?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) George Whitefield. Three Letters . . . to the Inhabitants of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina,Concerning their Negroes. 14 [of 16] pages. 8vo, stitched; moderate wear and soiling, lacking final leaf which concludes the letter "concerning their Negroes." Philadelphia: Benjamin Franklin, 1740
First edition. The famed British evangelist George Whitefield (1714-1770) preached extensively in America from 1738 to 1740, and opened an orphanage in Georgia. He was a slave-owner, but also spoke out against the mistreatment of enslaved people. This pamphlet, printed for him by his close friend Benjamin Franklin, includes the text of three letters. Most notably, the final letter is addressed "to the inhabitants of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, concerning their Negroes." He wrote:
"God has a Quarrel with you for your Abuse of and Cruelty to the poor Negroes. . . . It is sinful, when bought, to use them as bad, nay worse, than as though they were Brutes. . . . Your Slaves, I believe, work as hard if not harder than the Horses whereon you ride. . . . Your Dogs are caress'd and fondled at your Tables: But your Slaves, who are frequently stiled Dogs or Beasts, have not an equal Privilege. They are scarce permitted to pick up the Crumbs which fall from their Masters Tables. . . . Numbers have been given up to the inhuman Usage of cruel Task Masters, who by their unrelenting Scourges have ploughed upon their Backs, and made long Furrows, and at length brought them even to Death itself. . . . I have wondered, that we have not more Instances of Self-Murder among the Negroes, or that they have not more frequently rose up in Arms against their Owners. . . . Should such a Thing be permitted by Providence, all good Men must acknowledge the Judgment would be just." The pioneering Black poet Phillis Wheatley later wrote a poem in honor of Whitefield when he died in 1770.
Afro-Americana 11158; Evans 4651; Miller, Franklin's Philadelphia Printing, 224; Sabin 103599. Provenance: Swann sale, 10 March 2011, lot 67, to the consignor. No other copies traced at auction since 1950.
