I saw this question that /u/ManuckCanuck a few months ago. Please, let me know if you have any other questions!

Were slave markets advertised? If so, how was it done?

Short Answer: yes, colonial newspapers prominently featured advertisements selling enslaved people throughout all of America. In fact, advertising of both runaway enslaved people and slave markets were the most sophisticated and widely-printed advertisements throughout eighteenth-century colonial America. If you’re interested in these, check out Dr. Carl Robert Keyes’ Adverts250 project that posts early-American advertisements daily. You will find a plethora of ads related to the buying, selling, and loaning of enslaved people.

The longer answer:

Background on slave markets and advertising in eighteenth-century America

I will start with a brief discussion of the various is ways in which buyers and sellers would facilitate the sale of enslaved people. I’ll primarily be discussing eighteenth-century America. Although the slave trade continued to evolve throughout the century, general context is essential before discussing advertising’s role in perpetuating the system.

We can discuss two ‘legs’ of the slave trade: the sale of enslaved people across the Middle Passage and the internal slave trade within the colonies and, eventually, states. This discussion will primarily focus on the latter. Many New England States (see Desrochers) did not have a former slave market as you would see in a place like Charleston. Although there were many other ways enslaved people would be sold publicly, such as an auction, most sales were conducted privately between slave owners and potential buyers.

Additionally, many enslaved people were “loaned” out during times when work was scarce. These transactions made up a bustling market and were only possible thanks to the facilitation by newspapers.

Speaking of which, newspapers played a massive role in perpetuating the slave system throughout the colonies. So great research has been done about this recently, and I wrote an answer here that touches on similar points. But understanding the role of newspapers is critical to understanding advertisements’ role in slavery. Any ad in circulation was approved, published, and disseminated by printers. As such, printers served as the facilitator in many business transactions-- they served as a “point man” for interested inquirers responding to any advertisement, for enslaved people or otherwise. This led printing houses to become “the busiest slave marts in town,” especially if the locality did not have a traditional market (Desrochers, 635). Thus, newspapers were vital infrastructure in the American colonies and, like many institutions, helped formalize and maintain the growing slave system.

Advertisements as identity ‘deconstructors.’ The commodification of enslaved people

A lot of scholarship since the 1980s has investigated advertisements’ role in shaping identity. Historians like Ronald Marchand and Carolyn Kitch have made strong cases that argue advertisers (primarily after 1920) had a vested interest in promoting ideas just as much as products. Even more important, however, was their desire to link the two. Advertisements present a feeling, an idea, intrinsically linked to the purchase and use of a particular product. As a result, consumers found new ways to discuss themselves and the world through the use of these new products, all of which contributed to identity building. The consumer projected themselves into the advertisement and came out with a better sense of how a good would positively influence their world.

I say all this because advertisements facilitating the sale of enslaved people had the exact opposite effect as these ads from the 20th century. As I mentioned earlier, advertising was in its infancy in the eighteenth-century United States, yet advertisements related to the buying and selling of enslaved people were among the most popular and sophisticated of all. Instead of constructing identities, they deconstructed and enslaved persons’ humanity by breaking them down into commodifiable traits. These ads did indeed give buyers and sellers a new shared language to discuss the system. Still, they had a disastrous impact by helping facilitate the “social death” and complete dehumanization of enslaved people.

I’d now like to use a few examples to highlight how enslaved people were dehumanized and commodified through advertisements. You might find ads for enslaved people for sale in the “sundry goods” category. The very place on the page indicated to potential buyers that these were not human beings for sale but simply commodities that were to be bought, used, and sold if necessary.

Take this ad from 1771, for example. The seller lists quite the variety of goods for sale, including gloves, silk, napkins, and a variety of other imported goods. Additionally, the advertiser includes what he will have available next week, which provides for “Muscovado Sugars… a flout, likely, handy NEGRO WENCH.” This ad offhandedly mentions an enslaved human being for sale and lists her along with other consumer goods. Ads like these helped reinforce readers’ ideas about the slave system, thereby perpetuating it a-- at its core-- a system that dehumanized and commodified human beings.

Advertisements also helped give consumers new types of ways to speak and discuss goods, including enslaved people. Similar phrasing to facilitate the marketing and sale of enslaved people develop throughout advertisements. Advertisements of enslaved people might include their place of birth or where they last worked. They could also focus on skills, the most popular of which was “fit for any town or country” and “indoor and outdoor work.” Some ads spoke primarily to their physical attributes, age, or any other skills (any sort of craft, bilingualism, experience). One of the most intriguing marketing tactics is related to smallpox immunity. Take this advertisement; this 20-year-old man is advertised as “very handy” and “has had the Small-Pox.” Breaking down enslaved people into commodifiable traits that would appeal to as many potential buyers as possible had a profound and dehumanizing impact on perpetuating the slave system.

To summarize: advertisements were crucial to facilitating the buying and selling of enslaved people. Slave markets were advertised, but most buyers had some idea of where the market was and where to go in southern cities with an established, physical slave market. More critical was advertising’s role in facilitating the sale of enslaved people between buyers. This was done through the newspapers, who served as both the advertiser and broker of the sale.

Sources:

Joseph Adelman, Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789. (2019)

Robert E. Desrochers Jr., “Slave-for-Sale Advertisements and Slavery in Massachusetts, 1704-1781. (2002)

Stephanie E. Smallwood, “African Guardians, European Slave Ships, and the Changing Dynamics of Power in the Early Modern Atlantic” (2007)