ABSTRACT
The populations and economies of these regions became so enmeshed that historians now frequently speak of an early modern "Atlantic World". This chapter illustrates some of the forces that created this world, focusing on human migration, popular consumption, and the flow of information. Responding to extensive promotional efforts by Pennsylvania and other colonies, about one hundred thousand Germans migrated to North America during the eighteenth century. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography suggests some of the changes occurring in eighteenth-century North America, including a growing impulse for consumption and the increasing importance of print media. The Pennsylvania Gazette was published in Philadelphia from 1728 to 1800, flourishing under the ownership of Benjamin Franklin, who bought the paper in 1729. The following three advertisements, published in the Gazette in the 1750s and 1760s, offer African men, women, and children for sale and promise rewards to those who help masters recover escaped slaves.
