Heading: (1930 Black author’s account of largest attempted Slave Escape in US History)
Author: Paynter, John H.
Title: Fugitives Of The Pearl- A Black author's history of largest attempted Slave Escape in US History
Place Published: Washington DC.
Publisher:Associated Publishers
Date Published: 1930
Description:

Paynter, John H.[enry]. Fugitives Of The Pearl (Associated Publishers, Washington, D.C., 1930) First Edition. Original cloth binding. 209 pp. Illustrated with photographs. Former owners’ bookplate on front pastedown and inscription on rear pastedown.

Remembered for his classic 1895 autobiography, being the first African-American memoir of service (as a cabin boy) in the US Navy, Paynter wrote two other books in later life about his career as a federal civil servant.  The third was this remarkable semi-fictional history, published by Carter Woodson’s Washington press, about the largest attempted slave escape in US History - the ill-fated flight of 77 slaves from Washington, D.C. aboard the Schooner Pearl in 1848. While the fugitives were captured in Chesapeake  Bay and sold to southern slave traders, the incident provoked a pro-slavery riot in Washington, the arrest and jailing of two white mariners who had aided the slaves, and was said to be one inspiration of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  Paynter was a descendant of two young women who were among the fugitives and conducted original research in producing this book, which tells an little-known dramatic story worthy of motion picture immortalization. Reprinted in 1971, but this original edition is scarce.

Very Good