Since the beginning of journalism in America, newspapers have been funded by advertising. In the 18th century, alongside advertisements for shoe repair, corduroys, and cutlery, colonial newspapers sold and ran ads for enslaved and unfree men, women, and children, usually in the form of “runaway” and “to be sold” ads.
These advertisements show something that scholarship on early American slavery has not always fully acknowledged, says Anjali DasSarma, doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication. Along with Linford Fisher at Brown University, the two show that the presence of enslaved and unfree Indigenous people was ubiquitous in the American colonies as late as the 19th century, long after the peak of the African slave trade.
In a new paper, DasSarma and Fisher use a century of these ads, from 1704 to 1804, to trace the presence of Indigenous slavery in homes and on plantations throughout the American colonies and to explore the connection between journalism and slavery.
“This study was inspired by two projects,” says DasSarma. “Fisher is the Principal Investigator of Stolen Relations, which collects stories of indigenous enslavement, and I am deeply inspired by Freedom on the Move, which gathers ‘runaway’ newspaper advertisements about enslaved people in America.”
In “runaway” and “to be sold” ads, enslavers and slave brokers shared descriptions of the individuals they wished to be “returned” or were putting up for sale. Indigenous people were often referred to as “Indian” or a person with an “Indian look.” The earliest “runaway” advertisement referencing an Indigenous person was printed in a 1704 issue of The Boston News-Letter
The researchers used these ads to track the number of published advertisements by year and map the locations noted.
“We found ads for enslaved and unfree Indigenous individuals in every one of the original 13 colonies,” DasSarma says. “And there was a surprising consistency in the number of ads placed between 1704 and 1804. Indigenous slavery didn’t taper off after the American Revolution.”
DasSarma, who studies the history of journalism, is interested in how early American newspapers' participation in the business of slavery factors into the relationship between communities of color and journalism today.
“There is a historic and contemporary distrust of newspapers within communities of color that can be traced, in my opinion, directly back to these types of advertisements.” she says.
Not only did newspaper printers directly profit from slavery by charging for these ads, but they also perpetuated the idea that slavery was acceptable.
“In a way, printers themselves acted as slave brokers by facilitating the buying and selling of people,” DasSarma says.
This story is by Hailey Reissman. Read more at Annenberg School for Communication.
