An exceptionally rare work issued by the Presbytery of Tombeckbee, which would later become one the first black led religious organizations in the South. The Prebsytery, created specifically to address the religious needs of "colored persons" in the south, was most influential in Mississippi. In the present, the Presbytery effuses on the religious obligation to Christianize the euphemistically described "colored population."

A complex work in which slave holders are told to view their [rightful] role as a patriarchal figure over their slaves, treating them in a fatherly manner, caring for their spiritual welfare. It is an evident attempt to thread the needle; empowering Southern Christians to retain a system that was inherently misaligned with human dignity and yet to somehow manhandle it into the baptismal waters of the Kingdom. A truly unique insight into Southern religious engagement with slavery in the run up to the Civil War.

No copies in the auction record and none traced in the trade. 

Anonymous. The Religious Instruction of Our Colored Population. A Pastoral Letter from the Presbytery of Tombeckbee to the Churches and People Under Its Care. Columbia, S. C. Steam-Power Press of R. W. Gibbes. 1859. 19pp.

A very good copy, bound in wraps, generally solid, with generally bright pages and light foxing. Minor ex library.