18th Century Runaway Ad Resources

Last updated: Jan 7, 2024

Databases and other online resources with descriptions of runaway slaves, indentured servants, apprentices, and other workers from advertisements from the 18th century.

• Freedom on the Move
• Runaway New England
• Some Account of American Newspapers: Massachusetts
• Pretends to be Free: Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey
  also, excerpt from Pretends to be Free: Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey
• Documents relating to the colonial history of the state of New Jersey
• Documents Relating to the Revolutionary History of the State of New Jersey (another volume)
• Extracts from American Newspapers Relating to New Jersey, 1704-1775
• NJ State Library: Runaway Slave Notices (1772-1781)
• Ireland Old News: Runaway Servant Ads, continued; mostly Pennsylvania
• Archives of Maryland Online: Maryland Gazette Collection
• The Geography of Slavery: Explore Advertisements (Virginia)
• North Carolina Runaway Slave Advertisements, 1750-1865
• African Runaway Slaves in the Anglo-American Atlantic World
• Runaway Slaves in Britain: bondage, freedom and race in the eighteenth century
• Newspapers.com
• Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
• Online Historical Newspapers Website

(H/T to Burnley & Trowbridge for the inspiration for this webpage.)