“For I will not suppose that the dealers in slaves are born worse than other man. No; it is the fatality of this mistaken avarice, that it corrupts the milk of human kindness and turns it to gall [...] Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its.....
HILDRETH, Richard. The Slave, or Memoirs of Archy Moore. Volume II. Boston: John H. Eastburn Printer, 1836. Duodecimo. Calf covers. 162 pages. Rag paper. The very first American abolitionist novel, published 15 years before Uncle Tom's Cabin, which some have argued it influenced. The anonymous author was an enigmatic, Harvard-educated.....
Solomon Northup. Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of . . . a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington. Auburn, NY: Derby & Miller, 1853. Large duodecimo, 336 pages including 2 publisher's ad leaves, 7 illustrated plates. Publisher's original cloth. First edition, first state from the first print run. The earliest.....
STILL, William. The Underground Rail Road. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872. First edition, first printing. Contemporary rebinding with black boards and attractive gold gilt title on spine. 9.25" x 6.5" in. 780 pages. A foundational text on freeing slaves in America written by one of the most active African American.....
[Slavery] [Abolition] Benezet, Anthony. Constitution of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief for Free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage. Philadelphia: Francis Bailey For The Society, 1788. Enlarged from the first edition of 1787, it nearly doubled in page count. Octavo, 29 pages. When Anthony.....
Phillis Wheatley. The Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature For the Year 1772. Fifth edition. J. Dodsley: London, 1795. Original marbled half leather boards. Measures 6 x 8.5 inches. 255 pages. An anthology of major works from the year 1772 including Wheatley's poem "On Recollection.".....
An Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Faculties, and Literature of Negroes. H. Gregoire. Thomas Kirk: Brooklyn, 1810. Measures 6 x 9 inches. 253 pages. Original marbled boards. Henri Jean-Baptiste Gregoire was a French Catholic priest and the Constitutional bishop of Blois, a revolutionary leader who was an ardent abolitionist.....
Lincoln, Abraham. The Republican Party Vindicated--The Demands of the South Explained. Speech of Hon. Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, at the Cooper Institute New York City, February 27, 1860. 16 pages, caption title [as issued]. Lincoln's Historic Cooper Union discourse, which catapulted him to serious presidential consideration, and provided a cogent.....
WHEATLEY, Phyllis. "Some Account of a Learned Negro Girl" in The Gentleman's Magazine. London: Printed for D. Henry, May 1773. Measures approximately 5.5 x 9 inches, [207]-256 pages. First Edition. One of the earliest known print pieces on Phillis Wheatley: An introduction of the enslaved American poetess to the UK.....
BENEZET, Anthony. “A Summary of the History, Doctrine, and Discipline of Friends; Written at the Desire of the Meeting for Sufferings in London. The First American edition, with a note from Benezet’s account of the People called Quakers.” New York: Collins, Perkins, & Co., 1805. Measures 4” x 7” inches.....
Small archive of two pamphlets with transcripts of speeches concerning anti-lynching legislation. THURMOND, J. Strom. President Truman's So-Called Civil Rights Program. Columbia, SC: [Columbia Democratic Party], 1948. BYRNES, James F. Inaugural Address of the Honorable James F. Byrnes as Governor of South Carolina. Columbia, SC: N.p., 1951. OCLC shows 5.....
Extensive archive from Methodist minister and revivalist preacher Irving R. Lovejoy from 1880-1888. This archive of 334 handwritten pages by the Reverend includes 20 handwritten and handbound sermons totaling 219 pages. Also includes an additional 115 pages of handwritten notes (mostly related to sermons and religions), letters and personal documents.....
Phillis Wheatley. The Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature For the Year 1772. Sixth edition. J. Dodsley: London, 1800. Rebound in black boards with gold gilt text on spine. Measures 6 x 8.5 inches. 255 pages. An anthology of major works from the year 1772.....
Extensive archive from Methodist minister and revivalist preacher Irving R. Lovejoy from 1860-1888. This archive of over 250 handwritten pages includes 19 handwritten and hand bound sermons, most tied with blue string, totaling 247 pages on subjects ranging from Judgment day to building fraternity between Methodist ministries, and 237 pages.....
EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. Tributes to Theodore Parker, Comprising the Exercises at the Music Hall on Sunday, June 17, 1860. With the Proceedings of The New England Anti-Slavery Convention at the Melodeon, May 31. First Edition. Boston: Published by the Fraternity, 1860. With an original carte-de-visite of Emerson. Emerson’s comments begin.....
Hand-colored albumen photograph representing an allegorical carte-de-visite of Emancipation. 1863. Published by "John Sowle, 14 Summer St., Boston." Illustration by George Gardner Fish. 3 1/2 x 2 1/4 inches on photographer's mount. Lady Liberty brandishes the Emancipation Proclamation, while two scantily clad enslaved people wrap her in the American flag.....
Political Equality Series. Vol. V., No. 4. Published by the National American Woman Suffrage Association, New York: July 1900. 4 pages. 5 ¾ x 3 ¼ in. Paperback with original wrapper, Essay by William Lloyd Garrison, “The Nature of a Republic Form of Government.” No other copies in Any institutional.....
Sherman, John. Speech by Hon. John Sherman of Ohio on Emancipation as a Compensation for Military Service Rendered by Slaves, Delivered in the Senate of the United States. McGill and Witherow: Washington D.C, February 2, 1864. 16 pages. 5.5" x 9.5" inches. John Sherman was an antislavery senator, Secretary of.....
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".....
Friends of Freedom. The Liberty Bell. Boston: Prentiss and Sawyer, 1852. 4.75" x 7.5" inches. 303 pages. First edition Signed and gifted by co-author William I. Bowditch. A very scarce collection of anti-slavery writings. Original brown boards with gilt illustration of Liberty Bell on front cover, decorative gilt spine. Illustrated.....
[African Americana] [Slavery] [Abolition] MELBOURN, Julius. Life and Opinions of Julius Melbourn. Syracuse: Hall & Dickson, 1847. Octavo, contemporary cloth, 239 pages. Frontispiece of Thomas Jefferson. "Life and Opinions of Julius Melbourn" purports to be a memoir of a formerly enslaved man from North Carolina who escapes to a new.....
CRUIKSHANK, George; Greenwich Hospital, A Series of Naval Sketches. Descriptive of A Man-of-War's Man. By An Old Sailor. With Illustrations by George Cruikshank. London: James Robins and Co and Joseph Robins, Dublin, MDCCXXVI [1826]. First edition of this wonderfully illustrated color plate book on the navy, among Cruikshank's "most brilliantly.....
William Lloyd Garrison’s. Thompson’s Lectures and Debates on Slavery, With a Full Report of the Discussion Between Mr. Thompson and Mr. Borthwick,the Pro-Slavery Agent, Also A Brief History of His Connection With the Anti-Slavery Cause in England.Isaac Knapp, Boston: 1836., 1836. Hardcover. Book Condition: Very Good. 190 pages. Bound in.....
Signed Spanish colonial free slave work contract. "Contrato Esclavo liberto." Arecibo, Puerto Rico. April 1873. Measures 12 x 8 inches. The 1873 Abolition Act ending slavery in Puerto Rico stipulated slaves apprentice under their former masters for another 3 years in exchange for food and small compensation. "In the very.....
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Address of the Irish Unitarian Christian Society to their Brethren in America. Boston, 1846. Duodecimo, 7 pages, approximately 5" x 7.5". Many Unitarians were abolitionists. The Irish Unitarians had sent a message to their American brethren in 1844, urging them to oppose slavery, and received no response.....