(Slavery in South Carolina)Biblio.com
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184542820850<p><strong>A unique survival.</strong> This important collection of largely identified photographs documents the home and family of Dr. Sidney Smith and those he enslaved at Gravel Hill his South Carolina plantation. The collection includes an extraordinary daguerreotype depicting Dr. Smith his two daughters and his brother posed together with two enslaved African American men. This is <strong>one of the earliest known images—if not the very earliest photograph—of an identified plantation owner posing with enslaved African Americans. </strong></p><p><strong> The photographs :</strong></p><p>1. Quarter plate daguerreotype 4 x 3 1/8 in. of Gravel Hill Plantation near Robertville St. Peter's Parish Beaufort District South Carolina. Ca. mid-to-late 1840s. Manuscript notation on passe-partout mat "Grandfather Sidney Smith Gravel Hill S.C." The image shows the plantation house with various figures engaged in an unidentified activity with a horse tied to a picket fence. The two girls in white may be Sidney Smith's daughters Arabella b. 1832 and Julia b. 1837 and the others may be enslaved African American children. An enslaved African American subject stands on the steps in the background. In the foreground are two figures with an unknown object perhaps a dog cart or a bone-shaker bicycle. In front of the house is a heavily-vined grape arbor presumably connected with Smith's efforts in viniculture.</p><p>2. A quarter plate tintype copy of the above daguerreotype.</p><p>3. Sixth plate daguerreotype of Sidney Smith his daughters Arabella and Julia his brother James Laurens Smith and two unidentified African American men almost certainly enslaved men. Ca. mid-1840s-1850. One of the girls is blurred because she is hold a struggling dog. Accompanied by the envelope in which the daguerreotype was discovered with penciled notation about the subjects as well as a tentative date of "1850 or thereabout."</p><p>4. Sixth plate daguerreotype of Smith's daughters Arabella and Julia pointing to a book and an unidentified object. Ca. mid-1840s-1850.</p><p>5. Sixth plate daguerreotype of Sidney Smith. Ca. 1845. Smith appears to be wearing a mourning band on his coat suggesting that the image was made following the death of his first wife Eliza in March 1845.</p><p>6. Sixth plate tintype copy of the above portrait.</p><p>7. Sixth plate tintype portrait of Maria King Smith second wife of Sidney Smith with an infant possibly William King Smith. A period copy image.</p><p>8. Sixth plate ambrotype of William King Smith son of Sidney and Maria Smith possibly as a cadet. Ca 1850s.</p><p>9. Quarter plate ambrotype of Sarah Smith sister of Sidney and James Laurens Smith aunt to Arabella and Julia. Ca 1850s-1860s.</p><p>10. Sixth plate ambrotype of Rosa Nicholes sister of Maria Smith with "Eddie" Postell possibly the Edward Postell who was killed in action in 1863 at Fort Wagner. Ca 1850s.</p><p><strong> Dr. Sidney Smith</strong></p><p>Sidney Smith was born in 1805 in or near Beaufort SC the son of William Smith a man of moderate wealth and Elizabeth Wilson Smith of Philadelphia reportedly a Quaker. Sidney was sent to Yale College and subsequently studied medicine in Ohio. His younger brother James Laurens Smith b. 1809 studied law but he apparently never practiced devoting himself instead to agriculture. Sidney Smith married Eliza Lawton in 1829. The two had several children including daughters Arabella and Julia. Smith was apparently practicing medicine in the vicinity of Robertville South Carolina as well as trying his hand at being a planter. In 1831 he appears in the Lawton Family Papers as having been paid two dollars for "expirating a Fungus Tumor from the head of Little Negro Shiloh" Inabinett 1963. His name appears in several land transactions in the upper St. Peter's Parish in Beaufort District where he experimented with various crops.</p><p>Smith's experiments with wine received wide-ranging coverage in the press. A notice in the Boston Daily Atlas of 28 December 1844 printed a report from a Savannah newspaper: "This editor of the Savannah Republican has samples of eight kinds of wine made by Dr. Sidney Smith of Robertville Beaufort District S.C. They are pure juice of the grape without the addition of any spirits whatever. One of the specimens is from the vintage of 1833 another from that of '38 and the other six from that of the present year. They differ in flavor according to the species of grape from which they were expressed … Dr. S. has on hand some 800 gallons of those wines which he finds useful for all medicinal and culinary purposes."</p><p>Smith's first wife Eliza died in 1845 at the age of 37 possibly explaining her absence from the group portrait. In 1846 Smith married Maria Ann King with whom he would have two children who survived into adulthood William King Smith b. 1846 and Walter Watson Smith b. 1849.</p><p>By 1850 Smith and most of his family had left Gravel Hill and relocated to Marietta Georgia where he acquired another plantation Rockford near Marietta. By this time Smith had acquired 74 slaves according to the 1850 Slave Schedules of the United States Census. He continued to run Gravel Hill as an absentee owner from Georgia.<br />In 1853 Smith sold Gravel Hill then comprising 700 acres and his other plantation properties in the Robertville area to John Goldwire Lawton in 1853 according to genealogical records at the Heritage Library Foundation. Smith's Gravel Hill home appears to have been on the site of present-day Gravel Hill Plantation the ca. 1910 hunting preserve near Robertville on the National Register of Historic Places. The elaborately decorated center-hall plan home as well as the town of Robertville was burned by W.T. Sherman's troops in 1865.</p><p>After the war the land was sold to Northern buyers. Newer structures were apparently built on the foundations of the original Gravel Hill around 1910 when it was refashioned as a gentleman's hunting plantation. Dr. Smith and his wife Maria died in 1856. Their sons Walter and William became wards of Smith's brother James who himself apparently died in 1865. Walter Smith was a student at the Georgia Military Institute when it closed at the time of W. T. Sherman's approach in 1864. At the age of 14 he and the other cadets were sent to guard the river crossings in the approaches to Atlanta. With his brother William Walter served in Confederate units until the end of the Civil War. Sidney Smith's sister Sarah known as "Aunt Sarah" to Walter and William Smith wrote vivid letters describing the evacuation of Marietta and her flight to Atlanta.</p><p>While no documentary evidence of the Smith family's views on slavery has been found Susan E. Geoffrey claims in her academic paper "A Southern Family in Transition 1830-1865" that Sidney and his siblings were "reasonably humane to their slaves according to the standards of their society." Geoffrey adds that Sidney's sisters Sarah and Hannah developed an interest in educating their brothers' enslaved children. Dexter's biographical sketch of Smith notes that Smith "opposed strenuously the act of nullification in South Carolina and by his personal efforts retarded the action of that State." Smith's brother James provided in his 1853 will that every tenth! child born into slavery in the estate should at age eighteen be granted freedom to be facilitated by the Colonization Society.</p><p><strong>The photographers</strong></p><p>The photographers of these images are unidentified but it appears that Smith himself may have made two of the daguerreotypes. <em>Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History</em> vol. 7 1913 notes of Smith: "He was a man of unusual mental gifts an earnest student and devoted to the community and mankind. When the art of the daguerreotype was first introduced he was a pioneer in cultivating it in the South."</p><p>Based on his interest in the "art of the daguerreotype" it is possible that Smith created the daguerreotypes himself perhaps with the aid of an assistant so he could be included in certain images most notably the group portrait. The informal group portrait shows a relaxed family posing together. Smith appears to have moved into the frame at the last moment after setting up the shot. Likewise the subjects in the Gravel Hill daguerreotype are in casual poses as if they are in a Daguerreian snapshot of the family rather than formally arranged portraits.</p><p><strong>Dating</strong></p><p>The approximate dating of the featured images has been determined based on the estimated ages of Smith's daughters Arabella and Julia who are pictured in two or perhaps three of the daguerreotypes. Arabella b. 1832 and Julia b. 1837 appear to be around the ages of twelve/thirteen and eight/nine respectively. The girls appear together in a sixth plate daguerreotype portrait and in the sixth plate group portrait of Dr. Sidney Smith his brother and two unidentified African American men almost certainly enslaved subjects. The sisters may also be the two girls in white dresses on the steps of the house in the quarter plate daguerreotype.</p><p>This dates those daguerreotypes to the mid-1840s and no later than 1850 thus making them among the very earliest photographs of a slave-holding antebellum plantation.</p><p><strong> A rare opportunity</strong></p><p>It is evident that Dr. Sidney Smith wanted to use the new art of photography to create a visual record of his plantation home at Gravel Hill and of his family and the enslaved individuals who worked for him. The daguerreotypes offered here most notably the group portrait of Smith with his brother daughters and two Black men are unique in depicting enslaved subjects posed together with their owner especially in a relatively informal setting. We are not aware of comparable images dating from the mid-to-late 1840s.<br />This exceptional collection of photographs from an identified family in the antebellum South is worthy of further research.</p><p><strong>References </strong></p><p>Dexter Franklin Bowditch. <em>Biographical Notices of Graduates of Yale College</em> 1913</p><p>Geoffrey Susan E. "A Southern Family in Transition 1830-1865" 1982 Accessed online through the Heritage Library History and Research Center in Hilton Head SC September-October 2024. Background on the Smith family is derived from this academic paper although the research center's copy is incomplete lacking numerous footnotes and bibliography. Some but not all of Geoffrey's sources have been located in the William King Smith Papers Wilson Special Collections Library UNC Chapel Hill.</p><p>1845-1850 four daguerreotypes and ca. 1855-1860 three ambrotypes plus three early tintype copy images. 10 items.</p>
