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0243873069.Gpaperback. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. paperback
1334589879.Gpaperback. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. paperback
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>
1817SLAVERY005957W. Alexander York. 1817. First U.K. edition with additions to the Philadelphia printing. 12mo. 156 pages including 4 pages of adverts. Frontispiece. Original boards with paper backstrip and title label. Anthony Benezet 1713-1784 was a leading abolitionist.Early nameplates Thomas Marsh and Robert Langdon on front pastedown. Some foxing to prelims. Cup ring to front cover. Backstrip defective label rubbed. Very good. Scarce in original state. W. Alexander, York. hardcover
18271184001827. First Edition. SLAVERY STROUD George M. A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America. Philadelphia: Kimber and Sharpless 1827. Octavo original half tan and light brown paper boards uncut. $1350.First edition of Judge Stroud's groundbreaking 1827 work documenting state slave laws and relevant Constitutional provisions held as a key resource for Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin a cornerstone volume considered by many the best of the ante-bellum studies"" on slavery uncut in original boards.""The ink was hardly dry on the Constitution when the powers of Congress relative to slavery were called into question"" Dumond 153. The Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1793 and in 1819 Congress began a bitter debate over slavery in the territories that culminated in the 1820 Missouri Act. At this time Philadelphia Judge George Stroud began work on Sketch of the Laws. ""This work the first substantial legal treatise on American slavery is considered by many the best of the ante-bellum studies"" Cohen 9877. His coverage of state slave codes and Constitutional provisions is a cornerstone of the legal literature. Published well before ""the Dred Scott decision Stroud's book had extensive influence upon national legal thinking on the issue of slavery. For example it is believed by some scholars that Harriet Beecher Stowe gained her knowledge of slave laws from Stroud's work"" Johnson Stroud's Slave Laws vi. In legal literature of antislavery one key group is on ""slave codes and their administration. The purpose of these works was to use slave law as data credible data as to the realities of slavery. The first and in many ways the best of these works was George Stroud A Sketch of the Laws"" Cover Justice Accused 149n. Blockson 9965. Sabin 93097. Work 343. Harvard Law Catalogue II:680. Text generally fresh with scattered foxing mild embrowning mild edge-wear rubbing to spine label. A very good copy of a major early work on slavery. hardcover
17981244831798. First Edition. SMITH Elihu.Hubbard. A Discourse Delivered April 11 1798 At the Request of and Before the New-York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been or May Be Liberated. New-York: T. & J. Swords 1798. Slim octavo original tan self-wrappers string tied uncut; pp. 1-5 6-30 2. $3500.First edition of Smith's scathing attack on American slavery declaring it a betrayal as ""thousands of your fellow-beings children of the same father and inheritors of the same destiny writhe under the lash of cruelty"" an exceptional 18th-century abolitionist work published barely ten years after ratification of the Constitution exceedingly rare uncut in original wrappers.Trained as a physician under Benjamin Rush ""Smith was an early abolitionist a member and Recording Secretary of the New York Manumission Society and trustee of the city's African Free School"" Stevenson Litchfield Native. ""Passionately committed to the improvement of the fledgling nation through the acquisition and circulation of information"" Smith's analysis of slavery in this very rare work published the same year as his early death at 27 expresses his and the Society's commitment ""to ideals of human perfectibility which they combined with the practical labor of achieving change"" Kelly on Kaplan Men of Letters. Here he takes aim at leaders and nations where the ""spirit of despotism multiplied and extended the evil"" of slavery and ""wrought it into a system."" Noting the influence of renowned abolitionists John Woolman and Anthony Benezet he asserts that it is those in slave trade who particularly ""opened a new field for every baneful enterprise"" when they became ""the first to violate the noble principles by which they had been guided."" Smith especially speaks to American leaders and slaveholders who concede ""slavery is unjust"" but