It was common for black men to run away

A study of runaway slaves in the antebellum South found that slaveholders’ advertisements often described a slave as “proud, artful, cunning . . . shrewd” or “very smart.” Historians Loren Schweninger and John Hope Franklin conclude that the typical runaway exhibited “self-confidence, self-assurance, self-possession . . . self-reliance.” It was rare for women to run away, especially those with small children. In the database produced by Schweninger and Franklin, based on extant runaway advertisements in five Southern states, 81 percent of all runaways were male. Of the 195 Virginia runaways* from 1838 to 1860, of which Sarah would be one, only seventeen (9 percent) were female.

*note: s/b advertised runaways