Black Americana and Abolition – 5 – Bauman Rare Books - July 2022 Limited First Edition Of Armistead’s Monumental Tribute For The Negro, 1848, With The Inscription Of Leading 19th-Century Civil Rights Leader John Wesley Cromwell 5. ARMISTEAD, Wilson. A Tribute for the Negro: Being a Vindication of the Moral, Intellectual, and Religious Capabilities of the Coloured portion of Mankind. Manchester, 1848. Thick octavo, original full gilt-stamped black morocco, custom clamshell box. $12,500. Limited first edition of the English abolitionist’s major work, one of an unspecified number in publisher’s morocco, a rare association copy featuring the 1914 owner signature and inscription of 19th-century American Black leader John Wesley Cromwell: “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. One of Britain’s preeminent 19th-century abolitionists, Armistead was president of the Leeds Anti-Slavery Association and the chief financial backer for the Anti-Slavery Advocate. Armistead provided sanctuary for fugitive slaves from the U.S. in the 1840s and ’50s. Tribute to the Negro, his major work, brings together biographies of over 50 Africans, African Americans, and figures of African descent. Interior very fresh with minimal archival repair to margins of preliminary leaves, expert reinforcement to spine ends and corners of bright original morocco. A handsome near-fine copy of this seminal work with a distinguished African American provenance.
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