186064001London UK: William Tweedie 337 Strand 1860. Small 4to. 5.25 x 7.5 in. xv 1 3-172 xi 1 pp. Woodcut-engraved frontisp. of the author still preserving tissue guard. Publisher’s ribbed plum-coloured cloth dark maroon coloured title label & price of 1 shilling 6 pence mounted front cover very minor chipping head & foot of spine slight fraying title label stamping dimmed and minor bumping to a couple corners still a VG copy w/ London UK bookseller’s label partially removed at gutter margin front pastedown. First edition first printing of the first book wholly devoted to the Underground Railroad published only in England and by an African-American/Native-American author. Mitchell was a pivotal figure in the Underground Railroad who also aided the escaped slave “Eliza†whose escape over the Ohio River ice inspired the key dramatic moment in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s pivotal Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “Eliza†was sheltered originally in the network by noted abolitionist John Rankin passed on to Mitchell who then subsequently ensured her safe passage along the network overseen by Levi Coffin 1798-1877. Ironically the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act which criminalized those aiding in the Underground Railroad to free slaves with fines of $ 1000 and six months imprisonment fueled resistance and forced Mitchell to publish this seminal work in Great Britain rather than the U.S. As a freeborn orphan Black in North Carolina Mitchell was forced into apprenticeship with a North Carolina plantation owner where he witnessed the deprivations of slavery and became inspired to aid African-American slaves to escape to Canada. From 1842-1855 he helped over 1300 slaves reach Canada from his Washington Court House Fayette County Ohio way station. This memoir recounts many anecdotes of the formerly enslaved including: one enslaved woman who died from frostbite while protecting her three children and a former slave John Mason brought Mitchell in just 19 months of that 13 year span “265 human beings whom he had been instrumental in redeeming from slavery.†Mitchell further recounts Mason’s recapture in Kentucky and later escape from New Orleans to Canada. Mitchell estimates in his book that 60000 enslaved peoples escaped into Canada on the Underground Railroad modern estimates range from 40000 to 100000. At the end of the 1850’s he moved to Toronto and began serving as a minister to African-American Baptist Free Mission congregations largely composed of freed slaves and the final section details the lives of these Canadian Black immigrants. In the final appendix he urgently pleads for a boycott of Southern cotton by Great Britain attempting to overcome resistance to the economic impact and hardship it would have on British cotton mills and related industries. Mitchell c. 1826-c.1879 was encouraged to write this historic work by W.H. Bonner A British abolitionist and had toured Britain in 1860 with William Howard Day and British abolitionist George Thompson to oppose the condition of slavery before the outbreak of the Civil War. This work is quite scarce with only 2 copies at auction in the last 50 years and both those appear to have been the 2nd edition which removed the hyphen in “Under-Ground†extended the title and a couple other revisions. William Tweedie, 337, Strand, hardcover
185332820729<p>Two sixth-plate daguerreotypes cased together. Left: nurse and child "Bradford & Ellen Sherwood his nurse" right: parents "Jonathan P. Harrison & his wife Caroline Denny Harrison". White family's cheeks are hand-tinted and the baby's dress is hand-colored. Some spots edges tarnished.</p><p><strong>A tremendous pair.</strong> Jonathan P. Harrison born 23 December 1829 and his wife Caroline Denny Harrison born c. 1834 are in one portrait while their son Bradford born c. 1853 and his black nurse Ellen Sherwood are in the other.</p><p>The Harrison family moved from Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore to Texas in the 1850s to pursue ranching and farming opportunities. According to the U.S. Census in 1860 the family lived in Corpus Christi Texas with Jonathan reported as 29 years old Caroline 26 and Bradford 7 indicating a date of 1853 for this photograph.</p><p>The Harrisons and Dennys were prominent Maryland and Texas families. Jonathan served with the 1st Texas Cavalry during the Civil War. Identified daguerreotype portraits of slaves are rare and linked pairs such as this set are very rare. It is conceivable that Ellen Sherwood was a free black but given the status of the Harrison and Denny families it seems probable that she was a slave.</p><p>This splendid pair of photographs vividly demonstrates the complexity of black-white relationships in the antebellum South.</p><p><strong>Provenance: "Jonathan P. Harrison & his wife Caroline Denny Harrison / Their child Bradford & Ellen Sherwood his nurse" identified in a manuscript note beneath the right daguerreotype in the hand of Jonathan's niece Patty Belle Tilghman 1851-1931.</strong> See Hanson <em>Old Kent: The Eastern Shore of Maryland</em> p. 96.</p>
180158147<p>ELOQUENT ARGUMENT FOR ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE BY A WEST INDIES SLAVE OWNER - WITH A DESCRIPTION OF SUGAR PLANTATIONS</p><p>Full title: 'Letters on the Cultivation of the Otaheite Cane; the Manufacture of Sugar and Rum; the Saving of Molasses; the Care and Preservation of Stock; with the Attention and Anxiety which is due to Negroes. To these Topics are added a few other Particulars analogous to the Subject of the Letters; and also Speech on the Slave Trade the most important Feature in West Indian Cultivation.'</p><p>first edition 8vo. xvi 248 248 1 blank 249-290 291-301 prospectus with detailed contents for book on Leeward Islands 1 blankpp large folding table at p.247 modern quarter rich tan calf spine panelled by raised bands with the panels richly gilt tooled red morocco title label marbled sides scattered foxing some light old water staining to lower and fore margins most noticeable in gatherings B and L and never obtrusive else a nice copy in a very handsome binding.</p><p>SABIN 9850 Goldsmiths'-Kress no. 18156.4 Rare Books Hub records none at auction. <br />Clement Caines d. 1817-1822 trained as a barrister in London inherited his family's sugar plantations in St. Kitts around 1778 and became the largest slave owner in the island. In the General Assembly of the Leeward Islands in 1798 he advocated the abolition of the slave trade better treatment for enslaved workers and an end to the slave trade. He wrote extensively on the desirability of humane treatment for plantation slaves and the abolition of the slave trade as well as political topics including his support for the Embargo. <br />The first part of this book effectively a detailed description the workings of a West Indian sugar cane plantation benefits from Caines's first hand experience of the topic. The second part p.249-288 contains his 'Speech on the Slave Trade' delivered to the General Assembly of the Leeward Islands in March 1798 which was discussing a resolution that the abolition of slave trade 'would be oppressive to the British planter destructive to the sugar colonies and consequently to the British Revenue and of no benefit to the Africans themselves'. Caines unambiguously stated "the slave-trade ought to be abolished. It ought to be abolished immediately. It ought immediately to be abolished for the sake and benefit of the planter". Caines argued that the slave trade was injurious not only to the slaves but to their owners. Having observed the death rates from exposure overwork and disease involved in forest clearing he bluntly stated that slave labour "cements with blood the walls of every sugar-work that is raised where forests grew". He stated that his business had "never been delegated to others. The slaves who were committed to my care performed their work under my own eyes. My time was passed with them and my attention devoted to them and their condition. I could not fail then to become acquainted with their wants and sufferings - to remark their sickness disability and premature decay: - the diseases among their men the sterility of their women and the death among their children". He directly challenged his hearers for their calculation "that a hardy African can be purchased for less than a Creole infant can be reared" and their consequent failure to provide adequate housing for mothers and children. He reports that about a quarter of newly arrived slaves on discovering their situation "pine and droop linger rather than live and shortly sink into the grave". Only an end to the importation of new slaves could disrupt the planters' callous calculation that they could "run our Negroes for two or three years" in the certainty that they could be then be replaced. Caines's familiarity with the actuality of slave life and his eloquent and direct illustration of it give this work an especial power.</p><p><br />Interestingly in 1811 Caines wrote to both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison sending copies of his publications vide https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-03-02-0394 .</p> Printed for Messrs Robinson hardcover
