 feet high, looking to be about 14 years of age, of a very tawny complexion, stout made, broad fat faced, black eyed, with bristly black hair in his head, having the hair of one of his eye lids white, and his ears tore, with a mixture of white hairs in his head, and freckled like an Adder about his neck and knees...”
In some cases we can discern a master’s attitude to the runaway, or how they felt about their escape. Some are shocked or angry, and while many offer rewards for the safe return of the runaway, a few try to tempt the individual back with the ostensible offer of forgiveness. How common was it for a slave to run away from his or her owner? Escape, for however long, is unlikely to have been a common occurrence. It is impossible to state how often it happened as we don’t know how many bound and enslaved people there were in Britain, but we haven’t uncovered any evidence pointing to it being a widespread situation. I still hope there are more advertisements out there, just for the implication that someone else might have found freedom. Did runaway slaves have any impact on laws about slavery in Britain? Yes, absolutely. As the laws on owning slaves had originated in the colonies and not the British mainland, masters had profited from the ambiguity that surrounded the legal status of the enslaved. However, these brave men and women, in their efforts to exert some control over their own freedom, eventually forced courts to re-evaluate their laws. This can be seen in the cases of James Somerset (in England, 1772) and Joseph Knight (Scotland, 1778) when their emancipation and rights were confirmed.