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Frederick Douglass Letter Signed

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:15,000.00 - 20,000.00 USD
Frederick Douglass Letter Signed

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Auction Date:2021 May 12 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:15th Floor WeWork, Boston, Massachusetts, 02108, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
LS signed "Frederick Douglass," one page, 8.25 x 10.25, September 21, 1889. Letter to Ebenezer Bassett, the United States' first African-American diplomat, who had served as minister to Haiti from 1869 to 1877. In full: "I have just received information from the State Department that myself and family are to be conveyed to Haiti by either the Ossippee or the Kearsarge, one or the other is to sail from Norfolk on the 28th inst. It is advisable that you join me in Washington as early as the 25th. This announcement on the part of the State Department is very sudden. I shall nevertheless make my arrangements to meet the exigency." In very good to fine condition, with creasing to the lower left corner, and splitting to the ends of the intersecting folds.

In 1888, Republican President Benjamin Harrison, for whom Douglass had faithfully campaigned, nominated him to be the United States' minister resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti. Douglass accepted the challenging post, which came at a time of unrest in Haiti and an era of empire-building in the United States. The Haitian government had been overthrown by the military in 1888, and a stable replacement had not yet been established. Sensing an opportunity, the United States hoped to capitalize. Soon, American gunboats were dispatched in an effort to acquire, by intimidation, the Haitian commune Mole St. Nicholas as a naval base. This placed Douglass in a precarious position—though a patriotic American in support of expansion, he also respected the wishes for sovereignty of his Haitian brethren. Eventually, he found it impossible to reconcile these competing ideals, and resigned the commission in July 1891.