Twenty years ago we commenced the subscription book business. Our canvass was usually from door to door, embracing both white and colored. The scarcity of books by negro authors suggested the idea of the compilation of this book. The labor connected with such a work as this none can fully appreciate but those who have performed it. We have tried to compress within a few hundred pages the momentous events connected with the Afro-American race during the nineteenth century. The utmost care has been taken in the collation of the matter in this work, and no expense has been spared to make it not only acceptable to the colored people, but to all classes of readers as well. We can scarcely hope that each article our book contains will be found strictly accurate, since authors of the highest repute differ greatly; where there is a difference of opinion we have endeavored to give the explanation which appeared to be the best supported. We hope and believe the book is free from serious error, but if any should be discovered we shall feel under obligation to those who detect the same, if they will kindly communicate with us, so that in future editions they may be corrected. The book, however, is one of reference rather than one of criticism, an accumulation of facts rather than of opinions. It furnishes the most authentic information concerning the race, and we trust it will awaken a more appreciative spirit of enterprise among them. It has aimed to direct attention to their vast capabilities and resources, many of which are yet undeveloped. We have endeavored to meet the wants of the negro, who is desirous of knowing more of the history of his race, and the achievements of its great men and women (but who are without the assistance of books that bear upon this subject), by compiling these subjects, believing that it will incite a more cheerful reading and deeper research, as the best means of obtaining general information. An effort has been made to render it so generally interesting that it may "be dipped into here and there with the certainty of something being found capable of giving instruction to all classes of readers." The matter contained in this volume can be accumulated only by years of labor and research from sources not easily accessible to the general reader, to say nothing of the vast amount that is fresh from the pens of the most eminent men and women of the race.