In Its Bearing Upon American SlaveryBiblio.com
rif. 133041957X.Gpaperback. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. paperback
rif. 0243034016.Gpaperback. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. paperback
rif. 1168936209.Ghardcover. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. hardcover
1856rif. 218First 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. Uriah Hunt & Son hardcover
1825rif. 29465Manchester: 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
rif. 1024651509.Ghardcover. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. hardcover
rif. 1331271592.Gpaperback. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. paperback
1738rif. 60003Mary Grosse Phillips Blair 1681-1738. Manuscript Document Estate Inventory Boston Mass. November 3 1738. 8 pp. folio. Mary Blair was widow of Capt. John Phillips and Capt. William Blair merchant. This inventory depicts a lavishly furnished mansion vast real estate holdings and a rich array of items in the shop -- suggesting that Mary Blair continued the mercantile trade after her husband's death in 1736. Also of note are enslaved persons Cato and Monday. Thomas Hancock was one of the administrators of the estate which was valued at over £28232. Another copy of the inventory exists in state records Suffolk County probate case 7223. Fine condition.
rif. 0332941361.Ghardcover. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. hardcover
rif. 0267513542.Ghardcover. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. hardcover
rif. 1020195134.Ghardcover. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. hardcover
1844rif. 5887Washington 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. 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. 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
rif. 1528590139.Ghardcover. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book. hardcover
1823rif. List3302London 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 humanity”. 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
1728rif. 100536Pamphlet 8vo modern full calf in the style of an 18th century Cambridge binding 32 pp.Very slight aging; in excellent condition. This is a rare first edition of a work that presents a complaint by British planters in the West Indies concerning the Assiento or agreement with Spain that gave Britain a virtual monopoly on the African slave trade. This agreement came out of the Treaty of Utrecht which ended the War of the Spanish Succession. This pamphlet indicates that the planters feared as a result of this agreement British slavers might be required to provide African slaves to the Spanish colonies which could result in insufficient numbers available for the West India plantations. The Assiento with Spain would mark the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade as a very powerful economic growth engine. Unfortunately this would translate into millions of Africans being taken from their homes. H. Whitridge
1839rif. 3013Washington D.C. 1839. Fair. 3pp. Large folio. Separated into six pieces with a very small section of the final attestation lacking altogether. Still highly readable. A wounded but important document. A rare and historically-important document relating to slavery in the District of Columbia which was outlawed on April 16 1862 nearly nine months before the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. The present document is an indenture made between William G. Howison and Alexander Hunter Esquire both citizens of Washington D.C. associated with property conveyed to Hunter by the deceased Joseph Birch. In 1824 Birch conveyed to Hunter land "and also a negro man slave for life named Lewis - another named George - two horses - 4 cows - 3 calves." The document indicates that Lewis was subsequently sold for four hundred dollars and George was sold to Birch in his lifetime. Documents recording the movement of slaves within the District especially among two citizens of the city are rare in the market. unknown
1822rif. 4276Howard County Mo 1822. Good. Three documents totaling 3pp. folio the two earliest documents written on each side of the same leaf with an integral blank and attached to the third document with sealing wax each document docketed on verso. Some short separations along folds minor spotting two short tape repairs. A series of three documents recording a case of slave theft in Missouri. The plaintiff in the case George W. Hardin sues a man named Urial Bailey for stealing three slaves from the Hardin estate in Howard County Missouri. The first document is a sworn oath dated May 23 1822 by George Hardin stating that "He was lawfully possessed of the negroes.and that the same were unlawfully taken by Urial Bailey.from his properties and with out his consent within one year last past and that he is now lawfully entitled to the possession of the said negroes." The document is attested by the clerk and signed by Hardin. The second document is executed by Hardin's lawyers on the verso of his oath dated the same day and constitutes an order from the court to the Sheriff of Howard County informing him that "George W. Hardin hath come into the Circuit Court held in the town of Franklin and found sufficient sureties as well as his clamour to prosecute for a certain woman called Dolly about the age of twenty eight years also one negro boy of about the age of nine years named Nathan also one negro girl called Eliza about the age of three years all the property of the said Plaintiff.which a certain Uriel Bailey.hath taken and unjustly detains. You are hereby commanded that the said goods.be delivered to the said George W. Hardin and that.Uriel Bailey appear before the said Circuit Court to be held at the town of Franklin." The third document is executed by Hardin's lawyers on the verso of his oath dated September 1822 and lays out the facts of the case. It reads in part: "George W. Hardin by his Attorney Tompkins & French complains of Urial Bailey that he took the previously named slaves of great value. To wit of the value of fifteen hundred dollars.where fore the said Plaintiff saith that he is injured and hath sustained damages to the value of five hundred dollars and therefore he brings suit." Interestingly in this document Hardin's lawyers refer to the youngest slave Eliza as a "mulatto girl." Docketing on the integral blank attached to the oath and lawyer's document dated May 23 1822 indicate that Hardin was seeking "Replevin Damages" of $500 which the court seems to grant. The motive behind Urial or Uriel Bailey's thefts are not recorded here but the issue of slave stealing was not uncommon and had been going on in the American colonies and the fledgling United States for a long time. According to Timothy F. Reilly in "Slave Stealing in the Early Domestic Trade as Revealed by a Loyal Manservant" published in Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association Vol. 55 No. 1 Winter 2004 pp.5-39: "Slave stealing plagued domestic slaveholders as far back as the colonial period when those who would unlawfully deprive a property owner of human chattel were detested as 'Negro jockeys.' Whether operating in the northern or southern colonies a 'man-stealer' lurking about either as a piratical thief or as a high-minded abolitionist was guilty of one of the worst crimes against the sanctity of property. By the 1830s man stealing reached epidemic levels in parts of the South." Despite the seeming prevalence of slave theft for a long period of time in the United States primary source records of court cases are very scarce. unknown
1836rif. 1691Boston: 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. 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. 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. Sabin 9324. American Imprints 36449. Isaac Knapp unknown
1823rif. 423251London: Printed by Ellerton and Henderson Gough Square 1823. Near Fine. Folio 21.5 x 33 cm / 8½" x 13”. 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
1864rif. 1067529 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.
