[AFRICAN-AMERICANA] First Days Amongst the Contrabands by BOTUME, Elizabeth Hyde - 1893

Boston: Lee and Shepard Publishers, 1893. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. Octavo, 286pp, plus advertisements. A crisp, clean, lovely copy, very near fine, in the publisher's navy cloth, titled in gilt on spine. Front free endpaper excised, and just a touch of rubbing to the base of the spine, but really a fresh, handsome copy. The term "contraband" in the title refers to the freed slaves, in this case those in the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. The author was a white Abolitionist from Massachusetts who, in 1864, traveled under the charter of the Freedman's Aid Association to the Sea Islands to teach newly freed slaves how to read and write, among other things. The islands had been a Union outpost since the early days of the war, and with many of the plantation owners having abandoned their vast property holdings, the area drew many self-freed slaves during the course of the conflict. Uncommon in the trade.