1) How did the advertisers describe Africans? What assumptions did they make about how readers of the ads would recognize the runaways? What did those assumptions suggest about the relationships between whites and blacks, free people and slaves, native-born and African-born people?
2) What did the runaways' names suggest about them and their masters? What evidence suggest how masters treated these runaways?
3) Did the runaways have identifiable skills or traits? did they have certain characteristics in common?
4) do they advertisements contain hints about why the runaways absconded? What might have accounted for the lag of time between running away and the placement of the advertisement?
Questions based on chapter 5 of Michael Johnson's Reading the American Past: Selected Historical Documents.