182012624Virginia and Alabama 1820. Eight manuscript documents totaling sixteen pages. Typical mailing folds and handling wear. Very good. Manuscript records from an extraordinary court case in modern-day West Virginia in which a free person of color named Caesar Freeman also known as Ceasar Cesar or Black Cesar and his family defended themselves and then sued to re-establish their own freedom over twenty years after being manumitted by their owner who had attempted to use them as collateral for a loan after their manumission. The case took place in Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties in West Virginia. Pocahontas County is located on the Virginia-West Virginia border and at the time of these documents was located in Virginia; Greenbrier County is a bit further west. A few of these documents emanate from or relate to Franklin County Alabama where one of the deponents had moved by the time of the legal proceedings.<br /> <br /> The case is detailed in a small pamphlet entitled Ceasar Mountain: Slavery and Freedom in Western Virginia by John Cohassey published in 2016. The opening paragraphs of said pamphlet provide excellent background on the case: “In Pocahontas County West Virginia lore tells of an 18th century legal feud between landowners George Massingbird and Thomas McCarty. In 1796 Massingbird secured a loan from McCarty. Thirty-two days after entering the contract and in need of collateral Massingbird claimed that his freed slaves – Cesar and family – were still his property. Nearly two decades later Massingbird remained indebted to McCarty who demanding final payment sought ownership of the Ceasar Freeman family. From the outset of this financial arrangement the Freemans served as collateral for a loan that Massingbird had intended to pay without likely expecting that the transaction would jeopardize the family’s freedom. When legally threatened to make the final payment Massingbird stated truthfully in a deposition that he had freed Caesar and family after the date of his initial loan. A Virginia statute stipulated that any slave manumitted after the date of a contract was not subject to reenslavement. But at this point Massingbird’s motivation for changing his story likely had more to do with his preventing McCarty‘s claim over the Freemans than to settle a debt that threatened him with serious legal consequences. Without money to pay McCarty upon the deadline of the debt Massingbird changed his story once again – that Cesar and family had not been freed after the contract. This untruthful claim as in the initial loan now placed the burden on the Freemans to prove their status as free persons of color. Assisted financially by local whites Ceasar and family won their case. Learning that Massingbird had on two occasions claimed them as collateral the Freemans sued both Massingbird and McCarty. Victorious in court the Freemans were awarded land in a region where they once were slaves – while the name of a nearby mountain was reputedly taken from their respected patriarch.†The mountain referred to here is known as Caesar Mountain in Pocahontas County.<br /> <br /> The present documents emanate from the case in 1819-20.  Two of the earliest documents dated in October and November 1819 relate to McCarty’s suit against Massingbird and mainly pertain to making sure Caesar and his family remain in the state. This included the jailing of Caesar and Sarah’s daughter Nancy Ware whom Massingbird apparently still claimed as a slave. One chief aspect of the importance of these documents lies in the fact that Caesar and his entire family are listed by name as such: “Caesar Sarah his wife Nancy Adam Zachariah John Esther Jim Sally Abraham Elizabeth Martha & Rebecca Children of Caesar and Sarah who are persons of colour.†Also of particular interest is that one of the documents appears to be signed by both Caesar and his daughter Nancy with their marks the day after Nancy was released from jail.<br /> <br /> In the remaining six documents Caesar and his family as well as defendant McCarty work through the Virginia and Alabama courts to secure a deposition from James J. Mayers a trustee of the Massingbird-McCarty agreement which supposedly still held the Freeman family in bondage. These documents are dated between July 1819 and February 1820. The earliest of these documents is a summons for Massingbird McCarty and Mayers to appear in Greenbrier County court “to answer a bill exhibited against them by Caesar and Sarah his wife as well as their adult children…who are permitted to sue in forma pauperis.†This is an extraordinary document encapsulating the right of free persons of color to sue their former owners and others in court in Virginia in 1819 and representing the Freemans’ fight for their continued freedom. The next document dated October 29 1819 contains testimony from George Massingbird confirming that “the Petitioners the Freemans were emancipated by your respondent Massingbird prior to the contract made by your respondent with his codefendant McCarty….†Finally the truth from Massingbird. In the third document dated the same day the trustee James Mayers asks to be dismissed from the case agreeing to all that was said by Massingbird in court.<br /> <br /> This was not enough for the courts or perhaps for one of the defendants Thomas McCarty. The final three documents dated between February and April 1820 further pertain to securing testimony from Mayers in the case. On February 21 1820 Virginia clerk John A. North addresses a one-page partially-printed form completed in manuscript to “any two Justices of the Peace for Franklin County State of Alabama.†The document was sent “on behalf of Thomas McCarty Defendant as of Caesar & other persons of colour Plaintiffs who are permitted to sue in forma pauperis.†The intentionof the document was to seek the help of Alabama officials in “examining whatever witnesses†they might have in the case. The next document is dated two days later and sent from McCarty to Caesar. Here McCarty informs “Black Caesar†that he intends to depose Mayers in Alabama on April 24 and that the deposition shall “bee red as evidence in the Chancery Court in a suit where you are plaintiff and myself and others are defendants.†Again a rare instance in which a white defendant writes to a Black plaintiff in the antebellum South involving the freedom of the latter.<br /> <br /> The final document chock full of detail on four folio pages contains the substance of Mayers’ deposition indeed given on April 24 1820. Here Mayers discloses all he knows of Massingbird’s contrary claims involving the case including the fact that Massingbird told him two contradictory stories about the Freeman’s manumission. Mayers professes that after Massingbird told him the whole truth of the matter he was “no little surprized at this declaration after what had taken place when application was made to draw the trust deed.†Sadly these four pages constitute the majority of Mayers’ testimony but seem to end mid-sentence leaving the remainder of his testimony to the vagaries of time. Still the most important part of the story is told here: Massingbird emancipated Caesar and then lied about it when he couldn’t pay his debts endangering the freedom of an entire family in the interest of cold hard cash.<br /> <br /> According to Cohassey’s 2016 pamphlet this testimony was “read aloud in court†and “no doubt revealed Massingbird’s duplicity in the matter.†Eventually Caesar and his family won the court case. Afterwards Massingbird deeded over 400 acres of land in Pocahontas County to the Freemans which apparently included Caesar Mountain. The Freemans lived out their remaining years as free people recorded in local tax lists between 1825 and 1843. unknown
18503976Havana 1850. Good. 138pp. Folio. Stitched with remnants of leather binding along spine. A few blank leaves scattered throughout. Dampstaining and moisture damage at upper fore-edge of scattered leaves slightly affecting text. Moderate offsetting occasional ink burn. Light edge wear and tanning scattered foxing. An extensive list of slave owners in Cuba in the mid-19th century who were issued cedulas for their human property. Cedulas were integral documents for the identification and transportation of enslaved people in the bureaucracy of colonial Cuba and were usually required by the government. In the present manuscript the race and sex of the slaves being issued documents are usually identified -- Negra Negro mulata mulato Chino China e.g. -- though some are just entered as esclavos and there are several entries noted as dotaciones that is complements usually large of slaves on a plantation. The names of the owners are grouped alphabetically according to their first names generally though not in any strict order and the leaves of the manuscript are sometimes bound out of order. Often there are multiple listings of an owner most likely one for each slave in need of a cedula and in all there are approximately 2500 or more separate listings. The first leaf appears to be a model for the cedulas that were being issued to the listed slaveholders with dashes where the information on the slaves and slave owners is to be filled in. The entire document has the appearance of an index with numbers at the right side of each page indicating perhaps the page numbers in the master ledger where the original entry was made. Overall a fascinating and significant document. unknown
