Witches, Wife Beaters, and Whores by Elaine Forman Crane

Author:Elaine Forman Crane [Crane, Elaine Forman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Law, Legal History, History, Americas, United States, Colonial Period (1600-1775)
ISBN: 9780801462740
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2011-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 9. Runaway notice for Cuff. This advertisement appeared in the Boston Post-Boy, June 18, 1744. Archive of Americana, Early American Newspapers, Series 1–5, 1690–1922.

Cuff must have planned his stealthy escape well in advance. No spur-of-the-moment decision held hope of success, and even careful preparation contained risk. To fly from a sleeping household meant that Cuff would not be immediately missed, and a full moon that night would have guided him to the harbor.80 Safety required a speedy departure from Aquidneck Island, where he was well known, and flight by water would have entailed knowledge of outbound vessels, information casually obtained from anyone working on the wharves. Many of those laborers would have been either enslaved or free blacks, and Cuff would have easily melted into the group—at least for a short time.81

Secrecy was essential, and Cuff had good reason to share his plans with no one. A Rhode Island law required all subjects to turn in slaves traveling without a certificate signed by the slave’s master. Without such a document, Cuff ran the risk of exposure by anyone aware of his plans. Ironically, this legislation fell heaviest on ferrymen, who would be fined if they transported unauthorized slaves across water.82 It is difficult to gauge how this legislation affected behavior and the subsequent recapture of slaves, but there is little doubt that if people made laws, laws made people. If Rhode Islanders were not His Majesty’s most law-abiding citizens, their behavior was still determined, at least in part, by statute and folk law. Under the circumstances, there would have been colonists ready to turn Cuff in—although there probably were at least a few radical Quakers willing to abet his escape.83

Even fellow slaves could not be counted on. A year earlier, as an imprisoned Cuff awaited trial, another Newport slave “betray’d” a plot by “a great Number of Spanish and other Prize Negroes to run away with one of the Privateer Sloops in the Harbour.”84 Yet the variety and profusion of boats bobbing on the water worked in Cuff’s favor. During the war years, Newport hosted a number of privateers, as well as the usual merchant vessels, and Cuff, a trained sailor, would have had little trouble finding work aboard a prize-seeking ship or one sailing on the morning tide for Europe, London, or Africa. Jeffrey Bolster puts it very well: “ships . . . became both a means to escape and an end in themselves for black men on the lam”—especially during the war years when captains often lacked able-bodied seamen.85 If all else failed, Cuff could always stow away—wrapped up in a blue greatcoat to ward off the chilly night air during the passage to who knows where. Since the same runaway notice appeared weekly until the end of June in the Boston newspapers, Cuff seems to have eluded his pursuers for over five weeks. No records speak of his return.

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