1882 - HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, "Captain's Story" - slavery & blacks; UNCLE REMUS

Description

Our Continent
Dec. 27,
1882
This is an issue of a rare periodical,
Our Continent,
which is
over 130 years old
. Published weekly in Philadelphia, it measures 7.5 x 11 inches in size and is 32 pages long. The paper came from a bound volume, and has typical slight disbinding marks at the spine, plus a little spotting in the bottom portion of its front page (see photo). Otherwise the issue is in fine, bright condition. It will be shipped with a protective, clear plastic report cover to help preserve its condition.
The front page is taken up entirely with a seasonal poem by Mary Bradley,
“At Christmas Time.”
The most interesting article is a fiction piece of 3 pages, titled
“The Captain’s Story,”
by
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
.
This is a story set in Florida, where a skipper on a boat tells the writer of an appalling tale about a plantation owner who drowned a group of illegally imported slaves when they were about to be discovered, only to be haunted later by the ghost of one “Mandingo” who fought like a tiger before being killed. The story includes numerous use of the N word, such as:
“He got in lots of prime nigg*rs right over from Africa, and nobody dared say a word about it.”
The story has two illustrations by the noted artist, A.B. Frost, with one of them captioned:
“ ‘I thought I was the Cap’n’s Nigg*r.’ ”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Also of interest is a poem on the back page of the issue, by
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
. It is 24 lines of dialect, titled
“A ‘Spiritual,’ / As Sung by Uncle Remus / Dem Lam’s A-Cryin’. ”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Background on this publication
:
Our Continent
was the brainchild of Albion W. Tourgee (1838-1905), who was a Civil War officer, Radical Republican, a civil rights pioneer (he was the lawyer for Plessy in the famed
Plessy v. Ferguson
case in the Supreme Court), and popular novelist. He started
Our Continent
in 1881, as an ambitious illustrated weekly journal, with a progressive tone. However, despite its excellent content, it never gained a wide enough readership, and after sustaining a heavy financial loss, editor Tourgee let the paper go out of business in 1884. In existence for only 3 years,
Our Continent
is rare, yet provides some fine coverage of its era in America.
_gsrx_vers_856 (GS 7.0.20 (856))