155 résultats
1850515519Salem Mass: Published by C. Foote 1850. Unbound. Very Good. First edition. Folio. 4pp. Printed self-wrappers. Owner's contemporary ink name on front cover in upper margin. Text is folded lightly creased few spots of faint soiling very good. Text includes: "The Beloved Tune" by Lydia Maria Child three full columns and a thirty-six line announcement about the pending publication of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Also includes a brief article entitled "Mr. Clay on Slavery" printing extracts from a debate between Senator Clay and General Cass; also prints a three-line announcement about the liberation of fourteen slaves: "Fourteen slaves belonging to Dr. John Casson of Mississippi have been taken to Cincinnati and liberated by their owner. Published by C. Foote unknown
185740445Boston: John Wilson and Son 1857. Paperback. Small 4to. Self-cover. 12pp. Very good. Outer wrappers only faintly age toned. Clean attractive first edition of this lengthy diatribe against President James Buchanan's handling of the slavery issue in Kansas which they considered weak and ineffective followed by his reply and their response to it. "They fervently hope "that you may yet see that in this respect one false principle if adhered to must prove a principle of weakness and decay -- a sure prelude to the end of all our greatness happiness and glory -- a death-spot in the tree of liberty whose leaves like those of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations." Signed in type at the conclusion by these Connecticut congressmen in order: Nathaniel W. Taylor Theodore D. Woolsey Henry Dutton Charles L. English John H. Brockway Eli W. Blake Benjamin Stilliman Jr. Thomas A. Thacher J.A. Davenport Worthington Hooker Philos Blake Amos Townsend James Brewster Eli Ives S.G. Hubbard John A. Blake William H. Russell A.N. Skinner Charles Robinson Joel Hawes G.A. Calhoun Leonard Bacon H.C. Kingsley Benjamin Stilliman Sr. Charles Ives Josiah W. Gibbs James F. Babcock and Alfred Walker. OCLC cites 20 copies. SABIN 52997. John Wilson and Son paperback
1816ST19567-131<p>Wilmington: Printed by R. Porter 1816. Abridged Edition. 180 x 115 mm. 7 x 4 1/2". 348 pp.Abridged by Evan Lewis. <br />Contemporary tree calf smooth spine with double gilt rules tan leather label with gilt lettering. With one small illustration of a seal in text. Title with crowned monogram stamp in purple ink. Sabin 13486. Calf with significant wear front hinge exposed but the binding very tight; text as expected with varying sometimes noticeable degrees of foxing and browning because of quality of paper.<br /><br />First published in two volumes in 1808 this important work on the history of the slave trade is an "invaluable" resource and "contains much essential autobiographical and other information." DNB The present edition was condensed into one volume in order to "be more generally diffused among the people of the United States" where slavery would not be abolished for another half a century. Thomas Clarkson 1760-1846 was a leading English abolitionist who advocated for an end to slavery world-wide and was an original founder of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade as well as the pacifist Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace.</p> Printed by R. Porter
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>
185426154Washington: Printed at the Congressional Glove Office 1854. First edition. pp. 22. 1 vols. 8vo. Self wrappers unsewn as issued. Some browning and spotting wear along spine and edges but a very good copy. First edition. pp. 22. 1 vols. 8vo. Primarily concerning the issue of slavery in the territories this speech was part of the debates for the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The act initiated by Douglas ultimately repealed the Missouri Compromise allowed the local residents to determine whether the area was free or slave territory allowed for "the doctrine of popular sovereignty of the two territories" and laid the way for a transcontental railroad. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in the Senate on the 3rd of March. Clayton was a lawyer noted agriculturist and long-time member of Congress who was Secretary of State under President Taylor. As Secretary of State he is best remembered for having negotiated the Clayton-Bulwer treaty with Great Britain which provided for a neutral international canal across Central America and "contained pledges which ultimately forced Great Britain to withdraw from large tracts of territory which.it had been occupying on the Isthmus." DAB. Sabin 13576n Printed at the Congressional Glove Office unknown
1827213910London: John Hatchard and Son 1827. Illustrated by 9 etchings. viii 464 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Full calf spine gilt. Upper board missing 8 leaves damp-stained else Near Fine. Illustrated by 9 etchings. viii 464 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. John Hatchard and Son unknown
1846319747Boston: Eastburn's Press 1846. 20pp. 8vo. Removed. Staining lower text. 20pp. 8vo. <br/><br/> Eastburn's Press unknown
182529465Manchester: Printed by Henry Smith 1825. 8vo 36 pp. Disbound. The report running to 193 pages was published the same year in London. Manchester: Printed by Henry Smith unknown