1807182125London: printed by George Eyre and Andrew Strahan 1807. The African Slave Trade. is hereby utterly abolished prohibited and declared to be unlawful First edition of one of the most consequential acts of legislation in world history abolishing the slave trade within the British Empire. The Act the culmination of many years of campaigning by British abolitionists ended two centuries in which Britain took the pre-eminent role in the transatlantic slave traffic. The act paved the way for other European empires to abolish the trade and for Britain to use its navy to intercept slave ships which effectively ended the transatlantic slave trade by the latter half of the century. However the act did not end slavery in the British Empire which did not follow until 1833. Parliamentary acts were issued individually and in collected format printed from the same type. This copy includes the full acts for 1807 comprising the only session of the Third Parliament with the first session of the Fourth the second session was held in 1808 together with the separately published report on vaccination. It was bound for use by the civic authorities of the town of Elgin in Scotland. 3 parts in 1 vol. folio 289 x 181 mm pp. 16 466 1; 14 578 2 blank; 16. Contemporary sprinkled calf twin red and green morocco labels "Town of Elgin Acts of Parliament / 1807" edges speckled blue. Pencilled notation at head of title page. Neatly restored at extremities very minor foxing and finger-soiling to contents. A very good copy. unknown
1860372448New York: Horace Greeley & Co 1860. 146pp. 8vo. Stitched self wrappers. Toned title a bit tattered at edges scattered minor staining. 146pp. 8vo. In 1852 the Lemmon family took a ship from Virginia to New York along with eight enslaved people planning to embark immediately on another ship for New Orleans. With slavery abolished in New York the slaves were freed by a writ of habeas corpus. Chief Justice Paine upheld the writ and in 1860 the case went to the court of appeals where the original judgment was overturned to preserve peace in the Union. The case would likely have been considered by the Supreme Court if not for secession and the outbreak of the Civil War.<br /> <br /> "The fullest legal examination of slave transit and comity before the Civil War . One of the most extreme examples of hostility to slavery in Northern courts . pushed the nation one step closer to Civil War" Finkelman Slavery in the Courtroom pages 56-57. Cohen 11900; Library Co. Afro-Americana 7104; Sabin 40003; Work page 346 Horace Greeley & Co unknown
186412816N.p. 1864. Lithograph 14.5 x 20.5 inches. Noticeable toning small areas of light discoloration along top margin short closed tear to left edge minor dust-soiling numerous creases and wrinkles. About very good. A dramatic political cartoon issued during the Civil War and satirizing the dangerous influence of those who argue a compromise on slavery or an easy solution to the war. The work was likely issued in the midst of the 1860 but more likely the 1864 presidential election campaign. The central image of the lithograph involves a three-headed snake -- labeled "The People's Party" and emerging from the American "South" personified by a moss-covered swamp -- which is wrapped around the length of a large tree labeled "Slavery." Each snake vocalizes a different misleading message about the issue of slavery and compromise seemingly aligned with political entities such as the Peace Party and the Copperheads. The messages from each snake head read respectively "Extend Slavery over the Northern States and the Rebellion will be over in 60 days;" "Persevere till after election and then we will give you all you ask;" and "'Support the President' - but oppose everything he may do to crush the Rebellion." This latter message indicates the author of the work supported President Lincoln. The North is personified in the background at left by a depiction of the U.S. Capitol Building. The central image of the lithograph carries echoes of the story of the Book of Genesis with the involvement of a deceptive serpent amid the tree of life.<br /> <br /> The lithograph is signed in the stone at bottom right reading simply "Brooks." Though the work came to us proposing the identify of the artist as Reuben Brooks 1794-1870 we were ultimately unable to confirm this authorship. The lack of an imprint in the lithograph also precludes easy research and identification. In fact the rarity of the lithograph makes it difficult to expound much more about it at all. OCLC reports just a single copy at the Peabody Essex Museum and it is not listed in Weitenkampf or Reilly. Given its rarity and content the present lithograph offers an outstanding opportunity for further research and contextualization. unknown
18651260191865. First Edition. CONSTITUTION. Journal of the House of Delegates of the State of Virginia. for the Session of 18645. Alexandria: D. Turner 1865. Octavo original front printed wrapper respined renewed rear wrapper original string stitching; pp. 1-3 4-83 1. Housed in a custom chemise and clamshell box. $4500.First edition one of 500 copies of the momentous Journal featuring its February 9 1865 entry on the Alexandria Virginia government's passage of the 13th Amendment mere days after the U.S. Congress the first of the four Unionist southern states to pass the Amendment also featuring the governor's Message noting: ""though we have in inherited from our fathers of the revolution the blessings of a great nation yet they also left to us an inheritance of African slavery which has proved a bitter dreg in our cup of freedom"" a vital record of forces for constitutional change near the end of the Civil War.Soon after the 1860 election amidst southern secession ""the great questions of union or disunion war or peace hung in the balance. Probably the crucial weight on the scale was Virginia as long as the federal government did not seek to coerce the states Virginia secessionists were unable to achieve a majority. When Lincoln responded with force to the attack on Fort Sumter however the vote in Virginia went in favor of secession."" Subsequently a Virginia convention ""met in Wheeling on May 13 1861 it elected as Governor Francis Pierpont a western Virginian and ardent Unionist and arranged for the creation of a legislature to replace the body sitting in Richmond in July 1861 the new legislature met at the 'Restored Virginia' capital of Wheeling in a special session called by Pierpont."" Against its ""claim to represent a majority of Virginians"" a new state of West Virginia was created in 1863 and Pierpont's government moved to Alexandria to govern areas of Virginia under Union occupation Harrison Lawfulness of the Reconstruction Amendments 380-83.Scholars observe that the 13th Amendment its fellow amendments and Reconstruction as ""both a political process made possible by military successes and constitutional thought grew from wartime as well as post-Appomattox developments"" Hyman and Wiecek Equal Justice 247. This rare first edition of Journal of the House of Delegates substantiates that in documenting passage of the 13th Amendment by Pierpont's Virginia government mere days after the U.S. Congress passed the Amendment on January 31 1865. With that Virginia became the first of the four Unionist southern states that ratified the 13th Amendment. Of those Louisiana followed on February 17 with Arkansas and Tennessee that April. The 13th Amendment is the focus of the Journal's entry for February 9 1865 which states: ""Mr. Brownley called up Senate bill No. 12 entitled 'An Act to ratify the joint resolution of Congress passed January 31 1865 proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.' The bill was read the first and second time and the rules were suspended and the bill read the third time and the bill passed."" Also notable herein is the complete printing of Governor Pierpont's opening Message where he notes: ""though we inherited from our fathers of the revolution the blessings of a great nation yet they also left to us an inheritance of African slavery which has proved a bitter dreg in our cup of freedom."" He speaks at length of the rights due people of color and the abolition of laws such as those that prohibit ""negro testimony"" or proscribe a ""different punishment for persons of African dissent"" from that of ""white persons.""""The legislature met for its second session on December 5 1864 The governor's message was a long and important document and indicated the changes of opinion that the war was bringing about. Pierpont gave his views upon the all-important negro question. He congratulated the constitutional convention which had met in the spring on the abolition of slavery in Virginia and advocated sweeping changes in the laws concerning negroes. The act prescribing different punishments for blacks should he said be altered in accordance with the amended constitution as well as the law for apprenticing them. The law prohibiting the education of negroes should be abolished His language was on the whole very moderate. He advised the legalizing of the marital relations of negroes and most important the establishment of public schools Notwithstanding the governor's advice no acts of great importance passed the legislature On February 9 1865 the assembly ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It adjourned on March 7"" Eckenrode Political History of Virginia During the Reconstruction. Faint ""U.N.C. Duplicate"" stamp to front wrapper.Text fine; just a bit of faint soiling and a tide line to fragile front wrapper. An excellent copy of this elusive item. unknown
