To the Free People of Color in the Free States.

Dear Friends:

I inscribe¹ this Book to you, for several reasons. I love you, and feel anxious to have you become intelligent and virtuous³. I know that there are only a few books adapted to your taste and acquirements; and I have had my eye upon your good in writing this history. I have thought you would understand it a great deal better if it was told in Peter’s own language, and so I wrote it just as he told it. I hope you will read it through, and follow Peter to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. And if you are oppressed by the strong arm of power, and kept down by an unholy and cruel prejudice, forget it and forgive it all, and go to that blessed Redeemer who came to save your souls, that he might clothe you, at last, with clean white linen⁴, which is the righteousness of the sain’ts.

Your friend,

THE AUTHOR.

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