and money by which I have been enabled to complete this great task.

I have mentioned such Colored men as I thought necessary. To give a
biographical sketch of all the worthy Colored men in the United
States, would require more space than has been occupied in this work.

Not as the blind panegyrist of my race, nor as the partisan apologist,
but from a love for "_the truth of history_," I have striven to record
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I have not
striven to revive sectional animosities or race prejudices. I have
avoided comment so far as it was consistent with a clear exposition of
the truth. My whole aim has been to write a thoroughly trustworthy
history; and what I have written, if it have no other merit, is
reliable.

I commit this work to the public, white and black, to the friends and
foes of the Negro, in the hope that the obsolete antagonisms which
grew out of the relation of master and slave may speedily sink as
storms beneath the horizon; and that the day will hasten when there
shall be no North, no South, no Black, no White,--but all be American
citizens, with equal duties and equal rights.

GEORGE W. WILLIAMS.

NEW YORK, November, 1882.




CONTENTS.