Webb, Frank J. | Harriet B. Stowe (essay date 1857)
Harriet B. Stowe (essay date 1857)
SOURCE: Stowe, Harriet B. Preface to The Garies and Their Friends. 1857. Reprint, pp. v-vi. New York: AMS Press, 1971.
[In the following preface to the 1857 edition of Webb's The Garies and Their Friends, Stowe characterizes the work as a “simple and truthfully-told story” of the plight of free blacks, emancipated slaves, and fugitive slaves in antebellum Philadelphia.]
The book which now appears before the public may be of interest in relation to a question which the late agitation of the subject of slavery has raised in many thoughtful minds; viz.—Are the race at present held as slaves capable of freedom, self-government, and progress?
The author is a coloured young man, born and reared in the city of Philadelphia.
This city, standing as it does on the frontier between free and slave territory, has accumulated naturally a large population of the mixed and African race.
...[The entire page is 406 words long]
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