The more threatening and determined the slave's voice, 'having declared his intention', 'she is determined she will be free', 'is determined to lose his head', the more likely it is to be reproduced unchanged. The notice is thus a public warning that the simple, everyday act of running away has been transformed into an act of revolt. The moment the slave leaves negotiation behind and affirms his or her freedom and freedom of speech, the narrator is bound to warn his neighbours and the slave-owning community in general. The text of the notice must offer a way of containing this disorder and transgressive language, 'impudent' and 'assuming' in the case of Catharine. It is especially true in her case: the reader is under the illusion of hearing Catharine's voice, between the indirect style (change of pronouns), indirect free style (disappearance of subordination and the declarative verb) and the direct style (narrative present, quotation marks). The narrative illusion is strengthened by the use of Jamaican Creole: it is unlikely, in practice, that the word 'buckra' was chosen by the narrator.  
However threatening they may be, the real problem with the words of slaves, from the narrator's point of view, is that they cannot be trusted. A fugitive slave, a veritable trickster, relates, distorts, invents, manipulates, plays tricks and enjoys telling tales and misleading people. Freedom, whether temporary or permament,