Raynors 2012-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/27/2012
A complete and authentic issue of “The American Museum...” May 1788, 5” x 8-1/2,” 96pp., disbound, cover loose at spine, VG. From the interior, running 3/4 page, “... The Petition of a Great Number of Blacks, Freeman of Said Commonwealth.” In part, “That your petitioners are justly alarmed at the inhuman and crue treatment that three of our brethren, free citizens of the town of Boston, lately received. The Captain, under pretence that his vessel was in distress on an Island below in this harbor, having got them on board, put them in irons, and carried them off from their wives and children, to be sold for slaves. ...that many of our free Blacks that have entered on board of vessels as seamen, have been sold as slaves, and some of them we have heard from, but know not who carried them away ... that your petitioners have for some time past, beheld with grief, ships cleared out from this harbor for Africa, and they either steal our brothers and sisters, fill their ship-holds full of unhappy men and women, crowded together, then set out for the best market to sell them there, like sheep for slaughter, and then return here like honest men ... Prince Hall.” Prince Hall (c.1735-1807) an African American noted as a tireless abolitionist, for his leadership in the free black community in Boston, and as the founder of Prince Hall Masonry. Hall is considered the founder of “Black Freemasonry” in the United States, known today as Prince Hall Freemasonry. Hall formed the African Grand Lodge of North America. Many historians regard Prince Hall as one of the more prominent African American leaders throughout the early period of the United States.
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