1845332998United States 1845. 16pp. 8vo. Self-wrappers dampstaining. 16pp. 8vo. An anti-slavery work in German written in the form of a dialogue between Gottlieb who argues that the slave trade is a sin and Nabob who begins by arguing in defense of slavery but is swayed by Gottlieb's arguments. unknown
182634337Washington: Printed by Gales & Seaton 1826. 181 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Disbound some browning to title page else a good tightly sewn copy. 181 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. John Quincy Adams' brief memorandum transmits Secretary of State H. Clay's report; a detailed list of slave owners and the names of their slaves comprises the bulk of this document. <br/><br/> Printed by Gales & Seaton 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
18179350Washington City 1817. First Edition. 5 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Disbound. Some foxing. First Edition. 5 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. First edition of the government's reply to the request of a group of Virginia planters for a "colony" to essentially rid them of the problem of "free coloured people." In December of 1816 a group of Virginia planters approached the government with a request asking for a location where freed blacks might be sent. In January this "memorial" was presented and in February it was answered with this "Report." This reply discusses location etc. In the end the government officially refused to have anything to do with the plan - thus the American Colonization Society was born. For a detailed account of these events see Dumond Anti-Slavery pp. 126-127. S&S 42738 2 copies unknown
1836346520Washington D.C. 1836. 24th Congress 1st Session House Rep. No. 691. 24pp. 8vo. Disbound. 24th Congress 1st Session House Rep. No. 691. 24pp. 8vo. Many of the early anti-slavery efforts focussed on the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia as Congress had full control over the laws within the District thus obviating any argument over state's rights. Until "retroceded" back to Virginia in 1846 the city of Alexandria and its notorious slave market was considered part of the District of Columbia making slavery in the District of particular importance. Inundated with petitions calling for the abolition of slavery in the District in 1836 Congress passed the so-called Pinckney Resolution which asserted that Congress "ought not" to consider slavery in the District and created a gag rule whereby all petitions memorials or other resolutions on the subject would be automatically tabled. unknown
1856257105Washington D.C.: Globe Office 1856. Signed by Kelsey ordering 2500 and by James Livingston for 100 and another. Old folds. Blind embossed " Platner & Porter Cobngress" staionary. Signed by Kelsey ordering 2500 and by James Livingston for 100 and another. Globe Office unknown
1856218<b>First edition of "the most complete record available" of the controversial Pennsylvania case on fugitive slaves establishing a "precedent set in federal and state courts… and important cause célèbre for the antislavery movement" crucial in asserting a clear path for the following year's Dred Scott decision and provoking a "legal crisis… that led to the Civil War" elusive in original cloth. An overall clean text with soiling on top of pages 1-16 & pgs. 161-191 and contemporary ink marginalia by Strawbridge on a few pages. John Strawbridge is inscribed in old ink on page prior to title page. A book which has become difficult to find in the original cloth.</b> Uriah Hunt & Son hardcover
184324068Utica 1843. 4pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Disbound spotted and soiled separated along spine else a good copy of this rare piece. 4pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Rare. An "Extra" to the "Liberty Press" relating to slavery and the "deep distress" and idleness caused by slavery. The author signed "Truth-Teller" attributes most of the labor problems and many of the economic ones to the instution of slavery. He recommends allowing Florida a place in the Union as a free state and Congress guaranteeing each state a republican form of government which he feels would bring about the end of slavery. <br/><br/> unknown
186062260Atlanta: Printed at the Daily Locomotive Job Office 1860. 47 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Original blue printed wrappers. Wrapper a bit chipped else Fine. 47 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Printed at the Daily Locomotive Job Office unknown
1805369285London 1805. 309; 4 46pp. Uncut. 2 vols. Folio. Disbound. 309; 4 46pp. Uncut. 2 vols. Folio. Two British Parliamentary papers on the slave trade issued in the midst of the debates for its abolition. The first paper organized by West Indian island includes the correspondence between the British government and their West India colonies regarding slavery from the period 1797 to 1800 and includes the text of the Leeward Island Amelioration Act of 1798. The paper includes a wealth of statistical information on the enslaved populations of each island as well as the names of plantation owners and their holdings. The second paper continues the correspondence from 1804-1805 with updated statistics. unknown
