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Winnfield?, Owen.

Advertisement [Manuscript runaway servant notice].

Augusta County, Virginia, November 23, [ca. 1751]. Autograph manuscript in ink on laid paper, 5.5” x 8.75”. CONDITION: Good, a few small holes and minor losses at edges, old tape stain on right side, old folds, one extensive tissue repair on verso to separation along old fold and two smaller tissue repairs to short breaks, damp-stains along right side.

An uncommonly early manuscript runaway notice describing a “servant” who escaped from his owner in Augusta County, Virginia, just to the west of Charlottesville, circa 1751.

This handwritten advertisement announces the escape of a man named Nitingale Meeds, as follows:

Ran away from the subscriber in Augusta County the 23d Day of November Last a servant man named Nitingale Meeds Low in stature Thick sett dark skin a large blk beard with blk Eyes had on a Collard h…[?] jacket worsted buttons and holes also a pair off old Grey bro. Cloth Breeches a new brown Si…[?] Shurt loo…[?] in the Collar by abt. one inch a new pair of Country [?] and new plaid hose and old felt hat Stole with him a new Silk purse with two dble Loons weighing £8.10.7 any person that will apprehend and secure the said Servt. So that I may get him again shall receive one dble Loon Owen Winnfield 

The language used in such advertisements, referring to the slaveowner as “the subscriber,” is indicative of the intent, at least, that the advertisement be printed in a newspaper. However, the same language appears on many runaway slave broadsides, suggesting that slaveowners frequently paid to have their advertisements printed in the pages of local newspapers and as broadsides—which would have been posted in public places—to maximize publicity. While printed runaway slave broadsides come to market with some regularity, manuscripts such as the present one, particularly those of the eighteenth century, are far less frequently encountered.

A curious legal notation appears on the verso, reading:

I assign the within right and title of this advertisement to John Hill as witness my hand this 8 day of April 1752 Tho Hooper [?] Jane Hooper.

As this note does not involve the name of the owner of Nitingale Meeds, nor do the names of John Hill or the Hoopers otherwise appear in the document, its meaning is elusive. 

A vivid artifact of one man’s attempt to gain his liberty in eighteenth-century Virginia, where two decades later Patrick Henry would famously exclaim “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Item #10058

Price: $4,500.00

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