LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH AND WEST / BY ARTHUR SINGLETON [I.E., HENRY C. KNIGHT].

Knight, Henry C. (Henry Cogswell) 1789-1835.

Verlag: Richardson and Lord. 1824., boston:, 1824

Beschreibung

First edition. 8vo. 159pp. in 19th century paper covered boards, rebacked with paper spine label, worn at corners. Title with two red dots and the number 50 in old manuscript. Blank margin of p. 15-16 with old repair (see image), blank margin of p. 115-116 with a closed tear. Leaves with a few spots of foxing/soiling. Overall, very good. A collection of letters sent by Henry Knight to one of his brothers, either Frederick or Antonio Knight, describing in great detail Southern and Western people, customs, topography, commerce with much on slavery, the condition of slaves, slave auctions, etc. in the first quarter of the 19th century. Orphaned at age 8, Henry Knight attended Phillips Academy and graduated from Brown in 1812. He was a poet and travelled for 5 years across the southern states (1814 - 1819), resulting in the publication of the book offered here. Includes letters from: Philadelphia, Washington City, Virginia, Kentucky, New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. Henry Knight died of scarlet fever in Rowley, Essex County, Massachusetts in 1835. Knight mentions seeing the tanned skin of a slave in a museum: ?There was a piece of an Afric's skin tanned into kid, in Peale's Museum, Philadelphia; and, it is said, that they are used to make razor-strops, and saddle-cloths in the West-Indies.? He goes on to say: ?The treatment of the slaves is quite different under different masters, and overseers. It is certified, that a black overseer is always more domineering, and more of an eye-servant, in the bad sense of the word, than a white one? in some counties, and especially in some states further south, they are trodden under foot; a man and woman manacled together, and thus sent in droves to market; 79 tied down upon a log, and their naked backs incarnadined, with a raw hide thong, into sanguine welts, into which nitre is rubbed to heal them; and divorced from their husbands and wives by auction. In Georgia, I have heard, they sometimes sell slaves by the pound; where one woman-slave was so gross, that they were obliged to weigh one side of her at a time. Some buyers inquire, whether a slave bolts, or chews? because those that bolt, i. e. throw down huge collops at a jerk without mastication, eat much more in a given time, than the others. A slave infant, in good health, and weaned, is worth from seventy to eighty dollars.? (Letter from Virginia). Sabin 38116.

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 003527

Bibliografische Details

• Titel: LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH AND WEST / BY ARTHUR SINGLETON [I.E., HENRY C. KNIGHT].
• Verlag: Richardson and Lord. 1824., boston:
• Erscheinungsjahr: 1824
• Sprache: Englisch
• Einband: Hardcover
• Auflage: 1st Edition
• Zustand: Very Good