Dr. Harvey Amani Whitfield

Runaway Slave Advertisements in the Maritimes

This lecturer will discuss the importance of runaway slave advertisements and what they say about the slaves. Historians must try to recover as much as possible about their lives—who they were, where they lived, what work they did, who they married, their physical appearance, personality traits and if they secured freedom. The sources will not allow us to answer all of these important questions about an individual slave’s life. But, runaway notices illuminate the lives of slaves in ways that historians might not be able to document otherwise. In examining runaway slaves in the Maritimes after the Loyalist influx, we are given a window into the lives of individual slaves.

The Meaning of Slavery in the Loyalist Maritimes

In addition to being a professor at the University of Vermont, Whitfield is the authour of several books including, North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in the Maritimes, Blacks on the Border: The Black Refugees in British North America, 1815-1860, and The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont.

Esteemed writer and associate professor of history at the University of Vermont, Dr. Harvey Amani Whitfield is the 2017 Riley Lecturer in Canadian History. In March, he will present two talks on Slavery in Canada. Both lectures are free and open to the public.