Shades beyond light and dark: Analysing colour names in runaway advertisements of enslaved persons

Abstract

Existing scholarship on colorism has made significant contributions, but to continue exposing the legacy of colorism in the USA, more research is needed that explicitly and empirically investigates the finer operations of colorism during the era of slavery. Through a scoping review, I draw from 6589 hand-coded colonial-era advertisements documenting enslaved runaway individuals to detail the various “color names” enslavers used to describe skin color. First, I underscore an enduring transmission of color terminology inherited from the period of slavery to contemporary society. Second, my review indicates an extensive documentation of color terminology for both light- and dark-skinned individuals. These findings provide initial insights into definitions of medium skin while supporting notions of a three-tiered structure. Overall, this study contributes significantly to shedding light on the historical tracings of colorism and the importance of studying the era of slavery to understand consequences of living in the afterlife of it.