ABSTRACT
I How representative of the broader slave population were the runaway slaves recorded in colonial South Carolina newspaper advertisements? One crude indicator is available if we compare the size of the South Carolina runaway population with that of the most populous slave colony on the North American mainland, namely, Virginia. While South Carolina's slave population was less than a half of Virginia's for most of the eighteenth century, its runaway population, as measured in newspaper advertisements, was at least four times as large.' The runaway sample from South Carolina stands a greater chance of being a representative group than was the case in Virginia.
