Mar 27, 2014 - Sale 2342

Sale 2342 - Lot 103

Price Realized: $ 750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--NARRATIVES.) PETERSON, DANIEL H. The Looking -Glass: Being a True Report and Narrative of the Life, Travels and Labors of the Rev. Daniel H. Peterson, a Colored Clergyman; Embracing a Period of Time from the Year 1812 to 1854, and Including his Visit to Western Africa. Frontispiece and additional plates. 150 pages. 12mo, original gilt-pictorial red cloth; extremities rubbed with minor loss of cloth; previous owner's names on pastedown and first blank. New York: Wright, 1854

Additional Details

first edition of a fascinating narrative Peterson's parents were both Maryland slaves owned by a relative of President Tyler. Determined to purchase his mother's freedom, Peterson apprenticed himself as a servant and later a steward on a Delaware river steamboat. He married, and lived in the area of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Like many free blacks Peterson realized that he was only nominally free, but not a citizen, nor would he ever be one. Agitated by "the great evil of slavery in this gigantic Republic," Peterson decided "the best plan for the relief of colored people" would be to immigrate to Liberia. Before that could take place, he decided to go there and explore the possibilities for American blacks. He was the first African American traveler to Western Africa. Blockson, 8868, Work 313.