On the 1st inst. in the evening, my Negro Fellow PETER was sent in search of [DIANA] [...] He is about twenty-seven years of age, and well known in town [Charleston] as a carter. He may endeavor to pass for a free man, and may show his pass, which the subscriber requests may be detained. He [...] is a sly, subtle, cunning fellow, of smooth speech, and has duped some people by his fair words and got off from them some time ago (Charleston Courier, 4 April 1807). [My emphasis]  
The accumulation of adjectives connoting cunning and trickery shows yet again that the purpose of the notice was not merely descriptive. The narrator has been duped: so, as he cannot whip his absent slave, he spills forth his bitterness in words.  
Peter is far from being an exception. Joe, for example, another slave in Carolina, had already passed himself off as a different slave, allaying the suspicions of the  
[^0]
[^0]:    6 On the trickster as a trope in African-American literature, see Gates, Jr., 1988.  
people he met on the lowland roads and ferries he had to take to cross the rivers on his way from Waccamaw in the north to Cooper in the south:  
One Hundred Dollars Reward.
ABSCONDED [...]
On the 5th inst. JOE, a very stout, strong, well set Fellow, about thirty-five years old [...] he is dark complexioned, likely, artful, and as sensible as most of his colour [...] This fellow went off from my plantation about twelve years ago and passed himself at the ferries and along the road for one belonging to Mr. Weston, going from his plantation on Waccamaw to Charleston, with a message to him.
$[\ldots]$
Allard Belin.
May 16 (City Gazette, 16 May 1803).
Was he not capable, just like Peter, of fabricating stories and passing off the probable as the truth? 'He is capable of making out the most plausible stories.'