187312720Cuba 1873. Twelve manuscript documents on folio sheets approximately 8.5 x 12.5 inches all with official rubber-stamped seal. Small pinholes along left margin light wear occasional chipping to edges some ink bleed and light damp staining. Overall very good. A collection of documents recording the liberation or attempted liberation of numerous men women teenagers and a child from enslavement. The child is but seven years old while the remaining slaves range from fifteen to fifty-seven years old. The slave trade ended in Cuba around 1867 but the practice of owning slaves remained legal until 1880 and then was abolished completely by Spanish decree in 1886. Cuba was the penultimate country to outlaw slavery in the western hemisphere beating Brazil to formal abolishment by two years. Even before the official abolition of slavery in Cuba African or criollo slaves were manumitted by a variety of owners and at various costs as evidenced here especially after the practice of importing Chinese indentured servants began. Each of the present documents names the slaveholder and the slave granted "libertad" along with the cost in escudos or pesetas of that liberty. The slaves liberated here are as follows:<br /> <br /> 1 Luis criollo 7 years old for the sum of 28 pesos<br /> <br /> 2 Maria Antonia part criolla 20 years old for the sum of 2500 pesetas<br /> <br /> 3 Catalina morena de Africa 41 years old for c.200 pesetas<br /> <br /> 4 Lorenzo moreno criollo 21 years old for 2500 pesetas<br /> <br /> 5 Lucia morena criolla 15 years old for 320 pesos or 1600 pesetas<br /> <br /> 6 Frigidae "negro.de Africae" 56 years old<br /> <br /> 7 Augusto criollo 19 years old for 1750 pesetas<br /> <br /> 8 Marta criolla 16 years old for 1621 pesetas<br /> <br /> 9 Gil moreno de Africa 57 years old for 1500 pesos<br /> <br /> 10 Carmita morena criolla 20 years old for 1750 pesetas<br /> <br /> 11 Augustina Prieto morena criolla 30 years old for 1750 pesetas<br /> <br /> 12 Edwigio 39 criolla; Lazara 36 criolla; and Maria Leoncia 15 criolla for 2000 pesetas.<br /> <br /> These Cuban slave manumissions are offered with one 1844 manumission document liberating a slave in Spain totaling two pages and measuring about 8.5 x 13.5 inches. The document also has three rubber-stamped official seals at the head noting Isabella II. This document appears to free slave Nicolas 25 years old for the sum of 400 pesos and is signed November 5 1844. unknown
184524737<p>Mary B. Selden was the grandmother of Eleanor Love Selden who married John Augustine Washington III in 1843. She regrets not being able to furnish Washington with the services of one of her slaves as a stacker for the upcoming wheat harvest.</p><p>Still a faithful employee West Ford worked for the Washington family well into the nineteenth century including delivering this letter.</p><p>The letter includes a list of two dozen slaves written in pencil by John Augustine Washington III.</p><p><strong>SLAVERY. MOUNT VERNON. WEST FORD. MARY BOWLES ARMISTEAD SELDEN.</strong> Autograph Letter Signed to John Augustine Washington III hand delivered by West Ford; <strong>JOHN AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON III</strong>. Autograph List of Slaves. Single folio leaf with autograph address on verso. Alexandria Virginia 1845.</p><p><strong>Complete Transcript</strong></p><p><em>My dear Augustine</em></p><p><em> I am very sorry to be unable to render you the service you require. I have a very fine stacker but he is hired by the year to M<u>r</u> Young as I did not expect to have employment enough for him at M<u>t</u> Ida. Another year if you wish it you can have him I receive very small wages for him and as a stacker I have never known any one equal to him.</em></p><p><em>I am very sorry to hear that Nelly is sick. I hope she will be well enough to come up and meet the bridal party on thursday.</em><em> I received a letter from Eliza to day in which she says they will be at M<u>t</u> Ida that day but will bring no company with them. It will give great pleasure to them and to me if M<u>rs</u> Washington</em><em> Nelly and yourself will come up on that day. M<u>rs</u> Lippitt</em><em> will have a room ready for any of the party that will favour her with their company she must by no means be left behind.</em></p><p><em> Most truly and affectionately / yrs</em></p><p><em>M. B. Selden</em></p><p><2></p><p>Address: <em>John A. Washington Esq. / M<u>t</u> Vernon / By West Ford</em></p><p>Docketing by John Augustine Washington III: <em>Mrs. M. B. Selden</em></p><p>List of slaves in pencil by John Augustine Washington III:</p><p><em>Phil</em> b. 1790</p><p><em>Hannah</em> b. 1826</p><p><em>Gabe</em> b. 1820 <em>Eliza</em> b. 1811</p><p><em>Ned</em> b. 1827 <em>Jim</em> Michum b. 1795</p><p><em>Edmund</em> b. 1827 <em>John</em> b. 1833</p><p><em>Betty</em> b. 1833 <em>Mary</em> b. 1819</p><p><em>West</em> <em>Fanny</em> "Belongs to my wife"</p><p><em>Sarah </em> b. 1809 <em>Dennis</em> b. 1838</p><p><em>Hannah</em> <em>Nelly</em> b. 1836</p><p><em>William</em> b. 1830 <em>Jim</em> Starks b. 1805</p><p><em>Joe</em> b. 1832 <em>Sally</em> b. 1827</p><p><em>Ephraim</em> b. 1834 <em>Tom</em> b. 1835 "bound to me till Oct 1856"</p><p><em>West</em> b. 1838</p><p><em>Jesse</em> b. 1785</p><p><strong>Historical Background</strong></p><p>Farmers in mid-nineteenth-century Virginia typically planted winter wheat in September and October and harvested it in the following June. After wheat had been cut a stacker tied the wheat into bundles and piled the bundles in shocks to dry in the field. After the shocks dried they would be stored in a barn or carefully built stack capped with grass to shed the rain until threshing time. Even after Cyrus McCormick developed his mechanical grain reaper in the 1830s men needed to follow the machine to bundle and stack the wheat. Building a good stack was an important skill and those workers free or enslaved who knew how to do so were very valuable at harvest time.</p><p><strong>Mary Bowles Armistead Alexander Selden</strong> 1783-1846 was born in Hanover Virginia. She married Charles Alexander Jr. 1772-1812 with whom she had five children including Louisa Elizabeth Fontaine Alexander 1802-1827. After her first husband's death she married Dr. Wilson Cary Selden 1761-1835. She was his third wife and they had three children. By his first wife Dr. Selden was the father of Wilson Cary Selden Jr. 1796-1843. In 1822 Wilson Cary Selden Jr. married Louisa Elizabeth Fontaine Alexander and they became the parents of Eleanor Love Selden 1824-1860 who married John A. Washington III. Thus Mary Bowles Selden was both the grandmother and step-grandmother of Eleanor Nelly Washington. At the time she wrote this letter she was living at Mount Ida a 6000-acre plantation that stretched along two miles of the Potomac River north of Alexandria Virginia and fewer than ten miles from Mount Vernon. Her first husband built the neoclassical mansion of Mount Ida in 1808.</p><p><strong>John Augustine Washington III</strong> 1821-1861 was born in Blakeley West Virginia the son of John Augustine Washington II and Jane Charlotte Blackburn Washington and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1840. His father inherited George Washington's Mount Vernon estate in 1829 but it passed to his wife at his death in 1832. In 1841 Augustine Washington proposed to manage Mount Vernon for his mother. When she died in 1855 the plantation passed to him. In 1858 after offering the property to both the federal government and to the State of Virginia he sold 200 acres of the Mount Vernon estate including the mansion outbuildings and family tomb to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association for $200000. Washington married Eleanor Nelly Love Selden 1824-1860 in 1843 and they had seven children. In 1860 he owned 22 slaves. In 1861 Washington joined the Confederate Army as a lieutenant colonel and served as an aide-de-camp to General Robert E. Lee. He was killed while conducting reconnaissance at the Battle of Cheat Mountain in September 1861.</p><p><strong>West Ford</strong> ca. 1784-1863 was born on the Bushfield Plantation in Westmoreland County Virginia to an enslaved woman owned by George Washington's brother John Augustine Washington. When George Washington visited West Ford was his personal attendant. When John Augustine Washington's widow Hannah died in 1802 she granted Ford his freedom at age 21. Bushrod Washington George Washington's nephew and heir to Mount Vernon freed Ford in 1806 and Ford continued working for the Washington family. According to family oral history Ford's mother Venus told her mistress Hannah Washington that he was George Washington's son. Nearly all historians doubt the claim though one of Washington's nephews certainly could have been the father.</p><p>In 1812 West Ford married Priscella Bell a free woman. Their four children—William Daniel Jane and Julia—were educated on the Mount Vernon Plantation despite laws which restricted the instruction of African Americans. When Bushrod Washington died in 1829 he willed 160 acres of land adjacent to Mount Vernon to West Ford who continued to live on the Mount Vernon estate.</p><p>Over the next several years West Ford was frequently highlighted in the media making his private life a matter of public record. In 1850 two Virginia newspapers—the <em>Alexandria Gazette</em> and the <em>Virginia Advertiser</em>—carried articles describing his prestigious position and authority at Mount Vernon. In 1857 an entry in the Fairfax County Deed Books noted that Ford divided his land among his four children. In 1858 Ford was sketched a second time this time by historian and artist Benson Lossing. In March 1859 <em>Harper's New Monthly Magazine</em> published Lossing's feature on Mount Vernon and included his sketch of Ford. Ford told the reporter of his property on Little Hunting Creek where he planned to retire after the Washington estate was no longer in the Washington family.</p><p>In June 1863 an ailing West Ford was brought back to the Mount Vernon estate by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. The association cared for West Ford until his death on July 20 1863.</p><p><strong>Condition</strong></p><p>Foxing and show through particularly near the signature.</p>
