Regional Fugitive Slave Advertisements
As Pennsylvania gradually became less hospitable to slavery, and more importantly as it became less accommodating toward slave catchers, the Keystone State became a destination for freedom seekers. Those fleeing enslavement in neighboring states found work on Pennsylvania farms and new homes in the many growing communities of free African Americans that flourished not only in the state's interior, but also in the counties along the southern border.
Newspapers in these border areas soon filled with advertisements from those whose enslaved people had fled, usually singly but sometimes in groups or entire families. The published notices of escape from enslavement in New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and elsewhere often mentioned speciifc Pennsylvania towns as a suspected or known destination, providing modern scholars with valuable clues to the early efforts of those who provided aid and assistance in the slowly evolving social movement that would later be known as the underground railroad.
These notices of escape also tell amazing stories of courage and desperation. Each item below is a glimpse into a dramatic episode, made singularly real by detailed descriptions of clothing, mannerisms, physical descriptions and items carried. Below are portraits of young people who took to the road with no more resources than the clothing on their backs and a burning resolve to be their own masters, of cruelly abused men and women whose bodies bore the scars of whippings, of pregnant women, some with very small children in tow, of men impressed into ocean service who jumped ship in friendlier harbors, and of "new Negroes" recently brought from Africa, speaking neither English, Spanish nor Dutch, strangers in a land of unfamililar flora, fauna and customs.
It is probable that many of the women, men and children in the notices below did not achieve their goal of living free. Some were captured and returned, some lost their way and could not find food and shelter, so returned, dispirited, on their own. Most of the people whose bids for self-emancipation are portrayed in the escape notices below have simply disappeared from the historical record, and we may never be sure of knowing their fate, but all contribute to the rich history of the yearning for freedom along the roads and trails leading into Pennsylvania.