Advertisements for Runaway Indentured Servants, Enslaved Africans, Enslaved American Indians, and Fugitives in the American Weekly Mercury, 1719-1745

This dataset presents newspaper advertisements for runaway indentured servants, enslaved Africans (including individuals of African descent born in the Americas), and enslaved American Indians, as well as, deserters, escaped prisoners, and criminal fugitives extracted from The American Weekly Mercury (1719-1745). It contains 1,087 unique entries. While most of the entries refer to white indentured servants, a significant portion of the dataset is comprised of entries for enslaved Africans and enslaved American Indians, revealing an underappreciated diversity among laborers throughout the mid-Atlantic colonies during the first half of the eighteenth century. At their richest, the advertisements for runaways appearing in American colonial newspapers provide an individual’s name, sex, age, ethnicity, race, religion, information about their proprietor, talents and trade, state of health, gait, bearing, dress, language skills, traces of punishments, wounds, descriptions of brands, teeth, hair, skin color, perceived personality traits, distinguishing physical characteristics, presumed whereabouts, length of absence, and detailed descriptions of clothes and other material possessions. While this dataset is of particular importance for understanding the diversity of the mid-Atlantic’s, early-eighteenth-century, labor pool, and working-class resistance across identity groups, it also highlights the permeable boundaries and dynamic spaces of early American colonies, many of which those advertised as runaways sought to exploit. The dataset is described in Jason Daniels, “‘Gone towards Philadelphia’: Advertisements for Runaway Indentured Servants, Enslaved Africans, Enslaved American Indians, and Fugitives in the American Weekly Mercury, 1719-1745,” Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation 4, no. 3 (2023): 35-43.