1827163198London: Printed for the London Society for the Mitigation and Abolition of Slavery in the British Dominions 1827-32. A new age of abolitionist agitation First collected editions being the full run under its original title of Zachary Macaulay's abolitionist magazine the leading organ of British abolitionist thought and campaigning. It was afterwards renamed the Anti-Slavery Reporter and has lasted under changing titles to this day. The journal "systematically collected information on the abuses of slavery" ODNB. "Highlighting the rise of abolitionist petition drives antislavery discussions in church and government venues and debates over unfree labor throughout the empire the paper celebrated a new age of abolitionist agitation" Newman pp. 44-45. The volumes collect the monthly issues from June 1825 to December 1831 with collective title pages and contents tables. 4 vols. octavo 216 x 129 mm. Contemporary half calf rebacked black morocco labels marbled sides edges speckled brown. Wear at extremities inner hinges reinforced a little browned and spotted: still very good copies. Richard S. Newman Abolitionism: A Very Short Introduction 2018. unknown
1807184142London: Printed by George Eyre and Andrew Strahan 1807. The African Slave Trade. is hereby utterly abolished prohibited and declared to be unlawful First edition of one of the most consequential acts of legislation in world history abolishing the slave trade within the British Empire. This copy is a well-preserved example of the separate folio printing. From 1807 enslaved persons could no longer be bought or sold within the British Empire while the Royal Navy was empowered to target vessels engaged in slave transportation a task it took up with vigour. Parliamentary acts were issued in collected annual volumes and as individual pamphlets all printed from the same type. As King's Printers Eyre & Strahan held the exclusive rights to publish and sell parliamentary statutes and this pamphlet would have been among those sold at their offices near Fleet Street. Folio 319 x 197 mm pp. 317-326 2. Woodcut headpiece. Stab-sewn as issued edges uncut. Minor offsetting else a near-fine copy. unknown
185723389.07<p><strong>Rare New York Senate Print of Proposed State Law to Combat the <em>Dred Scott</em> Decision</strong></p><p>"<em>Every slave … who shall come or be brought or be involuntarily in this state shall be free.</em>"</p><p>SLAVERY AND ABOLITION—NEW YORK STATE.</p><p>New York Senate. "An Act To secure Freedom to all persons within this State" Edward M. Madden April 9 1857 Passed the Assembly on April 17; failed in the Senate. Printed with numbered lines for the use of the Senate. 1 p. 6.5 x 11.5 in. </p><p><strong>Excerpts</strong></p><p>"<em>Neither descent near or remote from an African…nor color of skin shall disqualify any person for being or prevent any person from becoming a citizen of this state; nor deprive such person of the rights and privileges of a citizen thereof.</em>"</p><p>"<em>Every person who shall hold or attempt to hold in this state in slavery…under any pretence or for any time however short shall be deemed guilty of felony and on conviction thereof shall be confined in the state prison at hard labor for a term not less than two nor more than ten years.</em>"</p><p><strong>Historical Background</strong></p><p>In 1799 the New York legislature passed "An Act for the gradual abolition of slavery" that indentured and would eventually free slave children born after July 4 1799. In 1817 it passed a law freeing those slaves in 1827. But non-residents and part-time residents could still bring their slaves into the state temporarily.</p><p>On March 14 1857 New York Assemblyman Samuel A. Foot introduced resolutions declaring that the U.S. Supreme Court through its decision in <em>Dred Scott v. Sanford</em> "has in effect declared slavery to be national" and calling for the creation of a joint committee of three senators and five assemblymen to "consider and report what measures if any the Legislature of this State ought to adopt to protect the constitutional rights of her citizens." The resolution passed by a vote of 49-24 and the Senate concurred on April 2.</p><p>On April 9 Edward M. Madden introduced this bill in the Senate. Simultaneously Foot introduced this bill #24129 and three resolutions #23389.08 in the Assembly. Eight days later the Assembly with 81 Republicans 38 Democrats and 8 American Party members passed the bill 72 to 38. In the Senate with 17 Republicans 9 American Party members Know Nothings and 4 Democrats attempts to move the bill to the Committee of the Whole were evenly divided. Lacking the two-thirds majority required for this procedure the bill died.</p><p>Very similar language appeared in an 1859 bill which also failed; New York passed no new Personal Liberty Law during the decade before the Civil War.</p><p>The New York Senate had thirty-two members in 1857 so it is likely no more than fifty copies of this bill were printed for Senate consideration. We can find no evidence that any other copies have survived.</p><p><strong>Edward M. Madden</strong> 1818-1885 was born in Orange County New York and began work at a cotton factory at age nine. He worked as a merchant and then opened a saw factory in Middletown. He entered politics as a Democrat and was a delegate to the 1852 Democratic state convention. He joined the new Republican Party and served as a member of the New York Senate in 1856-1857 1872-1873 1875 and 1880-1881. He also served as a delegate to the 1864 and 1876 Republican National Conventions.</p>
189012893N.p. likely London 1890. Lithograph on silk handkerchief approximately 24 x 24 inches with additional lithographed scene printed around the outer margins in brown and blue ink. Previously matted and framed with resultant edge wear and adhesive staining around margins. Old folds some foxing and staining in image area. Overall good plus condition. A very rare and impactful 19th-century British lithograph-on-lithograph the original a view of London's Crystal Palace with the addition of a satirical scene detailing the history of British colonialist activities in Africa. The overall scene is presented in four linear parts one across each mostly blank margin of the Crystal Palace scene; interestingly the two lithographs overlap each other at a few places along the short edge. The scene seems to begin with the part labeled "African Slave Trade" picturing two slave traders leading a chained procession of African slaves men women and children. The next edge is labeled "The Rescue" and shows three British soldiers including one bagpiper freeing the slaves who are pictured free of their chains and dancing and now detaining the two slave traders in chains. <br /> <br /> The third panel pictures two groups of Africans -- one group running to a rum dealer and another group listening to a man holding a book presumably a missionary preacher. This scene seems to allude to British activities in the West Indies. The final panel labeled "Civilization" is the most varied. It pictures a couple of British railway agents under the banner "Change for Timbuctoo;" a group of African men in Western garb one holding a sign reading "African Times;" an African man riding a bicycle; and a family scene of a man kneeling in front of a seated woman while he kisses her hand and a young man in the background sells matches. How civilized indeed. Each corner of the work is emblazoned with a British lion and the Union Jack amidst a field of African foliage and West Indian palm trees. The scene seems to celebrate the effects of British colonialism while ignoring the country's own history as slaveholders and traffickers the previous century.<br /> <br /> "The border panels of this printed cotton handkerchief caricature the impact of British colonial policy on Africa. It was probably produced at the end of the 19th century at a period when European colonial rule led to increasing social and political intervention in African societies. It illustrates the rescue of a group of slaves by a British military detachment and their subsequent 'westernization' through the introduction of European goods and commodities." This description comes from the online description of the only other example of this scene we can find which resides at the National Maritime Museum NMM at Greenwich London. The NMM example is printed on a blank cotton handkerchief in brown and red and is slightly smaller on one side than our example. Their dating is likely correct if for nothing else because of the depiction of a chain-driven bicycle which became popular in the UK in the 1890s. unknown
