(Click here to view the Excel spreadsheet on which this essay is based.)
As a woman running away from slavery in the British North American colonies (and later, the U.S.), you could be fairly certain that your master valued your life far less than his own. However, he might also value your life as worth substantially less than that of the man beside you, the brother or husband with whom you were running to freedom. A comparison of the rewards offered for couples (and several mixed-gender groups) in ads collected at The Geography of Slavery in Virginia* indicates that the value of female slaves may have differed from that of male slaves at some points in history; the reward differences may indicate the differing uses to which slaveholders put men and women or the changing views of the colonial society at large, among many other factors.
This conclusion draws on ads listing runaway couples, allowing the comparison of the price offered for the woman and that offered for the man.** Several early slaveowners offered equal rewards for the return of male and female slaves (one pistole each, in two cases, in 1739 [1] and 1745 [2]). However, only a few years later, others drew clear value distinctions. One 1751 slaveowner offered a half pistole for a young woman and two for a woman and her child, compared to three for a single man [3]; in 1770, 20 shillings served for return of a 19-year-old woman – but double that amount for her brother’s capture [4]. The bounty on another pair of sister-brother escapees, in 1774, came to 20 shillings for the sister, three pounds for the brother [5].
However, in some of the later ads, the ad-placers again offered equal rewards. A 1789 slaveholder took care to note that the reward for capture of a husband and wife was 10 dollars for each [6]. In 1795 and 1797, the separate rewards for “halves” of a couple stood at five dollars (in 1795) and ten dollars (1797) each [7, 8].
If this (very small) sample group is taken to represent a historical trend (equal value followed by lesser value for women followed by a return to equal value), what could the change in rewards indicate? Without a much wider sample group and a deeper study of the context in which they were written, no solid generalizations can be made. However, a reader can still form some ideas. In the early history of slavery, perhaps slaves, being more of a rarity and less readily acquired, were held in equal value for work – a slaveholder might not have the luxury of differentiating between male and female slaves when any slave was difficult to replace. Later, when the colonies were better established and slavery and the slave trade more firmly entrenched, slaveholders might have greater opportunity and financial ability to pick and choose; men could be trained and used for fieldwork, while (at least some) women could be set aside to learn household tasks and provide the colonists with house slaves. Female slaves would then be a consumer convenience; men, an economic necessity. A change in the social climate – following the Revolutionary War and its use of words like “freedom,” “equality,” and “justice” as calls-to-arms – may have led slaveholders to again be more careful of their slaves; opportunities and impetus for escape and hopes of freedom may have increased among slaves and keeping them in check may have become more important. Perhaps also the return to equal rewards reflected unconscious changes in values by the slaveholders and their surrounding society, acknowledging the couples less as livestock than as individuals. Or perhaps the slaveholders were simply afraid that, in this new nation, still to establish itself in trade, slaves might again become less easy to obtain.
Regardless of the exact causes or the representative quality of the sample, this fluctuation in the rewards offered for female slaves may still point to changing economic and social conditions within the North American colonies, as well as to differences in individual slaveholders’ perceptions of slaves. Further exploration and comparison of advertisements might yield more insights into these possible changes.
* Considering the size of The Geography of Slavery in Virginia’s collection of runaway ads, I decided to limit my search of the ads to young women (largely women 20 or younger) and to include examples of pregnant runaways and runaways accompanied by men whenever possible. From 1736-1763, very few ads for escaped women were available, so, for this period, the search criteria were widened to include all ages.
** A number of ads included in the spreadsheet give a set reward for return of a couple, not individual rewards for return of the man and of the woman. Due to space constraints, these are not considered in this post.
[1] Virginia Gazette (Parks), Williamsburg, October 26 to November 2, 1739.
[2] Virginia Gazette (Parks), Williamsburg, From November 14 to November 21, 1745.
[3] Virginia Gazette (Hunter), Williamsburg, May 24, 1751.
[4] Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), Williamsburg, December 13, 1770.
[5] Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), Williamsburg, June 16, 1774.
[6] Virginia Independent Chronicle (Davis), Richmond, July 15, 1789.
[7] Advertiser (Davis), Richmond, July 29, 1795.
[8] Norfolk Herald (Willett and O’Connor), Norfolk, July 20, 1797.
