Fugitive Slave Advertisements in The City Gazette

Charleston, South Carolina, 1787–1797

Fugitive Slave Advertisements in The City Gazette: Charleston, South Carolina, 1787-1797 is a collection of more than one thousand transcribed advertisements from Charleston’s daily newspaper. Each advertisement portrays, in miniature, a human drama of courage and resistance to unjust authority. The advertisements give insight not only into slave resistance, agency, and culture, but also into eighteenth century material life, economy, and racial ideology. The ads are also a rich source of data about the individual slaves themselves, their relationships, family connections, and life experiences. The book is accompanied by a website, fugitiveslaves.com. The website allows users to search the results of a comprehensive content analysis of the advertisements.