Quam, 1722–1723

These two runaway slave advertisements, which recount the escape attempts of an enslaved man named Quam, are remarkable in part because neither actually identifies Quam as a runaway. In both cases, Samuel Beaks—the owner who seeks assistance in locating Quam—accuses the white servants with whom Quam has escaped of stealing or taking his property. Although Quam runs during the same month two years in a row, the second time with an entirely new group of white servants, Beaks cannot conceive of his “property” exercising agency or planning, organizing, and executing an escape attempt. In the context of a multiracial group, Beaks cannot recognize a Black African man as a leader; Quam and other enslaved individuals used this prejudice to act unnoticed, knowing that some white observers would be unable to acknowledge their exercise of subjectivity.