Sign up to receive email notices of recent acquisitions.

Anti-Slavery Bazaar.

[Boston: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1849.]. Leaflet, 7.1” x 4.6”; 1 p., 3 blanks, 4 stanzas of verse within embossed faux lacework border.

An appealing and apparently unrecorded anti-slavery bazaar leaflet urging abolitionists to continue the struggle for “freedom’s sacred cause.”

Hosted annually by the American Anti-Slavery Society, anti-slavery bazaars were major fundraising events for the Society. Often spearheaded by women, members sold abolitionist paraphernalia, ephemera, household items, and publications—with much of the money raised supporting the Society’s newspaper, the National Anti-Slavery Standard. In 1858, the Bazaar was replaced by the Anti-Slavery Subscription Anniversary.

The poem printed here makes a rousing call for continuing the abolitionist struggle. Signed simply “M”, it was published along with three other poems in the poetry section of The Liberator (January 26, 1849, Vol. XIX. No. 4. Whole No. 942) under the following heading: “The two following poetical effusions were written for the Anti-Slavery Bazaar, In Faneuil Hall, by friends of freedom in the old world.” The poem reads in full:

Ye friends of liberty, all hail!
May your endeavours never fail
In freedom’s sacred cause!
May blessings e’er attend your course,
In striving to uproot all force,
And stern oppression’s laws!

Yours is a noble task, my friends!
And God his gracious favor lends
To speed ye on your way,
Until you reach the blessed goal,
When ev’ry dark, benighted soul,
Shall hail bright freedom’s ray.

Oh! may he speed the time when all
Their fellow-men shall brethren call,
And the deep wrong remove,
When the dark chains of slavery,
Give place to sacred liberty,
And bonds of holy love!

Oh! it were happiness to bind
In such bright chains all human kind,
And set each captive free;
For when oppressions all shall cease,
And this fair world be fill’d with peace,
Like Heav’n on earth ‘twill be!

We find no trace of this leaflet in OCLC, nor does a google search locate any examples.

A lovely artifact of the anti-slavery movement.

REFERENCES: National Anti-Slavery Bazaar at rmc.library.cornell.edu

CONDITION: Very good, a touch of foxing.

Item #5449

Sold