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

56 c   (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Leovy, Henry J.; compiler. The Laws and Ordinances of the City of New Orleans. xxvi, 439 pages. 8vo, contemporary calf, moderate wear; toning and intermittent foxing; early owners’ inscriptions on front free endpaper. New Orleans, LA, 1857 [300/400] first edition . Pages 257-274 are devoted to the city ordinances for “Slaves and Free Persons of Color,” with dozens of punitive slave laws that forbid public assembly, carrying a walking cane, liquor sales, “to quarrel, yell, curse or sing obscene songs,” and much more.A final section regulates “Slave Marts and Negro Traders,” including a requirement that “the premises must be enclosed as to prevent slaves from being seen from the street.” None traced at auction since 1991. 57 57 c   (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Matthews, P.H. John Brown * The Fate of Old John Brown. Letterpress songsheet, 10 x 6 1 / 2 inches, within a wood-engraved border with stereotypical images of blacks and other Southern themes; light wear, laid down on very thin tissue. New York: Henry de Marsan, [1861] [250/350] Two nasty bits of pro-slavery doggerel. One reads “So, all you, old men, who wish to set the niggers free / Just think of John Brown and the gallows’ tree.” The other concludes “If the Niggers had been free, John / What would they get to do? / They know when they are well off / And now they laugh at you.” Brown was executed in December 1859, but Marsan was only at this 54 Chatham Street address from 1861 to 1863; this must have been produced in the months just before the war.