claim ""it is entailed upon us by our fathers; it is interwoven with every part of our social organization."" In reply he declares that it is ""strange reasoning"" to endorse slavery simply because it exists. Arguing ""the laws of our country authorized the possession in human flesh"" he asks: ""Shall the legislators of a great nation be denied the power of acknowledging their errors and laboring to correct them Encumbered as we are with this mighty evil"" Smith proclaims: ""You yes you the Legislators of America you are the real upholders of slavery you foster and protect it you immortalize injustice while thousands of your fellow-beings children of the same father and inheritors of the same destiny writhe under the lash of cruelty."" Evans 34554. Sabin 82502. Dumond 103. ESTC W37980. Not in Blockson. Text quite fresh with only faintest foxing to original wrappers. An excellent about-fine uncut copy in original wrappers. unknown
18501210761850. First Edition. SLAVERY SMITH Gerrit. Substance of the Speech Made by Gerrit Smith in the Capitol of the State of New York March 11th and 12th 1850. Albany: Jacob T. Hazen 1850. Octavo period-style half calf gilt marbled boards; pp. 1-3 4-25 26-27 28-30. $1500.First edition of the bold abolitionist's Speech proclaiming the Constitution ""does not allow the three million of our colored countrymen to be held in slavery"" a close friend of Frederick Douglass who ""openly embraced Smith's version of an antislavery interpretation of the Constitution"" delivered the same decade as John Brown's Harpers Ferry raid substantially financed by Smith.Smith a wealthy philanthropist was ""among the most outspoken"" of white abolitionists Jackson Force and Freedom 65. Once linked to William Lloyd Garrison's view of the Constitution as a ""covenant with death"" Smith split from Garrison and became a founder of both the Liberty Party and its successor the Radical Abolitionist Party. He was as well key in forging a close interracial alliance between Frederick Douglass Black abolitionist and physician James McCune Smith and John Brown. The four men shared the goal of achieving ""a 'radical change' in government."" By the early 1850s Douglass ""openly embraced Smith's version of an antislavery interpretation of the Constitution"" Blight 213. To Smith Douglass and figures as Alvan Stewart and Lysander Spooner ""the Constitution empoweredeven requiredCongress to abolish slavery in the southern states by direct legislation As an editor Douglass had always engaged with national politics. Now the federal authority at the base of slavery's stranglehold on America became his intensive focus"" Blight 214; emphasis in original.This very scarce first edition captures the force of Smith's groundbreaking 1850 Speech and clearly demonstrates the breadth of his constitutional argument. Declaring ""law is for the protection of rightsnot for the destruction of rights"" emphasis in original he cites passages in the Declaration and Bill of Rights and addresses the pivotal ""three-fifths"" clause. Smith proclaims the Founding Fathers did not intend ""to make this whole land the slaveholder's hunting ground"" and asserts the Constitution ""does not allow the three million of our colored countrymen to be held in slavery."" He would use his wealth to help establish a Black settlement at North Elba N.Y. which was ""John Brown's permanent residence from 1854 until his death"" Stauffer Black Hearts 3. After Harpers Ferry and Brown's execution Smith faced demands that he be tried as an ""accessory after the fact."" While he ""publicly denied it Smith gave warm encouragement and financial assistance"" to Brown and the Harpers Ferry insurrection. Yet ""guilt over the failure of Brown's raid and fear of possible arrest as a co-conspirator caused Smith to commit himself to the Utica State Lunatic Asylum"" ANB. In time he publicly retreated from his Radical Abolitionist stance and died in 1874. Sabin 82670. A fine copy. hardcover
