"ROBBED OF THEIR LANDS, AND STILL WORSE, OF THEMSELVES"
ARMISTEAD, Wilson. Tribute for the Negro. Manchester, 1848.
Limited first edition of the English abolitionist's major work against "the most extensive and extraordinary system of crime the world ever witnessed," one of an unspecified number in publisher's morocco, a rare association copy featuring the owner signature and inscription of 19th-century Black leader John Wesley Cromwell, born enslaved, who became a leading attorney, author and publisher, signed by him with his date of 1914, with the inscription honoring his daughter, reading: "Bought in London by Otelia Cromwell when visiting that city during the first month of the great war—a present to her father," additionally signed below by his granddaughter Adelaide Cromwell Hill. Armistead's exceptional volume features over 50 biographies of leaders such as Olaudah Equiano, Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass, along with engraved frontispiece and eleven engraved plates including portraits of Equiano, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Douglass and Cinque of the Amistad, a facsimile of a letter signed by Toussaint and this limited edition's two additional places, original morocco with gilt vignette on the front board of a manacled slave with the abolitionist motto, "Am I Not A Man And A Brother.” $12,500.
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