Mar 21, 2024 - Sale 2663

Sale 2663 - Lot 396

Price Realized: $ 2,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(SLAVERY.) Isaac D. Williams. Sunshine and Shadow of Slave Life. Illustrated title page. 91 pages. 8vo, original illustrated wrappers, worn and detached; minor wear to contents, final two leaves detached. East Saginaw, MI: Evening News, 1885
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Additional Details

First edition. Isaac Williams (circa 1821-1898) was born a free man, working on a Washington family plantation. As a young man he was nonetheless sold in an estate proceeding, and made numerous attempts to escape bondage. He recounts the miseries he suffered when apprehended and returned to his master. He also tells of his life in Canada and East Saginaw, Michigan after his successful escape.

Williams recalls his early life on the "John O. Washington" plantation in King George County, Virginia, noting that when Washington died his widow remarried a John Braxton, who then sold Williams into slavery. We can't find an exact match in the well-documented Washington family, but we suspect Wiliams originally labored for John Hooe Washington (1768-1830), whose father had been a first cousin of President Washington; his widow later married an Augustine Braxton.

Credited as "Reminiscences as told by Isaac D. Williams to 'Tege,'" and copyrighted by William Ferguson Goldie. Brignano, Black Americans in Autobiography (revised) 414. Not in Afro-Americana, Blockson, or Work. Only one other traced at auction, at Swann, 28 February 2005, lot 60.