183384791Lexington KY: Abraham Skillman 1833. First Edition. First printing. 12mo 18.5cm; original brown cloth-covered boards; viii207pp. Respined to style with facsimile printed spine label; Bookplate of the Young Men's Christian Institute New Haven to front pastedown; bookseller's ticket Williams' Bookstore Under the Old South Meeting House Boston at base of front flyleaf; pencil signature faded and illegible to front endpaper. Complete sound and Good. <br /> <br /> One of a tiny number of pre-Civil War abolitionist texts to have been written by a Virginia author. Paxton 1784-1868 was a Presbyterian minister born in Rockbridge County Virginia and educated at Princeton Theological Seminary; it is likely his mentorship there under Charles Hodge helped develop Paxton's antislavery sentiments. In 1826 after publishing an essay asserting the institution of slavery to be incompatible with the teachings of the Bible Paxton was expelled from his pastorship of Cumberland Presbyterian Church near Farmville in south-central Virginia. The present text addressed to his former congregation recounts the events of his expulsion reprints the essay in question and adds a series of epistolary essays supporting his theological position in oppostion to slavery. <br /> <br /> The existence of any abolitionist sentiment during this period in Virginia's history is remarkable in itself. For a native-born minister to willfully preach the gospel of antislavery even the relatively conservative version of abolitionism professed by Paxton before a congregation whose sentiments on the subject would have been diametrically opposed - and which doubtless included a number of slaveholding families - must have amounted to apostasy in some congregants' eyes. By publishing the present work Paxton essentially doubled down on his unpopular beliefs making him in this cataloguer's eyes a rather remarkable figure. We find it surprising that so little biographical information exists regarding Paxton. His name barely appears in the scholarly literature on the period; perhaps because no mention of abolition is made in either the title nor the sub-title of his book the work is rarely discussed in articles on the antebellum southern antislavery movement. Though reasonably available institutionally Letters on Slavery is perenially scarce in commerce having appeared at auction only three times in the current century. This a quite decent copy in a discreetly restored binding. SABIN 59264. DUMOND Antislavery Bibliography p.89. LCP AFRO-AMERICANA 7501. Abraham Skillman unknown
183331599England: Elliott Cresson 1833. Bi-folded folio. 3 pp. 12 1/3 x 7 1/2 inches. Important autograph letter from Elliott Cresson one of the foremost proponents of the American Colonization Society and its colony in Liberia to Member of Parliament Benjamin Hawes presenting a resolution to found the British African Colonization Society. Discusses the famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison's opposition to the colonization movement.<br/> <br/> The letter begins with the two-page text of a resolution to establish the British African Colonization Society under the patronage of the Duke of Sussex: "That Colonies composed of fair settlers of African race established on judicious principles on the Coast of Africa appear calculated beyond any other plan to put an effectual stop to the slave trade . . . Resolved that a Society be formed to be called the British African Colonization Society and that its objects be to cooperate with the American Colonization Society and with the several missionaries and other religious and charitable societies in Great Britain and the United States of America in such measures as may promote the total abolition of the slave trade and the establishment of Christianity and Civilization among the Natives of Africa chiefly by the employment of Free Persons of African birth or descent . . ." In the letter which follows Cresson writes of William Lloyd Garrison's opposition to the colonization movement: "I send the list of officers as far as accepted several others have not yet answered but I trust we shall present a bold front. I have just heard thru his Chaplain from the Duke. Garrison has written to poison his mind and probably will annoy our meeting. I trust that as the notice has been so short our friends will bring many with them . . . My letter to the Times in answer to Garrison they have not yet noticed so that it will be put in the Globe whose Editor has offered it a place in his columns." Cresson a noted Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist was among the most ardent supporters of colonization the movement to relocate formerly enslaved people and free black Americans to colonies in Liberia. In 1832 he traveled to England to promote international support for the movement. The following year Cresson and the Philadelphia Young Men's Colonization Society a branch of the American Colonization Society founded Port Cresson in Liberia. However the colony was attacked in 1835 by Bassa tribesmen incited by Spanish slave traders and destroyed. Although initially in favor of colonization William Lloyd Garrison changed his mind and decried the efforts of the American Colonization Society as a perpetuation of slavery. For Garrison's 28 June 1833 letter to the Duke of Sussex referenced above see The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison I:107. Elliott Cresson unknown
1823423251London: Printed by Ellerton and Henderson Gough Square 1823. Near Fine. Folio 21.5 x 33 cm / 8½" x 13â€. pp. 1 2-3 4 blank. Light vertical and horizontal center folds three short tears at the horizontal fold near fine with a contemporary drawing of a few survey lines and diagrams very lightly sketched in ink and pencil on the final blank page. The Society states its case against slavery in the Colonies of Great Britain where "there are at this moment upwards of 800000 human beings in a state of degrading personal slavery." It provides a brief but detailed description of "the immoral inhuman and unjust" nature of the slave trade and of the absolute power of slave owners. Printed by Ellerton and Henderson, Gough Square unknown
18541266841854. First Edition. SLAVERY BURNS Anthony. Boston Slave Riot and Trial of Anthony Burns. Boston: Fetridge 1854. Slim octavo modern half calf and marbled boards. $3000.First edition of a seminal pre-Civil War pamphlet on the 1854 arrest and Boston trial of fugitive slave Anthony Burns whose return to his Virginia slave owner at the order of the Boston court sparked public fury and ""set Boston on its ear in the spring of 1854"" inspiring Whitman to write his Boston Ballad and Thoreau to deliver his speech Slavery in Massachusetts to a July 4 1854 antislavery rally.The trial of fugitive slave Anthony Burns which ""set Boston on its ear in the spring of 1854 .was nothing less than a pocket revolution"" Von Frank Trials of Anthony Burns xii. The arrest and trial in Boston of Burns whose Virginia slave-owner Suttle followed him there was ""one of the most dramatic and famous incidents in the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act."" When Boston Commissioner Loring signed Burns' arrest warrant Richard Henry Dana Jr. and Charles Ellis immediately volunteered to defend Burns. On ""May 26 there was a mass meeting in Faneuil Hall to protest Burns' arrest. This meeting was followed by a poorly planned and disastrously executed attempt to rescue Burns Despite conflicting testimony and imperfect evidence provided by Suttle Loring declared Burns was indeed Suttle's slave."" With that Burns was taken from the courtroom and through streets crowded with his supporters then placed aboard a ship ""for return to Virginia. The trial and removal of Burns from Boston created one of the great spectacles of the late antebellum period"" Finkelman 107-112.""The Burns case made slavery appear to Northerners as an immediate threat Walt Whitman was impelled to write an ironic piece A Boston Ballad soon to be incorporated into his revolutionary volume Leaves of Grass At an antislavery rally in Framingham Massachusetts on July 4 William Lloyd Garrison burned copies of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Constitution as the large crowd chanted 'Amen!' Thoreau delivered his speech Slavery in Massachusetts declaring that the American system had lost its integrity and purity The antislavery sentiment bred by the case helped give birth to the Republican Party which in turn fostered Lincoln's Presidency the South's secession and the Civil War"" New York Times. Containing ""valuable primary source material about the trial and the events surrounding it"" including testimony legal documents"" as well as the full texts of the speeches of the counsel and the opinion of Commissioner Loring."" Bound without rear advertisements: ""some have advertisements at the back of the pamphlet while others do not"" no priority established Finkelman 113. Sabin 6505. Harvard Law Catalogue II:1030. Text fine. hardcover
18401132391840. First Edition. SLAVERY BUXTON Thomas Fowell. The African Slave Trade and its Remedy. London: John Murray 1840. Octavooriginal brown clothuncut and partially unopened; pp.14 viii 3 6-273 274-276 i ii-vi 277 278-582. $2800.First expanded and revised edition of British abolitionist Buxton's powerful call for an end to the slave trade the first to include his extensive and influential Remedy two major works that followed the lead of Wilberforce in calling for treaties and commerce to end the slave trade and outlined a way to ""secure the regeneration of Africa through agricultural development"" with large folding map a handsome copy in original cloth.Quaker Thomas Buxton was in Parliament when in 1824 Wilberforce asked him to become his successor. ""In 1789 Wilberforce had begged Parliament to 'make reparation to Africa by establishing a trade upon true commercial principles Fifty years later Buxton redeveloped this appeal in The African Slave Trade To support his vision Buxton formed the African Civilization Society July 1839."" In this first expanded edition of African Slave Trade 1839the first to include his RemedyBuxton argues for the ""agricultural colonization of West Africa and the development of a broad-based commerce that could undercut the economic dominance of the illicit slave trade"" Hopkins Peter Thonning 615. He documents the horrors of the Middle Passage to show that despite all efforts to end the slave trade ""twice as many human beings are now its victims as when Wilberforce and Clarkson entered upon their noble task."" And in Remedy he further develops his argument: showing how ""legitimate commerce would put down the Slave Trade by demonstrating the superior value of man as a laborer on the soil to man as an object of merchandise.""With African Slave Trade and its Remedy Buxton powerfully ""synthesized contemporary currents of thought developed the arguments about the relationship between abolition and African improvement more systematically than before and then catapulted them to national prominence His views prevailed. The belief that the only way to suppress the African slave trade was to promote 'legitimate commerce' and that this new trade would launch Africa on the road to moral and material progress became the conventional wisdom in mid-19th-century Britain."" Among those he convinced was David Livingstone who as ""an unknown medical student attended the 1840 meeting of the African Civilization Society where Buxton first announced his remedy for the slave trade. What Livingstone heard on that occasion helped inspire a lifetime of work and travel on the continent"" Mann Slavery and the Birth of an African City 88-90. First expanded and revised edition: first to include Buxton's Remedy which was issued separately in 1839. Precedes the first American edition. With folding map of ""Central Africa."" Paginated as issued without loss of text. With 14-page ""Prospectus of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and for the Civilization of Africa"" preceding title page. Sabin 9685. Goldsmith's 31743. Kress C5121 See Goldsmith's 31181; Kress C4818; Blockson 9121. Interior fresh with light foxing to folding map as often front inner paper hinge starting but very sound mild rubbing and toning to bright original cloth. A desirable near-fine copy. hardcover
