+-------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note: | | | |Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | | | +-------------------------------------------------+ [Illustration: Eng. by J. W. Watts from a Photograph by Grice Bros. Port au Prince. _Geffrard_] THE BLACK MAN: HIS ANTECEDENTS, HIS GENIUS, AND HIS ACHIEVEMENTS. BY WILLIAM WELLS BROWN. [Illustration: Logo] _Boston_: JAMES REDPATH, PUBLISHER, 221 WASHINGTON STREET. 1863. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by WILLIAM WELLS BROWN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. TO THE ADVOCATES AND FRIENDS OF NEGRO FREEDOM AND EQUALITY, WHEREVER FOUND, This Volume is Respectfully Dedicated, BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. The calumniators and traducers of the Negro are to be found, mainly, among two classes. The first and most relentless are those who have done them the greatest injury, by being instrumental in their enslavement and consequent degradation. They delight to descant upon the "natural inferiority" of the blacks, and claim that we were destined only for a servile condition, entitled neither to liberty nor the legitimate pursuit of happiness. The second class are those who are ignorant of the characteristics of the race, and are the mere echoes of the first. To meet and refute these misrepresentations, and to supply a deficiency, long felt in the community, of a work containing sketches of individuals who, by their own genius, capacity, and intellectual development, have surmounted the many obstacles which slavery and prejudice have thrown in their way, and raised themselves to positions of honor and influence, this volume was written. The characters represented in most of these biographies are for the first time put in print. The author's long sojourn in Europe, his opportunity of research amid the archives of England and France, and his visit to the West Indies, have given him the advantage of information respecting the blacks seldom acquired. If this work shall aid in vindicating the Negro's character, and show that he is endowed with those intellectual and amiable qualities which adorn and dignify human nature, it will meet the most sanguine hopes of the writer. CAMBRIDGEPORT, MASS., 1863. CONTENTS. PAGE MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR, 11 THE BLACK MAN AND HIS ANTECEDENTS, 31 THE BLACK MAN, HIS GENIUS AND HIS ACHIEVEMENTS. BENJAMIN BANNEKER, 51 NAT TURNER, 59 MADISON WASHINGTON, 75 HENRY BIBB, 86 PLACIDO, 88