1805369319London 1805. 4 46pp. Folio. Disbound. 4 46pp. Folio. A British Parliamentary paper on the slave trade issued in the midst of the debates for its abolition. The paper includes the correspondence between the British government and their West India colonies from 1804-1805 with statistical information on the enslaved populations of various islands and plantation owners. unknown
185562372Boston: Bela Marsh 1855. Second printing. Frontispiece portrait. 122 pp. 1 vols. Small 8vo. Brown cloth stamped in blind and gilt. Upper half of spine shaky else a nice tight copy. Second printing. Frontispiece portrait. 122 pp. 1 vols. Small 8vo. The author was convicted of aiding slaves to escape from Washinton D.C.--Blockson. Sabin 20912 Blockson 9838 for first ed. Bela Marsh unknown
1842313227Philadelphia: stereotyped by L. Johnson 1842. First edition. 140 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Original brown ribbed cloth rebacked with original spine laid down titled in gilt. Marginal dampstaining throughout scattered foxing some wear to boards good. First edition. 140 pp. 1 vols. 8vo. First edition of this report of this monumental Supreme Court decision regarding escaped slaves preceding by 15 years and rivaling in importance the Dred Scott case of 1857. "In Prigg the Court identified slavery as a core constitutional commitment with which states could not interfere. In this case the Court struck down northern states' 'personal liberty laws' established to protect alleged fugitive slaves from recapture without due process of law. When the professional 'slave catcher' Edward Prigg tried to remove Margaret Moran an alleged runaway he was unable to meet the burden of proof set out by Pennsylvania's 1826 Personal Liberty Law and failed to obtain the legal certificate permitting him to remove her. When Prigg proceeded to ignore this and removed Moran illegally to Maryland Pennsylvania convicted him of kidnapping. The US Supreme Court however overwhelmingly overturned Prigg's conviction 8-1 and pronounced state laws interfering with the return of alleged runaways a violation of the Fugitive Slave Clause." Beaumont The Civic Constitution 2014 p. 128. Blockson 9905; Dummond p. 140; Sabin 61207 stereotyped by L. Johnson unknown
1833713Winchester Va. 1833. Broadside 4to. 290 x 160 mm. 11 ¼ x 6 ¼ inches. Printed in two columns signed in type by Charles J. Faulkner at Winchester dated March 8 1833 at conclusion. Lightly dust-soiled pale stain affecting perhaps one-third of the left-hand margin and column of text. Neatly silked on verso. Withal about very good. Following the August 1831 Nat Turner rebellion in Southampton County a last effort was made by moderate Virginians to gradually abolish slavery. Faulkner a 26-year-old lawyer and assemblyman along with Thomas Jefferson Randolph sponsored legislation to free all children born of slave parents after July 4 1840. His speech emphasized the evil of slavery for Southern white labor noting that slavery "converts the energy of the community into indolence--its power into imbecility--its efficiency into weakness.Shall society suffer that the slave-holder may continue to gather his crop of human flesh" As the Assembly was malapportioned in favor of the Tidewater slaveocracy the proposal lost rather narrowly and nearly thirty years later the Confederacy was assured of Virginia's succession. It is perhaps not surprising that Faulkner "comparatively a stranger" to the county but a member of the Virginia House of Delegates at this time 1831-34 was not successful in his campaign to represent Virginia in the U.S. Senate. However Faulkner was elected to three terms in Congress from Virginia in the 1850s. He was elected to Congress from West Virginia after the Civil War. In the interim he served as Minister to France during the Buchanan administration and on the staff of Stonewall Jackson. Dictionary of American Biography. Not in Hummel. Not found in American Imprints for 1833 and not in the 1830-1839 title index. OCLC records four copies at The Library of Virginia University of Virginia Virginia Historical Society and American Antiquarian Society. unknown
1823List3302London England: Ellerton and Henderson 1823. Three page document measuring 8 ½ x 13 ¼ inches. Folded with some small wrinkles at edges else Near Fine. A document produced by the Society for Mitigating and Gradually Abolishing the State of Slavery throughout the British Dominions better known as the Anti-Slavery Society. The group was founded in London in 1823 by a group of politicians philanthropists and businessmen including William Wilberforce Joseph Sturge and Zachary Macaulay. The document discusses the horrors of enslavement—even unfavorably comparing the British colonies’ conditions with those in the US—and decries the fact that after the 1807 Slave Trade Act essentially nothing more had been done to put “an end to a condition of society which so grievously outrages every feeling of humanityâ€. We find a single copy of the Ellerton and Henderson edition in physical format listed in OCLC as accession number 83930673. Ellerton and Henderson unknown
