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151 pp. Illustrated with 8 plates. 15x9 cm (6x3½") original cloth. First Edition.

Born to slave parents near Baltimore who were owned by a relative of President John Tyler, Peterson himself escaped bondage and became a wandering Methodist preacher in Pennsylvania, traveling as a Christian missionary to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Gambia shortly before writing this book, published on his return to New York. A gilt-lettered subtitle on the front cover apparently summed up the author’s dream of a better future: “A Land of Rest, Peace and Unity / A Government of Wisdom and Equality.” One of the relatively few African-American autobiographies published before the Civil War.