is not so much to be found in physical appearances or clothing, as in the everyday words that the fugitives succeed in manipulating to their advantage. The trickster is one of the key figures of Afro-American and African, as well as AmericanIndian, vernacular culture. An animal character in fables - particularly the monkey, rabbit or snake - is a weak but ambivalent figure, both amusing and disturbing in its taste for trickery, but uses words to free itself from the more powerful. 'As its most elemental, then, the trickster tale consists of a confrontation in which the weak use their wits to evade the strong', explains the historian Lawrence Levine in Black Culture and Black Consciousness. Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (Levine, 1977, pp. 106, 102-32, 370-85). ${ }^{6}$ The comparison between the fugitive and the trickster is not used here to draw an analogy between fugitive notices and fables. Clearly, they are two very different forms. But on the other hand one can see from the notices the extent to which the power of the fugitive lies in his or her spoken words, just as the power of the master resides primarily in mastery of the written word. The notice is there to close down those spoken words, re-establish the truth and cut short the verbal illusion.  
Peter, a slave in Carolina whose escape was advertised on 4 April 1807 in the Charleston Courier, was one of these 'tricksters' or manipulators, handy with words and situations. His story is woven out of lies and deception. His master, who nonetheless trusted him, had tasked him with finding a runaway slave belonging to him, named Diana. But Peter did not come back, and instead allegedly joined Diana, having several tricks up his sleeve to avoid arrest. In addition to the pass that enabled him to move around freely, his main asset was said to be his too-clever speech: