Documenting Enslaved Bodies among Runaway Barbados Slaves

In the 18th-century British Caribbean, a slave’s body was marked with scars, disfigurements, and disabilities due to the forced labour, poor work conditions, and legally sanctioned punishments meted out onto the enslaved body. Runaway advertisements provide historians representations of these scarred, disfigured, and disabled bodies, illustrating that the bodies of slaves carried with them symbolic power of the slave-master relationship. Amputated limbs, contracted joints, and missing teeth were common bodily descriptions of the enslaved used by slaveowners to identify their missing property. The marks inflicted onto enslaved bodies became visible and publishable signs of servitude itself, and yet, owners used these very marks in an attempt to distinguish individual runaways in newspaper advertisements. This paper explores 18th-century runaway notices from Barbados and the way in which they made the visibility of these marks of servitude far more salient in slave society. It places the body at the centre of an analysis of runaway advertisements in attempt to illustrate the significance of disability to the slave experience. It is part of a larger project that explores the intersection between slavery and disability in the 18th-century British Atlantic World.