University of Virginia Library

14. Contemporaneous and Modern Books on Slavery.

Under this heading are brought for convenience several different
classes of books on slavery. The first of these classes comprises the
three small volumes, published during the interval from 1816 to 1826,
in which immediate emancipation was advocated by the Rev. George
Bourne, the Rev. James Duncan, and the Rev. John Rankin. Our interest
here in the teaching of these men arises primarily from the circumstance
that two of them, at least, are known to have done what they
could to advance the work of the Underground Railroad, while all of
them lived, at the time of the appearance of their books, on or near the
border line over which came the trembling fugitive in search of freedom.

Another class is made up of volumes descriptive of slavery. Such are
Mrs. Frances A. Kemble's Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation
in 1836–1839, Frederick Law Olmsted's Cotton Kingdom, G. M. Weston's

Progress of Slavery in the United States, and a book that has but
recently come from the press, Edward Ingle's Southern Sidelights.

In a third class must be grouped such recent monographs as Mrs.
Marion G. McDougall's Fugitive Slaves, and Miss Mary Tremaine's Slavery
in the District of Columbia. The former has been found to be especially
serviceable, not only because of its subject matter, but also because
of its numerous and accurate references and its long list of notable fugitive
slave cases.