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Primary sourceNewspaper article1769

Run away from the subscriber

Thomas Jefferson · 1769

Jefferson's 1769 newspaper advertisement offering a reward for the capture of Sandy, an enslaved man who had escaped from him.

Jefferson placed this advertisement himself, directly documenting his role as an enslaver seeking the capture of an escaped man.

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Scan of a 1769 newspaper runaway slave advertisement signed Thomas Jefferson, offering a reward for an enslaved man named Sandy. A small woodcut figure of a man with a bundle appears at left. The text describes his height, complexion, trade as a shoemaker, and habits.
Thomas Jefferson, runaway advertisement for Sandy, Virginia Gazette, 1769.

About this source

What it is

This is a reproduction of a 1769 advertisement that Thomas Jefferson placed in the Virginia Gazette, offering a reward for the return of a teenage enslaved man named Sandy, who worked as a shoemaker and had escaped from him.

Why it matters

The advertisement is blunt, direct evidence that Jefferson, the man who wrote about liberty and natural rights, was himself an enslaver who used the legal and commercial systems of his time to recapture a person who had fled him. It shows the gap between Jefferson's public ideals and his private practice, and it gives Sandy, otherwise unknown to history, a brief and painful record of his existence and resistance.

Look closer

  • What details does the advertisement give about Sandy as a person, and what does it leave out?
  • Why would Jefferson, a writer of ideas about liberty, place an ad like this?
  • What does this document tell you about whose stories get recorded in history, and how?

This newspaper article is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Thomas Jefferson on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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