2024-01 Raynors Americana Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/20/2024
Book, "The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, Ancient and Modern. The Forms of Slavery that Prevailed in Ancient Nations, Particularly in Greece and Rome. The African Slave Trade and the Political History of Slavery in the United States", Compiled from Authentic Materials by W. O. Blake. Columbus, Ohio: J. and H. Miller, 1858, 832pp., 12 engraved images including "DECKS OF A SLAVE SHIP, which often lacking, plus a 10-page appendix covering the THE NOTORIOUS AND FAMOUS DRED SCOTT CASE AND DECISION \Topics are covered in extraordinary detail; History of Slavery in the North American colonies; Slavery under the confederation; Formation of the constitution-slavery compromises; Political history of Slavery in the US 1789-1850; Repeal of Missouri Compromise; Affairs of Kansas; History of troubles in Kansas, Statistical tables constructed for the census of 1850; Insurrection at Harper's Ferry, Dred Scott decision, etc. Most are fascinated with the SLAVE DECK engraved image. But, the reading is absorbing. Allow me a few excerpts. ""There was so great a number of blacks in the governments of Santa Marta and Venezuela, and so little precaution was used in the management of them, or rather the liberty they had was so great, being allowed the use of arms, which they much delight in, that, prompted by their natural fierceness and arrogance ... Assembling to the number of about 250, and repairing to the settlement of New Segovia, they divided themselves into companies, and appointed captains ... The next morning Captain James de Lassado arrived there with forty men from the government of Venezuela, and, judging that no time ought to be lost in that affair, marched against the blacks with the men he had brought, and those who were before at New Segovia, Perceiving that they had quitted the post they had first taken, and were retired to a strong place on the mountain, he pursued, overtook, and attacked them; and though they drew up and stood on their defense, he soon routed and put them all to the sword, sparing none but their women and some female Indians they had with them..." And another, " The Progresso, a Brazilian slaver, was captured on the 12th of April, on the coast of Madagascar, by the British cruiser Cleopatra, on board of which Mr. Hill was chaplain. ... Shortly after the Progresso parted company with the Cleopatra, a squall arose, and the negroes, who were breathing fresh air on deck, and rolling themselves about for glee, and kissing the hands and clothes of their deliverers, were all sent below. "The night," says Mr. Hill, "being intensely hot, 400 wretched beings thus crammed into a hold 12 yards in length, 7 feet in breadth, and only 312 feet in height, speedily began to make an effort to re-issue to the open air. Being thrust back, and striving the more to get out, the after-hatch was forced down on them. Over the other hatchway, in the fore part of the vessel, a wooden grating was fastened. ... I may say without exaggeration, 'the smoke of their torment' - which ascended, can be compared to nothing earthly. One of the Spaniards gave warning that the consequence would be 'many deaths.'" Next day the prediction of the Spaniard "was fearfully verified. Fifty-four crushed and mangled corpses lifted up from the slave deck have been brought to the gangway and thrown overboard. Some were emaciated from disease, many bruised and bloody. Antonio tells me that some were found strangled, their hands still grasping each other's throats, and tongues protruding from their mouths. ... On the 12th of April, when the Progresso parted company with the Cleopatra, there were 397 negroes on board. Of these only 222 were landed at the Cape on the 22d of May; no fewer than 175, a little short of half, having died. ... And one more, "Walsh, in his notices of Brazil, in 1828 and 1829, says, in describing a slave-ship, examined by the English man-of-war in which he returned from Brazil, in May, 1829: "She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard fifty-five. ... As they belonged to, and were shipped on account of, different individuals, they were all branded, like sheep, with the owners' marks, of different forms. ...
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