Mar 24, 2022 - Sale 2598

Sale 2598 - Lot 7

Price Realized: $ 2,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) James Williams. Life and Adventures of . . . a Fugitive Slave, with a Full Description of the Underground Railroad. [3]-124 pages. 8vo, original purple printed wrappers, moderate wear including chip to upper right corner; title page missing top half, minor wear and foxing. San Francisco, CA: Women's Union Print, 1873

Additional Details

An early edition, issued without illustrations in the same year as the 108-page first edition, printed by a pioneering cooperative owned and operated by women--and one of the very few slave narratives written and published in California. It is the story of a man who escaped from slavery in Maryland and made his way to the gold fields of California in 1851. He describes rescuing a girl from slavery in Sacramento, fleeing at gunpoint, and then being robbed by a prostitute in Mexico (page 31) before returning to California. Mining, brawls, reflections on racism, and failed business ventures all get coverage. He concludes his narrative with capsule histories of fellow fugitives such as Henry "Box" Brown and the Crafts, a history of the Modoc War, a list of stockholders in the Underground Railroad (page 98), and other curiosities, concluding with an account of the Yellow Jacket Mine fire on 20 September 1873. Cowan 1933, page 687; Howes W456.