Negro Slavery; by MACAULAY, Zachary - 1823: Or, A View Of Some Of The More Prominent Features Of That State Of Society, As It Exists In The United States Of America And In The Colonies Of The West Indies, Especially In Jamaica.

London: Printed For Hatchard And Son, Piccadilly, And J. And A. Arch, Cornhill, 1823. Full Description:

[MACAULAY, Zachary]. Negro Slavery; Or, A View Of Some Of The More Prominent Features Of That State Of Society, As It Exists In The United States Of America And In The Colonies Of The West Indies, Especially In Jamaica. London: Printed For Hatchard And Son, Piccadilly, And J. And A. Arch, Cornhill, 1823.

First Edition, published anonymously. Octavo (8 3/16 x 5 5/16 inches; 207 x 130 mm). [4], 118, [1, publisher's advertisements], [1, blank] pp.

Bound in contemporary drab wrappers. A bit of light toning, mainly to title-page. Some minor dampstaining to blank margin. Overall very good.

"Zachary Macaulay was a Scottish statistician, one of the founders of London University and of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, an antislavery activist, and governor of Sierra Leone, the British colony for freed slaves. He worked endlessly to end the slave trade and to Christianize and improve the world." (Good Reads).

Through his association with Babington, Macaulay was invited to visit Sierra Leone, the west African colony founded in 1787 to provide a home for emancipated slaves. Setting sail at the end of 1790 he did not see his friends again until the spring of 1792. No sooner had he returned to Britain than he was sent out again to Sierra Leone, this time as one of the council members. In March 1794 he became governor. A tireless and painstaking administrator, Macaulay steered the colony through a difficult period in its short history. Undeterred by a hostile environment and disputes among the settlers, he opened trade negotiations with the Fula kingdom and in September 1794 successfully resisted an invasion by French revolutionary forces. When he handed over the governorship in 1799 the capital, Freetown, was a bustling settlement of some 1200 inhabitants and the centre of a considerable trade with the interior... In 1804 Macaulay was elected a member of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which had only recently been revived by William Wilberforce. He quickly emerged as a leading figure in the parliamentary campaign which in 1807 resulted in victory for Wilberforce and his supporters... After 1807 Macaulay played a major part in trying to ensure that the new legislation was enforced and that other European countries followed Britain's example. He became honorary secretary of the African Institution, which replaced the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade... In 1814, during the temporary peace in Europe, he travelled to Paris to present the British case for abolition of the slave trade by the continental powers... By the early 1820s Macaulay was contemplating a more direct attack on West Indian planters, namely the gradual abolition of slavery itself. In 1823 he helped to organize the Anti-Slavery Society and became editor of its monthly publication, the Anti-Slavery Reporter. Through the pages of the Reporter and pamphlets such as East and West India Sugar and Negro Slavery, both of which were published anonymously, Macaulay sought to reveal the true enormities of the slave system and to counter claims that conditions in the West Indies had actually improved." (Oxford DNB).

Sabin 52269.

HBS 68996.

$1,250.