1864106752<p>9 leaves of blue lined paper written in ink on rectos only. 31.5x20 cm 12¼x8" set in custom-made half cloth folder .Minor aging old folds; near fine. Official court document from Bexar County Texas summarizing the case of "Jim Owen a free person of African descent thirty years of age a resident of said county and state" who "desires to choose an owner and mistress and has selected for his mistress Sephrony Kerr…" Owen states that "he was brought from the State of Illinois to his state in 1850 before he was of lawful age by one John H. Burrus… who has since said time assumed a kind of guardianship over your petitioner without lawful authority…" All seemed on track until John H. Burrus filed suit stating that he was the "owner of said petitioner Owen" and "proof was not made that said petitioner is a free man of African descent" and "the negro Jim Owen… is his slave that he was brought to this State by the respondent in January 1850 as is slave and has been so held and owned up to the present time…" A new trial was granted and Kerr and Owen's petition denied. An appeal was allowed contingent on paying to Burrus a surety bond of $1500. A fascinating glimpse into the legal morass surrounding slavery as the Civil War raged and the "peculiar institution" of slavery was soon to be ended by force of arms.</p>
183431598Philadelphia 1834. 3pp. Later annotation at head of first page. Scarce letter on the Liberian colonization movement by one of its founders.<br/> <br/> Writing to Hawes a member of Parliament and a committee member of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade Cresson wishes for success in the British anti-slavery action off the coast of Sierra Leone writing "I hope that you may yet enjoy the satisfaction of crushing one of the worst & most unacceptable of the slave markets in existence that at Gallinas." After mentioning the travels of the colonial governor of Liberia he writes: ". I have been gratified to learn from several highly respectable sources that such a Colony as you propose located either at the mouth of the Cape Mount River or even a little more to the Northward say at Sugaree & provided with a good supply of trade goods to exchange with the natives would have a powerful tendency to break up the monopoly now enjoyed by the Spanish Slavers. My letters from Africa state that the demand is so great in Cuba from the ravages of Cholera among their ill-fed human cattle as to have rendered the shipments from the Gallinas during the past year almost unprecedented. It appears that the benevolent efforts of your Govt. are not likely to extirpate the evil until commercial & agricultural colonies shall be substituted for cruisers." The letter continues with news from their consul at Liberia before turning to American politics: ". political affairs engrossing the entire energies of the nation. The excitement is painfully great . Our military chieftan Jackson by his acts of unauthorized assumption has called forth a burst of indignation which cannot subside until we get rid of the offender." The letter concludes with an introduction for Gerard Ralston. Cresson a noted Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist was among the most ardent supports of colonization the movement to relocate former slaves and free African Americans to colonies in Liberia. In 1833 Cresson and the Philadelphia Young Men's Colonization Society a branch of the American Colonization Society founded Port Cresson in Liberia. However the colony was attacked in 1835 by Bassa tribesmen incited by Spanish slave traders and destroyed. unknown
1875231241875. Slavery Cuba Spanish colonial slave sale manuscript recording the transfer of thirty-eight enslaved individuals in Cuba in 1875 materializing the sheer scale and organization of enslaved labor within the island's plantation economy during the final decade before abolition. The document enumerates a large group of enslaved people including multiple family units with young children demonstrating how slavery functioned as both an economic system and a hereditary condition sustained through the sale and reproduction of enslaved populations. Created eleven years prior to the abolition of slavery in Cuba in 1886 the manuscript documents the continued legality and normalization of large-scale slave transactions despite decades of international pressure and earlier prohibitions on the transatlantic trade offering concrete evidence of how internal markets sustained the institution in its final phase.<br /> <br /> Official Cuban slave contract documenting the sale of thirty-eight enslaved individuals for the sum of 126000 pesetas formalized before a public notary or legal authority. Single manuscript leaf written in Spanish cursive in black ink on both recto and verso densely filled with names ages and relational identifiers. Measures 8.5" x 12.25". The text lists individuals sequentially including men women and children with repeated references to kinship structures such as mothers with multiple children indicating the sale of family groupings rather than isolated individuals. The script reflects extended passages detailing ownership exclusions and conditions of transfer. A partial watermark of the official coat of arms of Cuba is visible. <br /> By 1875 Cuba remained one of the last major slave societies in the Atlantic world with sugar production driving demand for large controlled labor forces. Even after Spain curtailed the official slave trade earlier in the century illegal importation persisted into the 1860s and alternative systems of coerced labor including Chinese indenture supplemented plantation workforces. The scale of this transaction demonstrates the consolidation and redistribution of enslaved labor within domestic markets while the inclusion of children underscores the long-term economic logic of slavery as a self-reproducing system. Moderate toning and foxing concentrated along the edges with numerous small closed wormholes a few affecting portions of the text. Light edge wear present. Overall in good condition. This document provides unusually extensive nominal data on a large enslaved population encompassing the roles of kinship valuation and labor organization in late Spanish colonial Cuba. unknown
18091187761809. First Edition. SLAVERYABOLITION MONTGOMERY James GRAHAME James and BENGER Elizabeth. Poems on the Abolition of the Slave Trade. London: Printed for R. Bowyer 1809 i.e. 1810. Tall quarto contemporary brown calf gilt rebacked with original spine laid down raised bands marbled endpapers and edges. $2000.First edition of famed publisher and artist Bowyers richly illustrated volume featuring eloquent anti-slavery poems by Montgomery Grahame and Benger a major antislavery work issued shortly after Britains abolition of the slave trade with engraved portraits of abolitionists Sharpe Clarkson and Wilberforce engraved allegorical title page and nine full-page engravings after paintings by artist Sir Robert Smirke a handsome wide-margined copy in contemporary boards.This handsomely illustrated volume features three epic poemsMontgomery's The West Indies Grahame's Africa Delivered and Elizabeth Benger's A Poem Occasioned by the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1806. All were ""commissioned by the London publisher Robert Bowyer for inclusion in a lavish volume of antislavery poetry timed to celebrate the abolition of the slave trade"" Basker Amazing Grace 612. With biographies and engraved full-page medallion portraits of leading British abolitionists Sharpe Clarkson and Wilberforce Poems on the Abolition of the Slave Trade is especially noted for its nine full-page engravings and the allegorical title page vignette engraved by Scriven and Worthington after paintings by renowned artist Sir Robert Smirke whose works were considered ""gems in the art of history painting"" American Daily Advertiser. On presenting a copy to George III Bowyer described this as a ""most beautifully embellished volume of Poems which have been written expressly for the occasion on the Abolition of the Slave Trade"" Baptist Quarterly 35. Poems won early critical praise as an ""elegant publication on the Abolition of this traffic and we congratulate the poets the artist and the editor"" Monthly Review. First edition: plates dated ""Dec. 1 1809""; portraits dated ""Jan 1 1810."" With engraved and letterpress title pages. With directions to the binder leaf bound in at rear. Lowndes 1591. Goldsmiths 19923. Kress B5549. Sabin 50145. Benezit IX:656. Occasional faint foxing chiefly marginal. A near-fine copy scarce and desirable in contemporary binding. hardcover