1418rif. 106697Letter Signed 2 pp. folio letter sheet stampless address leaf. Two full pages of text. Folds with a couple of small tears or holes at folds normal aging and browning; otherwise very good.The letter is by Caroline F.R. Morgan to A.J.Walker in Milton North Carolina. Probably written in another hand but apparently her own verbiage with underlinings for emphasis and corrections. A strong legal statement by the widow Morgan of her rights as administrator of the Estate of her "late lamented husband" and his father responding to a Doctor's claim in a property sale in Milton North Carolina. Stating equivocally that "I administered his estate" with "Double powers of attorney if I may so express myself" and refusing to send a copy of her husband's will which "I consider a foolish request" and "would not do…for only the small amount of property in Milton but not for the whole of Milton."Most slave-owning women in the antebellum South were the widows of slave plantation owners who relied on overseers to manage often distant estates. A very few were more actively involved in the business affairs of the estates they had inherited. In Yalobusha County Mississippi two widows owned plantations with hundreds of slaves. One of these was Sarah Childress Polk of Tennessee widow of the 11th President of the United States. But her slave-holdings were exceeded by those of 42 year-old Caroline Fitz Randolph Morford Morgan of Lynchburg Virginia. Born in New Jersey to the grandson of a Quaker founder of Princeton University she had married a Virginia medical student whose father owned much of the city of Lynchburg as well as having real estate and slave holdings throughout the South. When he died in March 1847 she was left with three children and vast property in which she took an active interest not common "for a woman of her time and station." While she had many charitable interests – she was a charter member of a Female Missionary Society – records indicate that she personally bought and sold slaves both for the Morgavin Plantation in Mississippi and for her Virginia properties owning more than 100 African-American men and women including one "Aunt Sally" aged 104. She remained a widow for two years until she re-married to a younger man a Doctor who had come to Lynchburg to treat her family and slaves during an epidemic of yellow fever. That marriage ended contentiously in the 1850s and by the start of the Civil War she resumed her legal status as an independent woman ahead of her time. Apparently impoverished by the War she died in 1883. gavegarden.org
1850rif. 106404Folio manuscript legal sheets 11 pp. plus docketing on final back sheet. Traces of wax in some margins. Paper is browned and aged some minor creasing at folds margin hole on a couple of pages not affecting text; otherwise very good. This is a very complex legal case about the ownership of two slaves. These manuscript documents are signed by the three Constables deposed as witnesses. The testimony is taken at the law offices of Lysander G. Gordon. It seems that an individual who owed people money was forced to give the slaves to a sheriff and were then sold to William Knox in Southern Tennessee. However it appears that the slaves actually belonged to someone else. These documents try to sort though this mess.
1842rif. 106407Folded letter sheet four pages and remnant of wax seal. Creases at folds normal aging; otherwise very good or better. The letter is to Henry J. Carter Stockbridge Mass. from his brother. An unemployed 20 year-old Massachusetts teacher who had left home the year before in "exceeding hard times" Edward had gone to Baltimore – where some 50 teachers were out of work – and taken a job working for a wealthy man who had 4 acres of farm land worked by slaves. "…he has given me the office of overseer to look after the blacks in their work. O but you ought to see me walk over the lot with my cane in my hand to see how my work is going on. Then you ought to see the darky when he wants anything of me come up and take off his hat before he speaks…" Praising the "fine folks live in this beautiful part of the world" Carter proves that even a Massachusetts Yankee could quickly adapt to Southern culture and make peace with slavery. The letter is unsigned.
1863rif. 101890Letterpress broadside 18 7/8" x 11 3/4" bold black type for highlighted words. Paper evenly toned some wrinkling considerable archival conservation and restoration with archival paper repair; despite the imperfections it is still a decent copy with a nice impression. This appears to fall into the political dirty tricks department in an election between John Brodhead and Henry Bumm for city treasurer in Philadelphia. The broadside is supposed to highlight a letter from John Brodhead to Jefferson Davis in 1860. It has strong racist overtones as Brodhead supposedly requests a position in Nicaragua so he can "help open it up to civilization and Niggers." He goes on to state he is "tired of being a white slave at the North and long for a home in the sunny South." These kinds of political tricks were not uncommon during the Civil War period perhaps that's still true today and the racist overtones would certainly not help one's chances in a Northern election.
1852rif. 100540Letterpress braodsheet 10 3/4 x 6 1/4 text on both sides. Margins trimmed on both sides a little uneven on the left side close to words on reverse but not affecting text a few small stains in text. Indiana was for many years a site of refuge for escaping slaves. With this joint resolution the document declares that the only real way to do away with the injustice of slavery was to advocate emigration and colonialization of Africa.
