(CROMWELL LIBRARY) Rufus L Perry The Cushite; or the Childre

Sale 2562 - Lot 192

Price Realized: $ 1,062

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

(CROMWELL LIBRARY.) Rufus L. Perry. The Cushite; or the Children of Ham (the Negro Race), as Seen by the Ancient Historians and Poets. 31 pages. 8vo, original printed wrappers, worn, rebacked, marked "Rare" on front wrapper; moderate wear and staining to contents. [Brooklyn, NY]: Literary Union, 1887 (1886 copyright)

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First edition; expanded to book length in 1893. The Rev. Rufus L. Perry (1834-1895) of Brooklyn was born into slavery and became a noted scholar (fluent in Greek, Hebrew and Latin), Baptist minister, leader in the famed Weeksville neighborhood of Brooklyn, founder of an orphanage, and entrepreneur behind an attempted "Negro colony" in Jamesport, Long Island. This scholarly essay examines the Classical sources on early Black Africans and concludes that it would be "dishonoring our ancestors to be ashamed of either our color or our name." Afro-Americana supplement 1690. 2 copies in OCLC; no other works by Perry traced at auction.

Provenance: family of freedman and activist John Wesley Cromwell (1846-1927) through his daughter Otelia Cromwell (1874-1972), a noted literary scholar; granddaughter Adelaide M. Cromwell (1919-2019), an important sociologist.