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H-NET MEDIA REVIEW
Published by [log in to unmask] (September 2003)

Thomas Costa. _Virginia Runaways_.
www.uvawise.edu/history/runaways/index.html.

Reviewed for H-Survey by Kenneth W. Howell
<[log in to unmask]>, Department of History, Texas A&M
University

Capturing Virginia Runaways in the Twenty-First Century

As the academic community becomes further inundated in vast quagmire of
the world wide web, scholars are introduced to a barrage of websites
that often promise more than they actually deliver.  Academicians who
have attempted to incorporate internet projects into their courses can
readily testify to the plethora of poorly researched and awkwardly
designed websites which pollute the cyber world.  Nevertheless, a few
researchers are dedicated to producing web-based projects that are
useful, informative, and user friendly.  Tom Costa, a professor of
history at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, deserves
recognition as being among this elite group.  Costa, along with a team
of proven web designers (including individuals who were involved in
creating award-winning projects, such as _Valley of the Shadow_ and
_Virtual Jamestown_), has put together one of the best web-based
historical databases available on runaway slaves.[1]

The _Virginia Runaways_ project is a comprehensive collection of
advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants which were
published in Virginia newspapers during the eighteenth century.  Many of
the ads used for this project were printed in the Williamsburg _Virginia
Gazette_ (1736-1780), but some of the ads came from other Virginia
newspapers published between 1774 and 1790, including the _Norfolk
Intelligencer_ (1775-1776), the _American Advertiser_ (Richmond,
1782-1786), the _Weekly Advertiser_ (Richmond, 1782-1790), the _Virginia
Journal and Alexandria Advertiser_ (1784-1785), and the _Virginia Herald
and Fredericksburg Advertiser_ (1788-1790).  Additionally, Costa
includes advertisements from two Maryland newspapers, the _Maryland
Gazette_ (Annapolis, 1749-1790)  and the _Maryland Journal and Baltimore
Advertiser_ (1773-1790), which make references to Virginia runaways.

Scholars familiar with Lathan Algerna Windley's four-volume compilation,
_Runaway Slave Advertisements: A Documentary History from the 1730s to
1790s_, might question the originality and usefulness of the _Virginia
Runaways_ database, especially considering that many of the Virginia
runaway advertisements were reprinted in Windley's monumental work.
Costa addresses this concern by explaining that his project moves well
beyond Windley's earlier work. Costa correctly observes that Windley's
work includes only advertisements for runaway slaves and deletes any
portion of the ads that did not pertain directly to the fugitive slaves.
Additionally, Costa points out that Windley did not include ads for
runaways, who were either captured, mentioned on more than one occasion
in news print, or listed in different editions of the _Virginia
Gazette_. Finally, Costa points out that Windley's book lacks an index,
making it difficult to reference names of individuals, places, and
events.  The _Virginia Runaways_ project attempts to resolve Windley's
oversights concerning runaways in Virginia by encompassing several
critical components in the database, including the use of both runaway
and captured ads for slaves, as well as servants, military deserters,
and runaway sailors; providing complete transcriptions of every ad
listed in the database; reprinting the full text of all ads, including
those for the same runaway printed in different editions of the
_Virginia Gazette_; reprinting captured runaway ads which county
officials and private citizens placed in the newspapers;  and creating a
"Search" page which allows users to search every word in every ad.
Simply stated, the _Virginia Runaways_ project significantly builds upon
the foundation established by Windley's work, providing users with
easier access to a larger number of Virginia runaway advertisements.[2]

Two notable features of the _Virginia Runaways_ project are the
"Supporting Material" and "Reference" pages.  The "Supporting Material"
page includes a limited but noteworthy collection of court records,
plantation accounts, letters, diaries, and personal papers of planters,
other pertinent material from newspapers and a pictorial tour of the
reconstructed slave quarter at Carter's Grove near Williamsburg.  The
"Reference" page houses information that is designed to enhance the
user's understanding of runaway advertisements.  This section includes
reference material on Virginia statues (laws) that were passed to define
and control slaves; a discussion of the currency system used in Virginia
during the eighteenth century; a glossary of terms used to describe
clothing of the era; and a gazetteer that maps runaway ads in Virginia.
The information in both pages gives the user a greater understanding of
the common experiences shared by all runaways.  Other notable facets of
the project include a help page that introduces users to the database,
detailed and user friendly browse and search pages, teaching materials
(for K-12 students), a bibliography, and a credits page which identifies
key individuals involved in developing and publishing _Virginia
Runaways_.