186536346Philadelphia Lancaster PA and elsewhere: Magee Philadelphia Zahm Lancaster and three others 1865. Five postal covers all in Very Good condition:<br/> a. "The latest Contraband of War." A working slave stands confidently: "Whar is Massa Jeff now dat's what's de matter."<br/>Weiss C-BL-16.<br/> b. "Him fader's hope / Him moder's joy / Him darling little / Contraband Boy." A white man holds a little black baby.<br/>Weiss C-BL-11.<br/> c. A medicine bottle labeled "Black Drop" with the head of a Negro at its top: "A popular medicine used by the C.S.A. aristocracy that cannot be obtained in any Northern apothecary shop being com-POUND-ed exclusively on the sacred soil." italics instead of caps in the original. "S.H. Zahm & Co. Publishers Lancaster Pa." <br/>Weiss C-BL-12.<br/> d. A black man polishes boots in a house. Referring to Ben Butler's capture of New Orleans he says "By golly Massa Butler I like dis better dan workin' in de field for ole Sesesh massa." <br/>Weiss C-BL-59.<br/> e. "A member of Jim Francis' Philadelphia Dog Detective Gards has Jeff in a tight place." A black man holding some twigs looks down at a dog with collar labeled "Jeff." An observing donkey says "Jeff has the feelings of a prince of wails." Published by Magee 316 Chestnut Street Philadelphia.<br/>Weiss C-BL-35. Magee [Philadelphia], Zahm [Lancaster], and three others unknown books
18831255001883. First Edition. Signed. PILLSBURY Parker. Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles. Concord N.H.: Clague Wegman Schlicht 1883. Octavo original gilt-lettered brown cloth floral endpapers; pp. 503. $1500.First edition of the fearless abolitionist's memoir a distinctive presentation copy inscribed by Pillsbury to ""To Mr. & Mrs. F. M. C With sincere regards and best wishes of their friend Parker Pillsbury. Concord New Hampshire 1894."" Hailed as a ""fighting book"" it documents the bold tactics of this notorious radical who early warned America was ""hastening to a baptism of blood"" and was praised by Emerson as a ""tough oak stock of a man not to be silenced or insulted or intimidated"" a splendid copy in original cloth.Born in Massachusetts in 1809 the son of a blacksmith Pillsbury became a Congregational minister but was soon famed as one of the era's most radical abolitionists. Having once witnessed a slave auction he recorded its advertisement of: ""'two mules a horse and 27 Negroes' Does any mortal man or woman"" he asked ""comprehend all the tremendous meaning of those words"" Infamous for his apocalyptic style and confrontational tactics Pillsbury early declared the nation was ""hastening to its baptism. It is a baptism of blood."" He was resolute in denying any possible ""union with slave-holders""and also insisted ""women must be given their due rights."" Emerson admired him as a ""tough oak stock of a man not to be silenced or insulted or intimidated by a mob because he is more mob than they. He mobs the mob."" He was ""in Susan B. Anthony's eyes the Jeremiah of the anti-slavery movement"" Filler Parker Pillsbury 315 328-37.Fiercely anticlerical in his writings and in action Pillsbury would dramatically interrupt ""religious services calling on audiences to 'come out' from their proslavery churches."" He linked most clergy to timid politicians and cautious abolitionists proclaiming them a ""brotherhood of thieves"" Robertson Hard Cold Stern Life 189. Pillsbury's 1883 memoir Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles was above all ""a fighting book."" In it he writes of his esteem for his fellow white radical Stephen S. Foster and leading Black abolitionists such as David Ruggles as well as his disdain for Lincoln; Pillsbury ""never forgot that the idolized Lincoln meant to save the Union and not necessarily to free the slaves"" Filler 336. First edition first printing: issued in brown cloth this copy and in green cloth no priority determined. Blockson 9099. See Work 304 1884 edition. This copy is inscribed to ""To Mr. & Mrs. F. M. Crosby."" It is notable that while there was a Crosby family of abolitionists in New Hampshire the identity of this copy's recipients could not be confirmed.Text pristine; tiniest bit of soiling to cloth. An especially handsome copy in fine condition. hardcover
18451216681845. First Edition. PHILLIPS Wendell. Can Abolitionists Vote or Take Office under the United States Constitution New York: American Anti-Slavery Society 1845. Octavo half calf-gilt marbled boards; pp. 1-3 4-39 1. $1500.First edition of the provocative abolitionist's fierce attack on the Constitutionproclaiming it ""an irredeemably proslavery document""declaring its legacy implicates ""all Americans in the crimes of slaveholding"" and caused the American flag to be weighed ""heavy with blood.""An eloquent writer and orator abolitionist Wendell Phillips was the ""most important ally"" of William Lloyd Garrison who famously contended the Constitution was a ""covenant with death"" and ""an agreement with Hell."" As Garrison's ""deepest source of inspiration"" Phillips saw the ""abolitionist as the catalyst for revolution."" In this seminal work he contends ""that the U.S. Constitution was an irredeemably proslavery document and abolitionists must withdraw support from the political system because it implicated all