For the narrators, whoever they were, the fugitive slave notice was first and foremost an opportunity to restate the racial inferiority of the slaves and thereby minimize the significance and implications of their acts of resistance. Far from being purely mimetic, the notice played a role, directly and indirectly, in both the construction and the day-to-day perpetuation of the idea of racial inferiority on which black slavery rested. ${ }^{5}$ Advertisements for fugitive slaves depended on reading habits and a world of familiar relations. The representation of flight was as commonplace as the sale of wood, the arrival of a ship, the obituary of a dignitary or an advertisement for a play. It was rare for a newspaper not to publish notices of runaway slaves. The notices were tangible inscriptions; they were also fundamentally racial inscriptions. To take one example, let us study the description of this new African slave, published in the Charleston Gazette of 18 March 1805:  
A New Negro.
Picked up on Saturday night last, on Sullivan's Island, a NEW NEGRO MAN, about five feet ten or eleven inches high, and about forty years of age; he came there in a canoe, without oar or paddle; had on a white negro cloth long jacket, straw hat and old velvet breeches; rings in both ears, and remarkably large white eyes. Enquire of
Spencer Morrison,
On the Island.
March 18. [My emphasis]  
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