Documenting Runaway Slaves in the Atlantic World: A Research Program

As Michael Craton, the eminent historian of slavery in the Caribbean, wrote long ago, “Wherever there were slave plantations, there were runaways” (Testing the Chains [1982: 61)]. One also notes that wherever there were newspapers, there were runaway slave advertisements and notices. This paper will build on and extend a series of preliminary conference papers  (including African Studies Association 2012; American Historical Association 2013) to outline a comprehensive research program for documenting runaway slaves in the Atlantic world.  Whereas historians have long made use of runaway slave advertisements, though largely for anecdotal purposes, and indeed have debated their utility as primary sources, the focus generally has been on North America (the colonial and antebellum South). This paper will emphasize the significance of runaway slaves advertisements and notices as primary sources for the study of the Atlantic world in the era of slavery, and will offer an outline of a comprehensive program of research. The objective is to contribute to the development of a scholarly network that we are assembling for a comprehensive, collaborative, and international research project to systematically compile and disseminate collections of runaway slave advertisements and notices throughout the Atlantic world, including North America, the West Indies, Brazil, and Portuguese West Africa.