Americans in the crimes of slaveholding"" ANB. He notes herein that since the ratification of the Constitution Americans witnessed ""slaves trebling in numbersslaveholders monopolizing the offices and dictating the policy of the Government making the courts of the country their tools.""A citizen's vote Phillips declares is ""an oath to support the Constitutionthe whole of it a contract with the whole nation"" emphasis in original. He cites key clauses quotes statements made by James Madison and others during its ratification and counters a series of 16 objections to the Garrisonian/Phillips position. In answering ""the question of slavery"" he states: ""we are not dealing with extreme cases every sixth man is a slave the national banner clings to the flag-staff heavy with blood If the Constitution is not what history unbroken practice and the courts prove that our fathers intended to make it and what too their descendants say they did make it and agree to upholdwho shall decide what the Constitution is"" Scholar Paul Finkelman points out that while there now seems certain failure in the Garrisonian/Phillips position that the Constitution ""logically led to the conclusion that the free states should secede from the union in the 1830s and 40s the idea of a northern secession as a way of destroying slavery made some sense what would happen if the Garrisonians accomplished their goal and the North left the Union to form a nation based on freedom instead of slavery It would be like moving the Canadian border to the Mason-Dixon line. Suddenly slavery would be threatened in Kentucky and Virginia because slaves could now escape to a free country just by crossing the Ohio River"" Making a Covenant. Phillips is widely esteemed as ""a commanding presence in the history of the nation's struggles to overcome racial and economic injustice"" ANB. First edition first printing: No. 13 The Anti-Slavery Examiner. '""Introduction"" signed in print ""Wendell Phillips. Boston Jan. 15 1845."" With ""Extracts from J.Q. Adams"" at rear. Sabin 81919. Text very fresh tiny gutter-edge-pinholes from original stitching handsomely bound. hardcover
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 books
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>
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
1897185871897. Albumen photographs of slavery-related sites circa 1890s document physical locations tied to the sale and habitation of enslaved people in the United States and the persistence of those sites in post-Emancipation visual culture. The images include a pavilion in St. Augustine Florida identified in contemporary sources as a site where enslaved Africans were bought and sold a photographic negative depicting outbuildings identified as Mississippi slave quarters and a mounted view of the González Alvarez House a colonial structure associated with early settlement in St. Augustine. Together the photographs provide material evidence of how spaces connected to slavery were recorded labeled and circulated in the late nineteenth century linking architectural survival to the historical memory of enslavement in both the Southeast and the Gulf South.<br /> <br /> Collection of three albumen photographs. United States circa 1890s. One mounted photograph approximately 3 3/16 x 3 inches bears the ink inscription "Old Slave Market Cathedral St. Augustine Fla." and depicts the waterfront pavilion constructed in the early nineteenth century originally used as a commercial market and identified in local records as a site of slave trading. One photographic negative approximately 3 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches shows three small structures identified as Mississippi slave quarters. One mounted photograph approximately 3 1/8 x 2 5/8 inches is inscribed "Oldest house in St. Augustine Fla. Built in the early 1700s" depicting the González Alvarez House. Mounts and inscriptions indicate a documentary intent linking the images to historically significant sites.<br /> <br /> By the late nineteenth century sites associated with slavery were being reframed within local historical narratives often presented as landmarks while still retaining traces of their earlier function within systems of forced labor and sale. The identification of the St. Augustine pavilion as a slave market in inscription and record aligns the image with documented urban sites of sale in Spanish and later American Florida while the Mississippi quarters image extends the archive into the plantation landscape of the postbellum South. The grouping provides a concise visual record of how structures tied to enslavement were preserved interpreted and circulated in photographic form decades after abolition. Minor adhesive residue to one mount small tear to negative and light toning and staining to mounts; overall good condition. unknown
