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Specs Fine Books

1863 FUGITIVE SLAVE COVER. Rare Envelope of Fugitive Slave "Contraband" Being Attacked with a Whip.

1863 FUGITIVE SLAVE COVER. Rare Envelope of Fugitive Slave "Contraband" Being Attacked with a Whip.

Regular price $650.00 USD
Regular price Sale price $650.00 USD
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Come back here you black rascal. Can't come back nohow, massa; Dis chile's Contraban'

A very rare pro-abolitionist, anti-slavery cover issued during the Civil War. It reads, Come back here you black rascal. [reply] Can't come back nohow, massa; dis chile's Contraban'

A superb, crisp, bright example. An inferior example sold at Raynor's, 2020, for in excess of $800 with commissions. This example apparently uncirculated. Exceptional. 

"Patriotic covers were a popular form of visual propaganda and became a collector’s item during the Civil War. Produced both in the North and South, these envelopes featured patriotic imagery and slogans, although some—primarily printed in the North-- employed stereotypical and exaggerated images of the speech, dress, and physical characteristics of African Americans.

This patriotic cover was printed during the Civil War to promote the antislavery cause and depicts a white enslaver with a whip amidst a crowd of African Americans rushing towards a building labelled Fort Monroe." [Massachusetts Historical Society]

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