Sale 2471 - Printed & Manuscript African Americana, March 29, 2018

12 c   (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) A freedom affidavit issued to a Maryland free black man. Manuscript document on one page, 4 1 / 4 x 8 1 / 4 inches, docketed on verso “Affidavit . . . filed . . . pass del[ivere]d”; minor foxing. Frederick County, MD, 4 September 1838 [400/600] An affidavit by a justice of the peace named David Harris that “of his own personal knowledge he knows Jefferson Plater the bearer to be born of free parents.” This was sworn before a court clerk, G.D. Crumbaugh, and then Mr. Plater was able to file it with the court in exchange for the official pass he would be expected to carry. This may be the same man as Jeffrey Plato, a free black laborer aged 70, listed in the 1850 census for Baltimore. “TO BE BURNED AT THE STAKE . . . UNTILL HE IS DEAD, AND AFTER THAT TO ASHES” 13 c   (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Trial account of an enslaved NewYork man for arson, with the order to burn him at the stake. 3 manuscript pages, 12 3 / 4 x 8 inches, on 2 leaves, the last leaf with the signatures and seals of twelve officials; folds and minor wear. Kingston, NY: 28 and 29 August 1730 [2,000/3,000] Arson was one of the most extreme forms of resistance available to slaves, and figured prominently in the New York slave insurrections of 1712 and 1741. As a deterrent, punishments were harsh. This trial took place in Ulster County along the Hudson River between Albany and New York City. The first of these two documents is the minutes of a meeting of the county’s seven Justices of the Peace to hear the case of “a Negro man of Capt. Albert Pawling, called Jack, being accused of fellony for burning of the barn and barels, severall sheep, oats, pease &c of Richard Broadhead at Marbletown.” Jack testified that he came from the nearby town of Wawarsing and “went into the cook room of Richard Brodhead and fetched fire and tryed to sett the barn afire but he missed. . . . The second time he went to Daniel Broadhead’s house and took a brand end of fire there and then he set the barn in fire.” The next morning, the prisoner was brought before the bar, was tried according to the evidence, confessed a second time to the crime, and was sentenced to be “burned untill he is dead and after that to ashes.” The second document is an order to the Ulster County constables to “deliver the prisoner Jack now in custody to the executioner London, negro man of Johannis Low, to be burned at the stake forthwith untill he is dead, and after that to ashes.” It is signed by the seven justices and by “five of the principall freeholders of said county,” most of them from the old Dutch settler families who predominated in Ulster Country at the time. These documents were in the possession of Ulster County historian Jonathan W. Hasbrouck, and were published after his death in 1918 (Hoes, Old Court Houses of Ulster County, page 7). We have traced no other mention in the historical record of this disturbing incident. 14 c   (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Horsmanden, Daniel. The New-York Conspiracy, or a History of the Negro Plot. 385, [7] pages. 8vo, early 1 / 2 calf, moderate wear; foxing; early owner’s signature on rear free endpaper. New York, 1810 [400/600] Second edition, revised. A series of unexplained arsons in New York precipitated a panic which was blamed on the city’s African-American and Catholic populations. 30 blacks and 4 whites were executed in the basis of flimsy evidence. Judge Horsmanden published the first edition in 1744 to defend his part in what was later described as wholesale judicial murder. With a 5-page “List of Negroes Committed on Account of the Conspiracy” at end, detailing the fate (death or deportation) of each. The 1744 first edition is quite scarce and brings 5 figures. Blockson 9787; Howes H652; Sabin 33060. 15 c   (SLAVERYANDABOLITION.) Issue of the Portland Advertiser with coverage of Nat Turner’s Rebellion. 4 pages, 17 x 11 1 / 4 inches, on two detached sheets; moderate foxing, horizontal fold. Portland, ME, 16 September 1831 [400/600] The first column of page 2 starts with a report on “The Virginia Insurrection.” In the weeks after the rebel- lion was put down, the editors attack “the hasty mode of taking justice which some of the Virginians have adopted. . . . This mode of slaughtering the black population, without trial or the form of trial, is revolting to human nature. The honor of Virginia is implicated.”