On the 22nd of June 1771, on page 3 of the Edinburgh newspaper Caledonian Mercury, amongst advertisements for “GLASSES in Mr. Moffat’s shop”, the selling of the “Mansion-house and Manor Place of DALRY” and right next to details of the “commodious” rooms at Corstorphine Grammar School, appears this advertisement:
A BLACK SLAVE RUN AWAY.
ON the eleventh current, there run away from the house of Colonel M[u]nro of Novar, in Ross-shire, a BLACK SLAVE, a native of the East Indies, called CÆSAR. He is about 25 or 26 years of age, about 5 feet, 4 or 5 inches high, has long black hair, and was bred a Cook. Whoever secures the said slave, within any of his Majesty’s gaols in Great Britain, upon notice given to Colonel Munro, by Dingwall; or to John Fraser, Writer to the Signet at Edinburgh, shall receive FIVE GUINEAS REWARD. —— It is hoped Masters of ships, and others will be careful not to secrete or carry off the said slave, otherwise they shall be prosecuted in terms of law. —— If the slave himself shall return to his Master’s service, his offence shall be forgiven.[1]
This is the only documentation we have of Caesar, an advertisement written by his Master, so we don’t know how his story ends. Working on the Runaway Slaves in Eighteenth Century Britain project, Caesar’s is the kind of story we encounter again and again. The enslaved and bound people of colour in Britain did not leave much evidence behind: often the ‘runaway’ advertisement is the only proof we have of their existence. It is unknown how many like him did not try to escape – did not generate a trail of evidence – and thus will remain anonymous to history.
However, let’s consider what we do know. Firstly, Caesar’s Master, Colonel, later General Sir, Hector Munro was just one of a number of Scottish sojourners during the 18th century. These men – often young and single – left Scotland to make their fortune in far-flung corners of the burgeoning British Empire, some with the intention of returning home and using their new-found capital as a means of increasing their standing in society.
While many of these men went across the Atlantic, arriving in the North American colonies or in the West Indies, a smaller number chose instead South Asia; in Munro’s case, India. Taking advantage of kith and kin connections and his military nous, Munro left for India in 1761, returning in 1765 as a much richer man, with a fine martial reputation and an eye on Parliament.[2] Historians have ascertained that much of this wealth was derived from the prizes he accepted from nawabs – Indian governors – after his success at the Battle of Buxar: could Caesar have been just another spoil of war?[3]
Sir Hector Munro, by David Martin (1785).
Could this be Caesar in the background?
Certainly, Caesar’s advertisement raises more questions than it answers: after his escape did he return to Munro, expecting the forgiveness promised by his Master? Did he manage to evade capture in the vast Highlands, or seek out a ship at nearby provincial ports?
Careful analysis of these 135 words can reveal a surprising amount. The very act of running away represents an accomplishment in itself. Here was a young man thousands of miles from his home, with English, at best, a second language, who decided he had had enough and, despite the potential dangers, had taken charge of his situation.
Caesar’s name is itself revealing. This was not the name the young man had been given at birth, but was rather a name applied by a European master, quite likely Munro itself. The very act of renaming an enslaved person was an assertion of power and ownership. Moreover, the name itself is revealing. Well-educated British masters often applied classical names to the enslaved, and this name was surely an in-joke, for a young enslaved man so far from home was about as far removed from an all-powerful Roman emperor as it was possible to be.
Caesar, being “bred a cook”, was trained from a suitable age in this vocation, and may have been born into servitude in India (which had its own system of slavery[4]); his being brought to Novar House suggests Munro had taken a liking to Indian cuisine while abroad. If he had come to Scotland with Munro then, Caesar arrived on these shores as a 19-20 year old, and then waited five years before something happened that made him decide to escape.
Novar House today.
(Click here to view on Google Maps)
We do know that a successful escape would not have been easy – historians cannot be certain on the racial mix of eighteenth-century Britain, but it was certainly unusual to see an Indian in the Highlands, and Caesar would have stood out immediately.
