Runaways

Runaway notices — newspaper advertisements placed by slaveholders, masters, and employers seeking the return of enslaved people, indentured servants, and apprentices who had fled — are among the most detailed descriptions of ordinary people in the colonial and antebellum record. Heritage Books carries published abstracts of runaway notices from newspapers across the American South and mid-Atlantic, organized by state. These records are essential for African American genealogy research in the pre-emancipation era.