FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1817 - 1895) Black-American reformer born a slave, Douglass was instrumental in the creation of the Union Negro regiments which fought with great distinction during the war. Fine content manuscript L.S. "Frederick Douglass " on his Cedar Hill letterhead, 1p. 8vo., Washington, Mar. 13, 1893 to Frederic P. Noble, Secretary of the World's Congress on Africa at the Chicago Columbian Exposition. An obviously angered Douglass offers to yet again set the record straight. In part: "...It is a very long time since I listened to anyone of sufficient temerity to attempt to represent as 'idyllic', any feature of human bondage. If notified in time, I cannot refuse to bear [sic] my testimony upon this subject...". Light dust soiling at top, else very good. The previous year the Haitian government had appointed Douglass as its commissioner to the Exposition. At the conference he spoke eloquently for Irish Home Rule and on the efforts of Irish leader Charles Stewart Parnell. Beyond the confines of the conference, while African-Americans were free to come and go like anyone else, they were hardly made to feel welcome. Unlike the exhibits celebrating the achievements of other cultures, fake "African villages," according to Douglass, had a very different purpose: "to exhibit the Negro as a repulsive savage." At the Chicago fair, even Douglass's effort to highlight the progress of African Americans since the abolition of slavery backfired, as organizers turned "Colored People's Day" into a cruel joke by offering free watermelons to African American fairgoers. $3,000-4,000