1836175381836. This pamphlet is a return to an Address of the House of Commons from March 25 1836 whereby the Agent of Jamaica William Burge protests against the unilateral abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Ordered to be printed by the House of Commons in London April 1836. 13 pages. 13" x 8.25" inches. Included within is a copy of three letters from the Agent to Lord Glenelg the British colonial secretary as well Burge's protest to Glenelg. Burge states: He is desirous that His Majesty's Government should understand that this Protest is made not as the performance of a formal act of official duty but from his conviction that the proposed legislation for Jamaica is a direct violation of the constitutional rights of that Colony rights coeval with its establishment and which have hitherto been respected." The Agent was a colonial official who was the official representative of a British colony who was based in London and acted as lobbyists and trade negotiators for the affairs of the colony. While Burge had at other times claimed to "hate" slavery he employs the British analogue of the "states rights'" argument that many moderate politicians in the United States used to signal personal distaste for slavery but to nonetheless protect the institution's existence on the basis of constitutionality. When the institution of slavery died out in the British Empire after 1836 the abolitionist movement in the US gained tremendous momentum despite the protests of our own William Burge's. This piece is overall in very good condition. unknown
18391240991839. First Edition. JAY William. A View of the Action of the Federal Government in Behalf of Slavery. New-York: J.S. Taylor 1839. Small octavo 5 by 7-3/4 inches original gilt- and blind-stamped brown cloth; pp. i-iii iv-viii 13-217 1. $1600.First edition of the highly influential work by William Jay son of Founding Father John Jay documenting the ""grim"" legacy of the U.S. Constitution's ""guilty compromise""with Frederick Douglass honoring Jay at his death for his dedication to ""the great cause of universal freedom a tower of strength and his pen a two-edged sword""especially scarce in original cloth.Abolitionist and jurist William Jay was the son of John Jay the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and president of the Revolutionary Continental Congress. William Jay ""intensely invested in the fundamental goal of ending American slavery"" served as president of the New York Anti-Slavery Society drafted the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society and was removed as a judge in a New York county for his abolitionist activism. His 1839 View of the Action with its epigraph taken from the Constitution demonstrated Jay's conviction that ""Americans had to own up to their sin"" and acknowledged his family's part in that legacy. His book details the ways in which the Constitution's ""'guilty compromise' had shaped federal policy foreign and domestic"" for decades. In its ""nearly 200 pages of research"" he exposes officials ""who regularly made the choice to enact proslavery laws and procedures the data was grim. Yet by putting in one place such a well-informed catalog of federal policy Jay created a guidebook to issues on which antislavery politicians and lawyers could make their stand"" Gellman Liberty's Chain 190 209.Jay documents ""all the ways the federal government advanced slaveholding interests at home and abroad . the Constitution's three-fifth compromise had created substantial"" yet unacknowledged ""political advantages"" for slaveholding states and their supporters. The ""dominoes that fell included the Missouri Compromise"" which Jay firmly assails for surrendering ""all the cruelties and abominations"" of slavery to the territory. He also attacks a ""repugnant"" 1792 law barring Blacks from militia service as well as policies that made the nation's capital ""'the great slave mart of the North American continent' in Jay's book the poison born of moral compromise spread in every direction"" as he cites ""''gross hypocrisy and duplicity' in the lax enforcement of the international slave trade and insidious effects on domestic institutions and policies"" that hollowed out the Constitution in areas such as freedom of the press. In providing antislavery forces with ""a stiff empirical legal backbone ""View of the Action also reinforced a determination to use his family's ""insiders' credentials"" in order to advance defense of the Amistad rebels and to work closely with Black activists such as David Ruggles and minister and African nationalist Alexander Crummell. At Jay's death in 1858 Frederick Douglass honored him as man who ""in the great cause of universal freedom was a tower of strength and his pen a two-edged sword"" Gellman 209-213 3. First edition first printing: issued in brown this copy and dark green cloth no priority determined; mispagination as issued without loss of text. Work 327. Sabin 35866. Text fresh with light scattered foxing mild rubbing to original cloth. A distinctive near-fine copy. hardcover
