"THE FIRST COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS… LAID THE GROUND, IN STYLE, PRESENTATION AND METHODOLOGY": BLACK HISTORIAN GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS' VITAL TWO-VOLUME HISTORY OF THE NEGRO RACE, 1883

WILLIAMS, George Washington. History of the Negro Race in America from 1619-1880. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1883. Two volumes. Octavo, modern half calf gilt, raised bands, marbled boards. $4200.

First edition of the defining two-volume first work by Williams—in his words, ''to call the attention to the absurd charge that the Negro does not belong to the human family"—a massive, groundbreaking History demonstrating his "contributions to the field of historical literature were inestimable… Williams had created a field of historical study, where his white counterparts had not," profoundly affirming James Baldwin's conviction that history "is not merely something to be read… history is literally present in all that we do."

Nineteenth-century Black historian Williams "single-handedly… called attention to the importance of including Afro-Americans in any acceptable and comprehensive history of the nation… [and] gave heart and encouragement to future Afro-American historians" (Franklin, "George Washington Williams," Critical Inquiry, 665-72). Heralded by John Hope Franklin as "the first serious historian of his race,'" Williams would recall that his motivation for this seminal work was partly "'to call the attention to the absurd charge that the Negro does not belong to the human family'… 'History,' James Baldwin wrote, 'is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us… history is literally present in all that we do'" (Henry Louis Gates, Jr., emphasis in original). Williams hid his age to enlist at 14 "in the U.S. Colored Troops in 1864. He served in operations against Petersburg and Richmond… [later] serving with the Tenth Cavalry, an all-black unit." In 1879 he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, "making him the first African American to sit in the state legislature" (ANB). After one term Williams left to work full time on this "first comprehensive history of African Americans," which documents "African American history from its inception in Africa to the postbellum years following the Civil War." The same year as publication, he was admitted to the Boston bar and in 1885 was appointed minister to Haiti by President Chester Arthur, but "was never allowed to officially assume the post by the incoming administration" of Grover Cleveland. "Williams' contributions to the field of historical literature were inestimable… his work laid the ground, in style, presentation and methodology for the burgeoning field of historical literature" (Oxford Companion to African American Literature, 778).

Williams research for this "monumental history,… his greatest work," involved "consulting over 12,000 books and pamphlets" (Blockson, Commented Bibliography 44). He was also innovative in his use of newspapers as "an important historical source… he collected elusive material that would give him an angle of vision with which many historians of his day or a later day were not even concerned," and he remains "a pioneer in the field of oral history. When the adjutant general of the U.S. denied him permission to examine the records of the Negro regiments in the regular army, Williams was not daunted. He simply went to Texas, New Mexico, the Indian Territory and Kansas, where the troops were stationed… [to] gather valuable firsthand information" through interviews with "Black enlisted men and NCOs as well as the white officers in command." In response to publication of this History and his other works, "the white academic community was silent… but Williams had created a field of historical study, where his white counterparts had not" (Franklin, "George Washington Williams," Critical Inquiry, 665-72). First edition, first printing: with frontispiece portrait (V.I). Blockson 9523. Blockson, Commented Bibliography 44. See Work, 282 (one-volume). Scant trace of marginalia, library stamps on page following title page and pg. 21 of both volumes.

Text generally fresh, with two paper repairs in Volume I not affecting readability. An extremely good copy.