Archive · New York, 1783: the papers and the claimants
January to December 1783
New York, 1783: what the papers and the claimants said
Eight runaway and sale advertisements from the year of the evacuation, and the words of the people who came to New York to take others back.
What it says, in plain language
Through 1783 New York’s newspapers kept printing notices for people who had escaped, nearly all of them warning ship captains not to carry the person off: the sea was the way out. Beside them stand the claimants’ own words: Washington telling his agent that some of his own people “may probably be in N. York”; Thomas Walke and Hugh Walker reporting that the British would give no one up; the American commissioners counting “at least, one hundred and thirty” people on one fleet and giving up; and Boston King remembering the terror of the spring and the relief of the certificate. The last notice here is dated eleven days after the British sailed: enslavers in the new republic still advertising, and still afraid of the harbor.
What it adds to the boards
Board 1 ends with a certificate and a line in a register standing between people and re-enslavement. These notices are the other side of that line: the people in New York still being hunted, and the captains being warned.
No image of the original is shown here yet. The 1783 newspapers are held in Readex’s subscription database and are not reproduced here; the New Brunswick sale notice has a page image at the Princeton & Slavery link below.
Transcription
Claimants and the people they came for
George Washington to Daniel Parker, Head Quarters, April 28, 1783. Washington asks Parker, in New York, to help prevent the British “carrying off any Negroes or other property of the Inhabitants of the United States,” encloses Governor Harrison’s list, and adds: “Some of my own Slaves, and those of Mr Lund Washington who lives at my House may probably be in N. York”; their names, “being so easily changed will be fruitless to give you.” (Library of Congress; Founders Online.)
Thomas Walke to the Virginia delegates, Philadelphia, May 3, 1783. “we recieved for answer, from his aid de camp, that no slaves were to be given up, who claimed the benefit of their former proclamations”; “several hundreds of the above mentioned slaves sailed during the last weik to Nova Scotia.” (National Archives, PCC Item 78; see the whole letter.)
Hugh Walker to Governor Harrison, Urbanna, May 23, 1783. “I was not allowed to take any Slaves without their own consent, & they are taught not to come here.” (Library of Virginia; see the whole letter.)
Boston King, Memoirs (1798), on the spring of 1783. The rumour “that all the slaves, in number 2000, were to be delivered up to their masters”; enslavers “seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New-York, or even dragging them out of their beds”; and then the proclamation and the certificate “which dispelled all our fears.” (The Methodist Magazine, London, 1798; see the whole memoir.)
Sir Guy Carleton’s order, Head Quarters, New York, April 15, 1783. Quotes the treaty’s words, “without causing any destruction or carrying away any Negroes or other property of the American Inhabitants,” names the inspectors, and provides that “no Negro is permitted to embark as a Refugee who has not recorded himself within the British Lines.” (Carleton Papers, PRO 30/55; enclosed in Carleton’s letter to Washington of May 12.)
Egbert Benson and Daniel Parker, the American commissioners, to Washington, New York, June 14, 1783. “Yesterday We assisted in Superintending an Embarkation, consisting of fourteen Transports bound to Nova Scotia … among which were, at least, one hundred and thirty Negroes who appear to be property of the Citizens of the United States”; “all applications for the delivery of property will be fruitless … We shall therefore desist from them.” (National Archives; image on DocsTeach.)
Advertisements, 1783 (newspaper texts; the transcriptions are from the sources cited, not from page images)
New-York Gazette and the Weekly Mercury, January 13, 1783. Billy, about 20, “lately from Jamaica,” who left in “the common dress of a sailor”; “master of vessels and others are forewarn’d not to harbour or carry him off.”
Royal Gazette (Rivington), New York, March 15, 1783. A girl of about 14, “named Seth, but calls herself Sall”; two dollars reward; “All Masters of vessels, and others are forewarned not to harbour the said Mulatto Girl.”
Royal Gazette, May 10, 1783. York, who ran from “the prize schooner Swan” on April 19 and “has deserted from his master sundry times within these three years past”; one guinea reward.
Royal Gazette, June 14, 1783. Cesar, about 26, “well known by carrying bread and biskets about the streets.”
Royal Gazette, August 2, 1783. Jack, 26, of Westchester County, who “can read and write”; eight dollars; “I desire all Captains of vessels, to beware not to take or receive such fellow on board.”
Political Intelligencer and New-Jersey Advertiser, New Brunswick, November 11, 1783. George, 42, a gardener, “the property of a gentleman in this neighbourhood”; eight dollars, dated Trenton, November 2. The same issue carries a sale notice, “To be sold cheap for Cash,” for a woman the advertiser calls a “Negro Wench.”
Rivington’s New-York Gazette, and Universal Advertiser, December 6, 1783, eleven days after the British left. Two “Negro Lads, called Stepney and Prince,” five guineas each; “It is supposed they have gone on board some vessel immediately bound to sea.”
Quotations are from the sources named; original spelling kept. Items not seen in a page image are marked as transcriptions.