A SLAVE'S DEFENSE OF SLAVERY (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--NARRATIVES.) CAPITEIN, JACOBUS. De Slaverny, als niet strydig tegen de Christelyke Vryheid, welk onder het Gehengen van Algenoegzamen God, en de Voorzittinge van den Hoog-eerwaarden en Wyd-Beroemden Heere Joan van den Honert. (vii) 8-22, [inserted copper engraved portrait of Capitien] 23-53, [xviii] pp. Thick 4to, original full vellum, with title for Honert in ink on the spine. Signed by the publisher on the verso of the Capitein title-page. Leyden, 1742
a fine copy of an exceedingly rare pro-slavery treatise, written by a slave.In this case, bound in at the end of Joan van Honert's "Derde Versameling van Heilige Mengelstoffen" (Leiden, 1756). Jacobus Elisa Joannes Capitein (1717-1747) was captured on the Gold Coast at about the age of eight or nine. He was sold almost immediately to a Dutch sea captain who brought him back to the Netherlands where he was in fact automatically free, since slavery was banned at that time. Jacobus was sent to study theology at the University of Leiden, becoming the first sub-Saharan African ordained by the Netherlands Reformed Church. The present work was his dissertation, in which he defends slavery. He was appointed as a missionary to present-day Ghana upon graduation, and died there five years later. The only thing left for all of his effort is the present dissertation, which was printed in both Latin and Dutch. It appears here at the end of a larger theological work.