However, though the chances of triumph may have been slim, Caesar did have some things going for him.
According to the advertisement, Caesar left on the 11th of June, which meant he had close to the longest nights of the year to make his way around the countryside, and he was only around 8 miles from Dingwall, the (still) busy market town, where he may have found transport towards more populated places such as Aberdeen.[5]
A view overlooking Dingwall.
Novar House lies ahead, 8 miles away.
We can fairly safely assume the advertisement was placed on the 21st, to appear in newspapers published on the 22nd, which means the time between the escape and the placing of the advertisement was ten days. This suggests that Munro either thought Caesar would return, perhaps not even actively searching for the first few days, or had failed to have him captured; only after return or recapture appeared increasingly unlikely did he advertise, hoping that people further afield might spot and capture his former cook.
That Munro advertised in the Edinburgh press and also offered a contact point in the capital suggests he feared Caesar made it as far as the Central Belt which, with a ten-day head start, was more than feasible.[6] Munro’s warning to ships’ captains highlights his concern that Caesar, like many runaways in similar situations, may have made for a harbour – perhaps to make for India, or find work on the ships that were always desperate for sailors, including cooks, or simply to increase the distance between himself and his ex-Master. He could have headed for Glasgow, which did a roaring trade with the Empire on vessels bound for destinations across the Atlantic, Asia, the Mediterranean and Continental Europe; or Edinburgh, which accommodated ships travelling down the Eastern side of the country to London (such as The Diligence) and sometimes further afield (The Mally was leaving Leith for Gibraltar on the 25th June).[7]
The final line of the advertisement is especially intriguing:
“If the slave himself shall return to his Master’s service, his offence shall be forgiven.”
Munro was one of the very few Masters who appealed directly to the runaway – had he given up hope of capturing Caesar? Or was he, now Member of Parliament for Inverness burghs, keen to portray himself to the wider audience as a benevolent and forgiving Master? Either way, this sentence implied that Caesar may have been able to read, and that his Master thought he might see the advertisement; or perhaps that Munro suspected that others were aiding or concealing Caesar and that they might see the advertisement and communicate this message to the runaway.
Finally, Munro labels Caesar’s escape an “offence” – the offence being that he stole himself away. Caesar, like many of the non-white, unfree labourers in Britain in the first three quarters of the eighteenth-century, was regarded as property, and by running away he, and hundreds like him, were judged to be stealing their Master’s property – themselves.
PhD candidate on the project (and former pupil at Dingwall Academy).
Footnotes
[1] Caledonian Mercury, 22 June 1771, p.3, from www.BritishNewspaperArchive.co.uk
[2] G. J. Bryant, ‘Munro, Sir Hector (1725/6–1805/6)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed 17 Oct 2017).
[3] Andrew MacKillop, ‘The Highlands and the returning Nabob: Sir Hector Munro of Novar, 1760-1807’, Emigrant homecomings: the return movement of emigrants, 1600-2000, ed. by Marjory Harper (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p.239.
[4] Gwyn Campbell, ‘Slavery and other forms of Unfree Labour in the Indian Ocean World’, in Slavery & Abolition, Vol. 24 No.2, pp.ix-xxxii.
[5] Summer Solstice is usually June 20th-21st every year.
[6] Caledonian Mercury, 22 June 1771, p.3; Edinburgh Evening Courant, 22 June 1771, p.3.
[7] The Diligence would “sail [to London] the first opportunity the wind and weather, after the 20th June. See Caledonian Mercury, 15 June 1771, p.3.
