Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Faculties
Item #78019
GREGOIRE, H[enri]. An Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Faculties, and Literature of Negroes; Followed with an Account of the Life and Works of Fifteen Negroes & Mulattoes, Distinguished in Science, Literature and the Arts. Translated by D.B. Warden. Brooklyn: Printed by Thomas Kirk, 1810. 1st American ed. 253,[2]pp. Later cloth. Very old water stain to margins, toning, leaves brittle, else very good. Blockson 18. Work, p.455. Sabin 28728. John Wesley Cromwell's copy with a note in his hand on the front free endpaper: "A Present from A. A. Schomburg, New York City." Further inscribed: Adelaide Cromwell Hill granddaughter of John W. Cromwell to who the book was given." Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (1874-1938) was a historian, writer, bibliophile, and activist He was a prominent member of the Harlem Renaissance; his library formed the basis of the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library. Adelaide Cromwell Hill from her grandfather's library John W. Cromwell. John Wesley Cromwell (1846-1927) was a lawyer, teacher, civil servant, journalist, historian, and civil rights activist in Washington, DC. He was among the founders of the Bethel Literary and Historical Society and the American Negro Academy. Adelaide Cromwell Hill (1919-2019). Hill, a prominent sociologist and a granddaughter of John Wesley Cromwell, was the first Black instructor at Hunter College and at Smith College. She was the author of several books on Black history and a study of Boston's Black upper class. Originally published in Paris in 1808. "This now scarce volume set the standards by which most biographical and historical works on gifted blacks were written during the following decades. Gregoire's book was an important and authoritative contribution to Afro-American historicity"-Blockson. Classic examination and defense of the intellectual capacity of Blacks. Gregoire and other abolitionists on both sides of the Atlantic sought to establish the "capacity" of the Negro. Not every one would rise to the level of a Phillis Wheatley, Ignacio Sancho, or Olaudah Equiano, but the "capacity" was there. Gregoire in France and Theodore Dwight in America tried to prove that Black Africa not only had the capacity but a written language, which of course was Arabic.
Price: $3,500.00