Despite the project's intrinsic worth, it is surprising that Costa does
not include Mechal Sobel's _The World They Made Together_ in his
bibliography.[3] The project's "Supporting Material" section could have
benefitted from Sobel's argument that African-American slaves
significantly influenced the architectural, religious, economic and
social customs of eighteenth-century Virginia.  This project does not
sufficiently emphasize this fact.  For example, images of the
reconstructed slave quarters and the Carter plantation home (the great
house) found on the "Tour A Reconstructed Slave Quarter" page reinforce
the myth that widespread socio-economic disparity existed between the
slaveholders and their bondsmen.  While the images correctly suggest
that slave quarters were crude (most were more rudimentary than those
reconstructed at Carter's Grove), the photographs of the great house
seem to suggest that slaveowners as a whole lived in elaborate mansions.
Even though Costa clearly states that the Carter plantation home was
"expanded and reconstructed in the 1930," users could leave the website
with the idea that most slave quarters and plantation homes built in
Virginia during the eighteenth century looked similar to those featured
in the project.  In reality, many slaveowners and slaves lived in
similar conditions, and often it would have been difficult to pick out
the great house from the slave quarters, especially in the Virginia
backcountry. Though the images of the plantation home and the
reconstructed slave quarters are somewhat misleading, the overall merit
of this site remains intact, especially considering that its primary
goal is to retell the story of runaway slaves.

Secondary and College instructors will appreciate the diverse ways that
the _Virginia Runaways_ project can be used in their classrooms.  For
example, if instructors want to compare and contrast the different
experiences of runaway slaves and runaway indentured servants in
eighteenth-century Virginia, they could have students review selected
advertisements for both groups outside of class and then analyze the
documents in a classroom discussion.  In the same way, one could also
use the project to compare and contrast how African-born slaves and
Virginia-born slaves adapted differently to the institution of slavery.
The "Search" page makes it easier for instructors and students to find
the type of specific ads needed to complete the assignments mentioned
above.  Additionally, instructors can use the ads to illustrate how
proficient slaves were in using the English language, the type of
clothes slaves wore, the owners' perceptions of their slaves, the types
of places where slaves went after they escaped, and the possibilities
continue, limited only by an instructor's imagination.  Overall,
_Virginia Runaways_ is an excellent tool for introducing students to
many of the elements associated with slavery in Virginia and the common
experiences of those bondsmen who tried to escape from its clutches.

In the final analysis, Tom Costa has done an extraordinary job of
capturing the story of eighteenth-century Virginia runaways with
twenty-first century technology.  The _Virginia Runaway_ project
deserves the attention and praise of both students and academicians who
are interested in the history of the Old South and its peculiar
institution.

Notes

[1]. The _Valley of the Shadow_ is located at
<http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/>.  As stated on the project's website,
the Valley of the Shadow Project takes two communities, one Northern and
one Southern, through the experience of the American Civil War.  The
project is a hypermedia archive of thousands of sources for the period
before, during, and after the Civil War for Augusta County, Virginia,
and Franklin County, Pennsylvania.  Those sources include newspapers,
letters, diaries, photographs, maps, church records, population census,
agricultural census, and military records.  _Virtual Jamestown_ is
located at <http://jefferson.village.edu/vcdh/jamestown/>.  According to
its homepage, the Virtual Jamestown Archive is a digital research,
teaching and learning project that explores the legacies of the
Jamestown settlement and "the Virginia experiment."  As a work in
progress, Virtual Jamestown aims to shape the national dialogue on the
occasion of the Four hundred-year anniversary observance in 2007 of the
founding of the Jamestown colony.

[2]. Lathan A. Windley, _Runaway Slave Advertisements: A Documentary
History from the 1730s to 1790_ (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1983).

[3]. Mechal Sobel, _The World They Made Together: Black and White Values
in Eighteenth-Century Virginia_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1987).

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