Item #17896 A Caution to Great Britain and Her Colonies, Early Abolitionist Anthony Benezet's Seminal Text Decrying Slavery, 1784. Anthony Benezet.
A Caution to Great Britain and Her Colonies, Early Abolitionist Anthony Benezet's Seminal Text Decrying Slavery, 1784

A Caution to Great Britain and Her Colonies, Early Abolitionist Anthony Benezet's Seminal Text Decrying Slavery, 1784

Book

Benezet, Anthony. A Caution to Great Britain and Her Colonies in a Short Representation of the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions. London: sold by James Phillips, 1784. First London reprint of what is described on the titlepage as "A New Edition." Hard cover. Measures 5" x *" inches. 46 pages. First edition was printed in 1776. Rebound with gray boards and quarter brown leather gilt-titled spine. The book was a hallmark anti-slavery text distributed in England and the colonies. In it Benezet, a well-known Quaker educator, philanthropist and early abolitionist, reports on the conditions of slaves and captives in Africa, the West Indies, and the American South. He implores his readers to consider the humanity of enslaved peoples and join the abolitionist cause for the sake of their own and the world's conscience. "Your hearts must needs relent, if you have not lost all sense of humanity, all pity and compassion towards those of your own kind, to think what calamities, what havoc and destruction among them, you have been authors of for filthy lucre's sake." Throughout this early abolitionist text, Benezet emphasizes the shared humanity between slaves and slavery's supporters, imploring readers to see clearly the cruelty of what he pointedly calls "Man-trade." Previous owner's bookplate on front pastedown. Some light foxing. Overall very good condition. SABIN 4671. HOWES B345. DAB II, pp.177-78.

Item #17896

Price: $1,285.00