Built between 1882 and 1888, the City Chambers is civic demonstration of Glasgow’s claim to be the ‘Second City of Empire’. Looking closely at the triangular facade on the front of the City Chambers, Queen Victoria sits atop a series of native peoples bringing gifts: the subservient role of the colonies inscribed into the city’s architecture. Above the triangular façade celebrating imperial exploitation, three statues that symbolise truth, justice and liberty hint at the hypocrisy of the imperial mentalité. The City Chambers’ architecture, therefore, reflects Glasgow’s status as one of the most prominent port cities of the Second British Empire. The city was part of a wider imperial network – based on New World slavery – that connected North America and the Caribbean with Scotland at least from the 1620s to 1838. However, there has been no adequate explanation of the nation’s spectacular rise from one of the poorest nations in western Europe after Darien fiasco in the mid-1690s to nineteenth-century industrial powerhouse. Capital derived from exploitative and usurious activities in America, the West and East Indies all played a role. Although Scotland had limited involvement with direct slave trade voyages (known as the ‘triangular trade’) and there were only 31 recorded between 1706 and 1766, the merchants of Glasgow traded in slave-grown produce. In effect, the merchants cut out the Africa leg of the triangular trade and went directly to the plantations. In this way, Glasgow merchants came to monopolise the trade in tobacco and sugar, although the latter to a much lesser extent. This article examines the city’s connections with New World slavery through the urban heritage, focusing on the men who made it possible: Virginia merchants, known as ‘the Tobacco Lords’ and West India merchants, known as ‘the Sugar Aristocracy’.
Completed in 1778 and built in the Palladian style of architecture, it was described at the time as one of the most fantastic houses in the west of Scotland. The core of the mansion became the Royal Exchange in 1827-29. Across to Ingram Street and further south, we arrive at Tobacco Merchants House which is located at 42 Miller Street (laid out in the 1750s). Tobacco Merchants House illustrates the living conditions of a ‘Tobacco Laird’, a colonial merchant lower down the economic rung from the elite ‘Tobacco Lords’. 
Built in a Palladian style and completed in 1775, Tobacco Merchants House is the oldest surviving building in the ‘Merchant City’ which also underlines little remains of Georgian Glasgow and the city centre is almost all Victoriana.
This was the site of the Tontine Rooms (which sat next to the Tolbooth Steeple) which served as the social and commercial headquarters of mercantile Glasgow. The city’s first paved street was located outside the Tontine Rooms and this was where the ‘Tobacco Lords’ convened. Resplendent in their scarlet cloaks, scarlet cloaks and gold-tipped canes, these tobacco merchants bestowed upon themselves the regal sobriquets: ‘Princes of the Pavement’ and ‘Tobacco Lords’. Here they might have discussed the price of slaves in Africa, the growing conditions of tobacco in Virginia, the sugar crop in Jamaica and the tobacco market in France. This was the rise of early-modern capitalism in the west of Scotland based on the exploitation of enslaved labour. And make no mistake, the ‘Tobacco Lords’ were fearsome capitalist competitors who monopolised the trade in slave-grown tobacco from Virginia, which was shipped to Europe (especially France) via Glasgow. From the Trongate, we walk down to St Andrews in the Square. 
Presbyterian ‘Tobacco Lords’ attended to their spiritual needs and the Kirk was constructed between 1739-1756. The interior is an exemplar of mercantile splendour: the salubrious surroundings (now restored to their former glory) are enhanced by the mahogany imported from the Spanish West Indies. Further south, we arrive at St Andrews by the Green completed in 1751-2. This was the worshipping place of the Episcopalian faction of the ‘Tobacco Lords’: Presbyterians looked down on their mode of worship which involved organ-playing during services, which led to the pejorative nickname the ‘Whistling Kirk’ for St Andrews by the Green. 
The establishment of the Whistling Kirk was inextricably associated with Richard and Alexander Oswald, Caithness merchants who established a mercantile dynasty in Glasgow from the 1710s.
The slave collar owned by John Crawford reveals that Scots used instruments of subjugation (most likely worn by enslaved people) in Scotland. This was not a unique case and there are other records providing more detail. The People’s Palace also holds the Glassford Family portrait which was painted in 1767 by Archibald McLauchlan of the Foulis Academy (associated with Old College, now the University of Glasgow). It features John Glassford – one of the four main ‘Tobacco Lords’ in Glasgow – and his family located within The Shawfield Mansion, the prototype colonial townhouse in the ‘Merchant City’ which was built in 1711. 
