Slave ads reveal hidden languages and struggles of Caribbean captives
Researchers analyzing 18th-century runaway slave advertisements from the Danish West Indies have uncovered detailed linguistic evidence of enslaved people's multilingual abilities and speech variations. The finding challenges how historians understand slave experiences and demonstrates how commercial documents can preserve overlooked human stories—a methodology with broader implications for archival research and historical accountability.
Originaltitel: “Stutters very much” and speaks “bad English”: Displays of communicative struggles and linguistic diversity among enslaved people in the Danish West Indies, 1770–1807
<p>While the young runaway Thomas spoke Dutch and English, his enslaver Bernard Watlington noted that he stuttered as well. This became public knowledge when Watlington shared all the details he thought necessary for recapturing Thomas in a short runaway slave advertisement in 1803. With this as a starting point, this article examines speech impairments and language variations among runaways on St. Croix. While often used as historical sources for various aspects of enslavement, these advertisements also provide valuable insights into the languages spoken by enslaved people, including when they deviated from the norm. Through an analysis of various runaway slave advertisements, this article establishes the contours of speech impairments and language use among enslaved individuals on St. Croix by the turn of the nineteenth century. The article aims to utilize runaway slave advertisements to explore language-related issues and, through this exploration, shed new light on linguistic aspects and the experiences of slavery in the early modern Caribbean</p>