A very scarce first edition of an important fugitive slave novel that appears to be grounded in history, with the main white character being Abijah Green. The first edition offered here was published toward the end of the War and was issued again in 1865 immediately after the War's end. It's quite a moving account of the first Christmas in the North celebrated by fugitive slaves and those liberated by the Emancipation Proclamation and the cessation of of the Civil War.
Notably, it contains a rather extensive section in which the main black protagonist attempts to explain how to her daughter that the word "nigga" is not a synonym for other words describing her African race, but is a verbal counterpart to the whip and the chains of slavery and forced labor. To my knowledge, one of the first attempts to discourse on the uniquely negative character of the "N" word.
[Slavery, Fugitive Slaves]. Contraband Christmas. With Illustrations by Hoppin. Boston. E. P. Dutton and Company 1864. First Edition. 104pp.
A good + copy, bound in cloth, a bit shaken at the prelims, but generally solid, with a few spots of moderate foxing.
