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December 1799: Martha and Son Thomas Gone 2 Months
100 DOLLARS REWARD.
RAN AWAY,
FROM the subscriber, living in Kent County, Maryland; a negro man named Thomas, about 22 years of age. 5 feet 7 inches and an half high, pretty black, chunky and stout, has two or three small scars near the corner of the left eye, resembling pock pits, has lost one or more of his fore teeth, and on or more of his jaw teeth, has something of a down look, speaks slow, and laughs loud, has been bred to farming business, and is an excellent plowman and cradler; took with him one white shirt, one white waistcoat, one pair of nankeen pantaloons, one brown country cloth loose coat, one short fustian coat, and a round over jacket, and a round felt hat, and some linen cloths, commonly wore his hair plaited in three plaits --
Likewise, a Negro woman named Martha, about 48 years of age, a little grey about the forehead and temples, but remarkably healthy and active, of a common size, and is apt to be saucy, and use bad language, a remarkable fine cook and spinner, and can likewise plow and cart well, a good reaper and binder, she has lived several years in the neighborhood of Duck Creek, and has passed for a free woman, which I intended to secure to her, had she not treated me with such shameful ingratitude, she has been heard cursing and abusing me.
I have sufficient evidence of her having persuaded this fellow to leave me, who is a son of hers; and I have sufficient reasons to believe she intended to take all the rest of her children from me in like manner, as fast as they grew up to age, this being the case I should suppose the most religious people would not think themselves justified, either in assisting her in escaping, or securing her escape to her, as justice is due to all sides, they went off together about the middle of September last, I suppose either for Philadelphia or Jersey.
Whoever takes up and secures said negroes, so that the subscriber may get them again, shall have the above reward to be paid by the subscriber, if taken seperate, sixty dollars for the fellow, and forty for the wench.
HENRY TRULOCK.
Dec. 13
Notes
Following the escape of one or more of their enslaved people, enslavers typically published notices in local and regional newspapers giving a description of the escaped person and offering a reward for their capture. While most of these notices report only necessary details necessary to aid in the recapture, occasionally a notice will reveal hints of righteous indignation on the part of the enslaver at the escape. Such hints may be found in notices where the enslaver chose to include denigrating comments on the escaped person's character. Words such as "insolent" "defiant" and "impudent" or characterizations of the escaped person as a "great liar" or braggart. Some enslavers went so far as to express puzzlement at why the enslaved person chose to leave, describing themselves as kind or "doting" enslavers. These characterizations usually increased the cost of the ad yet added little to it's purpose other than to assuage the enslaver's bruised sense of moral superiority.
This December 1799 notice from planter Henry Trulock of Kent County, Maryland goes considerably further than most in expressing Trulock's indignation at the escape of Thomas and Martha, who escaped together in the middle of September of that year. Trulock's publication of the escape notice about two months after their escape suggests he either expected them to return on their own after a brief period at large, or he relied on local resources to search for them on his own before resorting to a long advertisement in the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser.
Trulock's notice begins with the man Thomas, 22 years old, of average height and stout, and "an excellent plowman and cradler." Trulock's praise for Thomas' diligent farm skills is tempered by noting he has "someting of a down look," and "speaks slow." Trulock then describes a second escaped person, Martha, a 48-year-old woman with graying hair and "of a common size." As with Thomas, Trulock praised aspects of Martha's work, noting her "remarkable" cooking and spinning talents, adding that she can "plow and cart well, a good reaper and binder." Despite performing punishing manual field labor, Trulock says Martha was "remarkably healthy and active," a perhaps unwitting acknowledgment of the increased aging effect that punishing manual labor, a nutritionally poor diet and lack of medical care had on the enslaved. Again, as he did with Thomas, Trulock tempers his praise of Martha's work by noting she is "apt to be saucy, and use bad language."
But he then unleashes considerable invective for the woman, whom he accuses of pretending to be free, a condition Trulock claims he "intended to secure to her, had she not treated me with such shameful ingratitude, she has been heard cursing and abusing me." Beyond a large number of Quaker slaveholders who manumitted all of their enslaved people prior to the Revolution, the freeing of individual enslaved persons by an enslaver while holding others in slavery was not common. Unscrupulous slaveholders were known to manumit aged slaves as a moneysaving measure until such cruel actions were prevented or discouraged by local statutes. It is impossible to know Trulock's motive for considering manumission for Martha, if he was being truthful, but withholding freedom merely because she insulted him was inherently dispicable.
It is not until two-thirds of the way into the advertisement that we learn that Martha is Thomas' mother, and that she has additional children enslaved by Henry Trulock. Martha's intent, as charged by Trulock, is to eventually return and free all of her children from enslavement. That, in his mind, is the great injustice being visited upon him initiated by her escaping two months earlier with her son Thomas. It is here that Trulock's notice crosses the line from indignation to sententiousness, when he challenges all "religious people" to validate his sense of moral superiority and support justice for him in refusing to aid Martha and Thomas in their escape.
In that respect, this published escape notice is highly illustrative of the mindset that allowed whites to enslave fellow human beings for so long in our country's history. Henry Trulock's sense of moral superiority and self-centered idea of justice served to ease his pangs of conscience at treating a family as livestock, but they also short-circuited any empathy he might have for fellow humans, and blinded him to the daily sufferings of a mother for her children.
Source
Aurora General Advertiser (Philadelphia), 13 December 1799.
Covering the history of African Americans in central Pennsylvania from the colonial era through the Civil War.
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