Ads for Runaways

Background: In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, enslavers used newspapers in their efforts to retrieve enslaved people who had escaped.  These two postings stress the physical appearance of enslaved peoples, including signs of ill health, along with other notable characteristics. The first, from 1782, was published by John Belden of Wethersfield, Connecticut, in the Hartford Courant. In it, Belden described Lankton, who had run away nearly six months earlier. In addition to showing scars from illness, Lankton was noted for his teeth, filed to a point, a decorative practice which may have indicated that he had been made captive in Africa. The second appeared in the summer of 1829. Mary Robinson posted this item, announcing a reward for the return of an enslaved woman and her daughter, who had been missing since the previous September. Without photographs or portraits, enslavers believed even these scant descriptions could assist them in locating people who had fled to freedom.

RAN AWAY on the 15th of September last, my Negro man LANKTON, about thirty-two years of age, talk but indifferently, handsomely pitted with the smallpox, has his two for teeth remarkable sharp, being filed in his youth to a point, his wool, the fore part, gray by sickness, walk very upright.— Whoever will take up said Negro, and return him to the subscriber, shall have TEN DOLLARS reward, and all necessary charges paid, by JOHN BELDEN.

Weathersfield, January 16, 1782.

Fifty Dollars Reward for Sary and Child: Ran away from the subscriber in September last, a light mulatto girl named SARY, and her female child named SELENA. Said wench is 5 feet 3 or 4 inches high, spare made, about 25 years of age, and her child, if living, 18 months old. She has a scar under one of her breasts resembling the cut from a whip, another on her right forefinger, occasioned by the fall of a window sash; has lost one of her upper front teeth. Said wench and child are supposed to be in the city of Charleston or its vicinity. All persons are forewarned harboring said wench, as the law will be rigidly enforced. The above reward will be paid to any person who will apprehend and lodge said wench and child in any jail in this State, that the owner may get her.

Source: Connecticut Courant, February 12, 1782, from https://app.freedomonthemove.org/search?limit=12&page=1&q=smallpox; and  Charleston (SC) Mercury, July 15, 1829, from: https://app.freedomonthemove.org/advertisements/7e797adf-f95f-458e-80dc-321d4ca2956a?limit=12&page=3&q=scar