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November 1775: Sarah and Peter form a family and escape
TEN POUNDS REWARD.
RAN AWAY from the subscriber's plantation, in Sussex County, on Delaware, on the 8th day of April, 1775; a black Negro Wench, by name SARAH, about 20 years of age, well made, and about 5 feet 5 or 6 inches high, with tolerable thick lips and a down look, had remarkable long wool on her head for a negro, which she usually tied on the top of her head:
had, and took with her, sundry good home made cloaths. The above Reward will be paid to any person who will deliver the said wench to the subscriber, living in Snow hill Town, Worcester County, Maryland, or to Burton Waples, living in Sussex County aforesaid; or EIGHT POUNDS if confined in any goal, so that the subscriber may get her again, with all reasonable charges paid by the public's humble servant,
NATHANIEL WAPLES.
N.B. It is supposed she left the county aforesaid about the latter end of October, or the first of November last, with a Negro fellow, named PETER, belonging to Thomas Robinson of the county aforesaid, who ran away about that time;
he is about 20 years of age, a thick well set fellow, and about 5 feet 6 inches high; it is imagined he had about 6 or 10 L. cash, and well cloathed;
he has remarkable hairy temple locks, unless cut off by shaving. It is well known that the said wench was harboured and kept by the fellow aforesaid during the interval aforesaid, and it was supposed she was with child when she ran away, by said fellow, and that they will try to pass for free Negroes and as husband and wife.
She can read.
N. WAPLES.
Notes
One of the chief cruelties inflicted upon enslaved people in the mid-Atlantic states was the lack of ability to form and maintain families across plantation lines. The smaller farms and plantations in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as compared to the massive plantations of states to the south, meant that fewer slaves were needed to work the land. Enslaved people in the north were forced to form relationships with partners outside of the farms on which they lived. A pregnancy, however, posed a serious problem for the woman when the child's father did not live with her. The very nature of her enslavement meant that she could be sold at any time and separated not only from her partner, but even from her child.
To form a family, therefore, was an act of rebellion when parents and children were forced by their lack of freedom to live apart. This appears to be the motivation for Sarah, the young girl enslaved by Nathaniel Waples on his Delaware plantation, to flee in early April 1775. Waples noted that Sarah was pregnant and had fled to Thomas Robinson's farm in neighboring Worcester County, Maryland, on which her partner, Peter, was enslaved. It is significant that the first notice published by Waples, offering a reward for her return, did not come until June 1776, more than 14 months after she initially left. Even then, the notice acknowledged that she and her husband Peter had fled from his owner some eight months before. This raises a number of questions.
Nathaniel Waples' escape notice for Sarah states that it was "well known" that she was hiding out with Peter in Maryland between April 1775 when she escaped, and late October or early November 1775 when the pair left Robinson's farm together. He also suggests that her pregnancy was known to him at the time of her escape. If Nathaniel Waples assumed she would return to his Delaware plantation once she gave birth to her child, why did he not place an escape notice in November 1775 after the pair disappeared from the Robinson farm? And what of Sarah's pregnancy? If newly pregnant in April, she would have been six or seven months along in late October or early November, a very noticable physical condition that seemingly would have been included in his description of her. If she gave birth between April and November and the child survived, the couple would have fled with an infant child in tow, another factor that surely would have been mentioned. Perhaps the child had been stillborn or died in infancy and Thomas Robinson, the owner of Peter, conveyed that information to Nathaniel Waples. But if so, why include a mention of her pregnancy in the first place?
Finally, what became of Sarah and Peter after their November 1775 escape? We know that they had not yet been recovered a year later, as Nathaniel Waples' notice was still being published in November 1776. No new information on their whereabouts was included and it seems the couple simply disappeared. Perhaps they went north and blended into one of the African American communities that thrived in Pennsylvania along the southern border with Maryland.
Waples family documents give few clues. Nathaniel Waples is listed in the escape notice as the owner of Sarah; he directed that if captured she could be delivered to Burton Waples in Worcester County, Maryland. The will of Burton Waples, dated 16 August 1796, mentions all of his enslaved people, including a "Negro girl called Sall," whom he bequeathes to his daughter Comfort King. Sall is a famililar name for Sarah, but it is unlikely to be the same person as the Sarah in the ad. Sarah would be about forty years old in 1796 and not likely to be described as a "girl" in his will.
With regard to Peter's enslaver, Thomas Robinson, he was a wealthy planter with an estate in Indian River Hundred, who also owned a store in Sussex County, Delaware. Robinson was a fierce Loyalist to the crown during the Revolution. He incurred the wrath of his patriotic neighbors and in early 1777 was forced to flee Delaware. He served with British forces in Georgia and South Carolina, before going to New York in 1780 and later to Nova Scotia, where he bought a farm, in 1783.
Sources
Poulson's American Daily Advertiser, 03 June 1776.
The Pennsylvania Journal or Weekly Advertiser, 28 August 1776.
Dunlap's Pennsylvania Packet and General Advertiser, 19 November 1776.
Will of William Waples, of Sussex upon Delaware. In Delaware, Sussex County, probate records: Case files, Waples, Margaret A. - Waples, Woolsey, RG4545.009, roll 258, 1680-1925. Transcription online at "Burton Waples (1719 - abt. 1796)," WikiTree, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Waples-3, accessed 31 October 2024.
Carter, Dick, "The History of Sussex County," November 1976, Community Newspaper Corp., Delaware. Typescript copy online at https://www.bmgen.com/document/pdf/History_DE_Sussex_County.pdf, accessed 31 October 2024.
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