Source 14 - Royal Gazette

This is a page from the Royal Gazette, a Jamaican newspaper, one of many showing notices of runaway slaves. It is dated May 1781. Each notice has a description of the slave and reward for return of the 'offenders'.Slaves might attempt to runaway for a number of reasons: to escape cruel treatment, to join a revolt or to visit friends and families on neighbouring plantations. Families were not necessarily kept together by those who bought and sold them: planters did not hesitate to sell slaves regardless of their family ties.

• Compare and contrast what message this gives us about the treatment of slaves with other sources such as the play The Benevolent Planters,the letter by a planter to Gentleman's Magazine and William Cowper's poem The Negro's Complaint.