On Glassford’s right hand shoulder, there is a young black child, evidently a page-boy who had been brought over the colonies. Given Glassford’s strong connections with Virginia (and his agent Neil Jamieson was involved with slave-trading in North America) we can make assumptions about the boy’s origins. However, we know little of his life. It was assumed until fairly recently that the young child had been painted out from the painting in the abolitionist period, although a restorative project in 2007 revealed the young child had not been painted out, but in fact dirt and grime built up over the years and partially obscuring the child from view. Glasgow’s full role in New World slavery can be viewed metaphorically in the painting: it has always been present, yet obscured from our view. Although the fate of the young black child in the Glassford painting is unknown, we have records for some others, many of whom ran away from their masters.
This article has traced locations where the ‘Tobacco Lords’ and ‘Sugar Aristocracy’ worked, lived, worshipped, convened. Some were personal slaveowners and young children would have been brought here in the 1760s. As I thought over the concept of a ‘Slave Merchant City’, I stumbled on the city’s booster slogan ‘People Make Glasgow’. And I instantly agreed. Yes, yes they did.
Witherspoon did much to make a success of the small and struggling college, and he is commemorated as one of the university’s most important leaders. His achievements reached far beyond the small college. Arriving in the colonies immediately after the Stamp Act crisis, Witherspoon became a leading Patriot, and was elected to represent New Jersey in the Second Continental Congress. A signer of the Declaration of Independence and an active revolutionary, Witherspoon was forced to evacuate the College of New Jersey when the British army captured the town late in 1776. He supervised the repairs of Nassau Hall thereafter, and in the summer of 1783 the college briefly served as the capital of the new American republic.
Johnson was born a slave in Maryland in 1816, but he ran away in about 1843 and changed his name to James Johnson, making his way to Princeton where he made a living working in the university. However, he was recognised and his master alerted, who promptly instituted a law suit to recover his escaped property. The Fugitive Slave Act would have required Johnson’s return to slavery in Maryland, but a wealthy Princeton resident named Theodosia Prevost intervened and purchased Johnson’s freedom. Grateful to his benefactor, Johnson slowly repaid her with the price of his purchase, and he continued making a living as a janitor and used clothing salesman, before securing the right to sell food and drink to students on the college campus. For the rest of his life he sold food and drink from a barrow to Princeton students, including at college football games. When he died, after more than sixty years of living in Princeton, university students clubbed together to purchase a memorial stone which lies atop his grave to this day, commemorating him as ‘the students’ friend’.
Tubman will be the first American woman to appear on U.S. paper currency in more than a century (Martha Washington and Pocahontas appeared on American paper currency in the late nineteenth century).
Jackson was a planter who owned hundreds of slaves, and when one of these slaves ran away in 1804 Jackson was clearly angered that his human property had eloped. Approximately thirty years-old and over six feet tall, the man had contrived to secure forged papers which would enable him to pass as a free man. Angrily Jackson promised that any person who captured the runaway outside of Tennessee would receive not only the reward of fifty dollars, but a further reward of ‘ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred.’
In 1849 when her owner’s death threatened the sale and break-up of her family, Tubman decided to escape. A first attempt prompted her master to place his own advertisement in a local newspaper, eager to reclaim this valuable woman. She soon tried again, and this time made it the almost hundred miles to Pennsylvania, and she recalled that on crossing onto free soil ‘I felt like I was in Heaven.’
This was incredibly dangerous work, and had she been captured Tubman would quite likely have lost her life. Frederick Douglass, another runaway slave who was campaigning against slavery throughout the American North and the British Isles, had nothing but admiration for Tubman. He wrote to her acknowledging that he had ‘wrought in the day – you in the night’. While Douglass had been campaigning, Tubman had been risking her life to rescue people from slavery. ‘I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have,’ Douglass concluded. Small wonder that Tubman was affectionately known as ‘Moses.’