1848262219Carroll County Maryland 1848. 2 pp. pen and ink on signle sheet. 4to. Light creasing from prior folding. 2 pp. pen and ink on signle sheet. 4to. Reading in part: "Having lost one of my negro men by death a big valuable one and having sold three more of them and having also sold one of my negro women - the above negros were sold to Mr. Joseph S. Donovan to be sent to the New Orleans market as he is a negro dealer living in Baltimore - the above negroes sold brought the sum of $2800 all of which money has been invested in property in the city of Baltimore . My object in writing to you is to request that you will lay this letter before the Commissioner of Tax of Carroll County and have all of the above negroes taken at once from my assets .". unknown books
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. Kansas-Nebraska Act. 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 books
1847266916Jackson County FL 1847. unbound. 1 page 3.5 x 7.5 inches Jackson County Florida February 5 1847 -- a probate court receipt acknowledging that "Elijah Bryon Administrator of William Bryon received the following property awarded to me by the commissioners appointed by the Hon. Richard H. Long Judge of Probate for the County of Jackson one-fifth of three-hundred and twenty acres of land undivided and the following slaves: Mary Ginny and child and Jerry valued at $1500 and three-hundred and thirty one dollars and forty-five cents of the other personal property as my position of said Estate." Signed at the bottom: "Elijah Bryan guardian for Joseph M. Bryan" and docketed on the bacl: "E. Bryan" and "Richard H. Long J.P.C." Richard H. Long 1791 - 1865 was appointed by the Territorial Governor in 1833 to complete the land sale between S. Brown and the Apalachicola Tustenuggee and Hadjo tribes treating the Indians fairly. He was a representative to Florida's first Constitutional Convention and later served as Speaker of the House. During the Civil War he rose to the rank of Colonel of a Florida Regiment and saw much action in the field. His body was recently located in a forgotten Confederate cemetery. Elijah H. Long was known for building a 5200-acre plantation for his mother. The family was well known in Jackson County and evidently all were slave owners. One horizontal fold; uniformly toned. Very good condition.<br/><br/> unknown books
37208Each document a single manuscript page 8-1/2" x 12-1/2." Each with official stamp one also has a decorative illustrated green stamp at the head. Light wear and toning Good.<br/><br/> Each document names the slaveholder and the enslaved person granted "libertad" and the cost in escudos or pesetas of that liberty. The slaves liberated here are Saturnia "morenita criolla" age 14; Gabriela "esclava mulata" age 15; and Dolores "parda criolla" age 16. unknown books
184537320Havana 1845. Each document 8-1/2" x 12-1/2" entirely in ink manuscript with decorative official printed ornamentation at head of each and signature "O'Donnell" in the left margins. Some toning and a few holes not affecting text. Good. <br/><br/> Leopoldo O'Donnell y Jorris 1st Duke of Tetuán 1809-1867 was a Spaniard of Irish ancestry from Tenerife. He went to Cuba as Captain General in 1843 and later served three separate stints as prime minister of Spain. He approved each of these requests for travel. The named Cuban Slaves are of "Lucumi" ancestry originally from the Yoruba tribes of Benin and Nigeria. The documents all dated in October 1845 refer to the slaves Joaquin Garcia de Angarica and Florentino Armenteroy Regidor.<br/> These requests were made to transfer the slave from one hacienda to another for work purposes the terms of work engagement frequently stated here. unknown books
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 books
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
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
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 books