18361691Boston: Isaac Knapp 1836. About very good. xvi13-238pp. 12mo. Original publisher's blue boards with black sheep spine gilt. Boards rubbed corners and spine moderately worn. Text lightly foxed. Scarce work addressing the anti-slavery work of George Thompson following his visit to America. Thompson 1804-1878 was British lecturer and reformer who worked as a commercial clerk. "Thompson first came to prominence in 1831 when he was recruited by the London Anti-Slavery Society's Agency Committee as an itinerant lecturer. In the run up to the Emancipation Act of 1833 he became the most effective British anti-slavery lecturer since Thomas Clarkson. With the struggle against British slavery apparently won Thompson was instrumental in reorienting anti-slavery effort towards the Americas and particularly the United States. . In 1834 he encountered the charismatic American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Recognizing Thompson's talent Garrison invited him to travel to the United States with his growing family to labour there on behalf of the enslaved people of America" - DNB. <br /> <br /> Thompson employed sarcasm and vitriol in his orations attacking anti-abolitionist sentiment across the northern states. In the process he failed to make very many friends or converts and alienated those with more moderate views. "Opponents attacked him as a foreign interloper and an anti-American agitator. They also discovered a scandal in Thompson's past alleging that in 1829 he had absconded with £80 embezzled from his employer. His supporters angrily rejected this charge though Thompson later privately admitted it was true he eventually repaid the sum in full. Hostility increasingly turned violent and in fear of his life he was smuggled out of the country in October 1835 returning to a hero's welcome in Britain" - DNB.<br /> <br /> This work is a rebuttal made by Thompson's American supporters aggregating information from British sources to defend his good name and abolitionist efforts after fleeing America for his homeland. It includes some of Thompson's speeches on slavery in America given before audiences in Scotland and England and discusses his work with the American Anti-Slavery Society. Though there are a handful of institutional copies the work is scarce on the market and does not appear in auction records over the pasty forty years.<br /> <br /> Sabin 9324. American Imprints 36449. Isaac Knapp unknown
18445887Washington DC: June 7 1844. Very good. Broadside 12.25 x 7.75 inches. Light tanning shallow marginal chips and some fraying to left and right edges. An unrecorded slip-bill printing of a House Resolution with a phenomenal back story involving an erudite elusive and resourceful Florida slave. The slip bill authored by Howell Cobb U.S. Representative from Georgia stipulates that the Secretary of the Treasury pay the sum of five hundred dollars to the heirs and representatives of Antonio Pacheco a former resident of Florida the sum "being the price of a slave named Lewis which was sent out by the United States with the Seminole Indians and lost to his owners." That's where the plot thickens. The slave is now known to history as Luis Fatio Pacheco born in 1800 to enslaved parents on the "New Switzerland" plantation in Florida which was surrounded by a mix of Europeans Africans and Native Americans. As such Luis became fluent in several languages including Seminole which later made him a valuable asset.<br /> <br /> After a conflict with his owner Luis attempted to escape slavery in 1824 by fleeing to Spanish fisheries on Florida's Gulf Coast but he was captured by U.S. military authorities the following year. Skilled as he was in languages and literacy by the military Luis was sold in 1832 to Antonio Pacheco a Cuban merchant. After Antonio's death Luis became the property of Pacheco's widow. When tensions began to ratchet up again between American military forces and the Seminole tribe a U.S. Army officer made a deal to rent Luis from the Pacheco estate at the rate of $25 a month to take advantage of his services as an interpreter. In December 1835 Luis was accompanying a troop detachment led by Major Frances L. Dade in a march to reinforce Fort King near the present-day city of Ocala Florida. Evidently that day Luis was assigned as a scout; he has said to have attempted to warn Dade of a possible ambush by the Seminoles which went unheeded by the commander. The result is today known as the Dade Massacre in which Dade and most of his men were killed.<br /> <br /> According to the narrative provided by Luis who spoke Seminole he explained to the warriors that he was a slave and successfully pleaded for his life. Luis lived with the Seminoles as a captive for nearly two years before again managing to escape. In September 1837 Luis surrendered to the U.S. Army at Fort Peyton near St. Augustine. Soon after he was accused of collaborating with the Seminoles in the Dade Massacre. In 1841 negotiations between the US government and Seminole leader Coacoochee the Native American leader claimed Luis as his property captured in war. Coacoochee was permitted to take Luis together with other Black Seminoles to Oklahoma for resettlement. This event led to the claim by Anthony Pacheco‘s heirs for restitution of a lost slave. The Joint Committee on Claims approved the claim. Luis's story eventually became a focal point in the abolitionist argument against slavery and in 1858 Ohio representative Joshua R. Giddings published a book portraying Luis as a hero against the system. In any case the question of whether or not Luis betrayed Dade has never been completely resolved. June 7 unknown
