Documenting Runaway Slaves in Nineteenth-Century Brazil: An Assessment of the Newspaper Sources

In 1808, the Portuguese Regent Prince, Dom João, arrived in Brazil and allowed, for the first time in the history of that country, the establishment of a printing press. This event provides historians of slavery with a wealth of published sources about the history of runaway slaves in the form of newspaper notices and advertisements. This conference paper will provide an assessment of the newspapers that Brazilian slaveowners used to report their missing slaves and to advertise rewards for anyone who captured and returned these runaways to them. The objective is to establish a useful resource for the development of a larger project and research network about the history of runaway slaves in the Atlantic World.