PREFACE.


I was requested to deliver an oration on the Fourth of July, 1876, at
Avondale, O. It being the one-hundredth birthday of the American
Republic, I determined to prepare an oration on the _American Negro_.
I at once began an investigation of the records of the nation to
secure material for the oration. I was surprised and delighted to find
that the historical memorials of the Negro were so abundant, and so
creditable to him. I pronounced my oration on the Fourth of July,
1876; and the warm and generous manner in which it was received, both
by those who listened to it and by others who subsequently read it in
pamphlet form, encouraged me to devote what leisure time I might have
to a further study of the subject.

I found that the library of the Historical and Philosophical Society
of Ohio, and the great _Americana_ of Mr. Robert Clarke containing
about eight thousand titles, both in Cincinnati, offered peculiar
advantages to a student of American history. For two years I spent
what time I could spare from professional cares in studying the whole
problem of the African slave-trade; the founding of the British
colonies in North America; the slave problem in the colonies; the
rupture between the colonies and the British Government; the war of
the Revolution; the political structure of the Continental government
and Confederation; the slavery question in local and national
legislation; and then traced the slavery and anti-slavery question
down to the Rebellion. I became convinced that a history of the
Colored people in America was required, because of the ample
historically trustworthy material at hand; because the Colored people