[Footnote 1: Fawcett, _Compassionate Address_, etc., p. 33.]
[Footnote 2: Fawcett, _Compassionate Address_, etc., p. 33.]
Still more reliable testimony may be obtained, not from persons particularly interested in the uplift of the blacks, but from slaveholders. Their advertisements in the colonial newspapers furnish unconscious evidence of the intellectual progress of the Negroes during the eighteenth century. "He's an 'artful,'"[1] "plausible,"[2] "smart,"[3] or "sensible fellow,"[4] "delights much in traffic,"[5] and "plays on the fife extremely well,"[6] are some of the statements found in the descriptions of fugitive slaves. Other fugitives were speaking "plainly,"[7] "talking indifferent English,"[8] "remarkably good English,"[9] and "exceedingly good English."[10] In some advertisements we observe such expressions as "he speaks a little French,"[11] "Creole French,"[12] "a few words of High-Dutch,"[13] and "tolerable German."[14] Writing about a fugitive a master would often state that "he can read print,"[15] "can read writing,"[16] "can read and also write a little,"[17] "can read and write,"[18] "can write a pretty hand and has probably forged a pass."[19] These conditions obtained especially in Charleston, South Carolina, where were advertised various fugitives, one of whom spoke French and English fluently, and passed for a doctor among his people,[20] another who spoke Spanish and French intelligibly,[21] and a third who could read, write, and speak both French and Spanish very well.[22]
[Footnote 1: _Virginia Herald_ (Fredericksburg), Jan. 21, 1800; _The Maryland Gazette_, Feb. 27, 1755; _Dunlop's Maryland Gazette and Baltimore Advertiser_, July 23, 1776; _The State Gazette of South Carolina_, May 18, 1786; _The State Gazette of North Carolina_, July 2, 1789.]
[Footnote 2: _The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser_ (Charleston, S.C.), Sept. 26, 1797, and _The Carolina Gazette_, June 3, 1802.]
[Footnote 3: _The Charleston Courier_, June 1, 1804; _The State Gazette of South Carolina_, Feb. 20, and 27, 1786; and _The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser_, Feb. 19, 1793.]
[Footnote 4: _South Carolina Weekly Advertiser_, Feb. 19 and April 2, 1783; _State Gazette of South Carolina_, Feb. 20 and May 18, 1786.]