FootNote
The new kid on the block, FootNote is known for digitizing historical
documents... many of which are genealogical gems. With naturalizations,
city directories, war records, newspapers, town records, etc... this new
kid is quickly being recognized as an alternative to Ancestry.
While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
13: "If something is not done, and soon done,"
said he, "we shall be the murderers of our own children. The
"murmura venturos nautis prudentia ventos" has already
reached us (from Santo Domingo); the revolutionary storm,
now sweeping the globe will be upon us, and happy if we make
timely provision to give it an easy passage over our land.
From the present state of things in Europe and America, the
day which begins our combustion must be near at hand; and
only a single spark is wanting to make that day tomorrow. If
we had begun sooner, we might probably have been allowed a
lengthier operation to clear ourselves, but every day's
delay lessens the time we may take for emancipation."
As to the mode of emancipation, he was satisfied that that
must be a matter of compromise between the passions, the
prejudices, and the real difficulties which would each have
its weight in that operation. He believed that the first
chapter of this history, which was begun in St. Domingo, and
the next succeeding ones, would recount how all the whites
were driven from all the other islands. This, he thought,
would prepare their minds for a peaceable accommodation
between justice and policy; and furnish an answer to the
difficult question, as to where the colored emigrants should
go. He urged that the country put some plan under way, and
the sooner it did so the greater would be the hope that it
might be permitted to proceed peaceably toward consummation.
See Ford edition of "Jefferson's Writings", VI, p. 349, VII,
pp. 167, 168.
14: "Letter of Mr. Stanbury Boyce;"
and "The African Repository."
15: "Philadelphia Gazette," Aug. 2, 3, 4,
8, 1842; "United States Gazette," Aug. 2-5, 1842; and the
"Pennsylvanian," Aug. 2, 3, 4, 8, 1842.
21: Speaking of this colony Kingsley said: "About
eighteen months ago, I carried my son George Kingsley, a
healthy colored man of uncorrupted morals, about thirty
years of age, tolerably well educated, of very industrious
habits, and a native of Florida, together with six prime
African men, my own slaves, liberated for that express
purpose, to the northeast side of the Island of Hayti, near
Porte Plate, where we arrived in the month of October, 1836,
and after application to the local authorities, from whom I
rented some good land near the sea, and thickly timbered
with lofty woods, I set them to work cutting down trees,
about the middle of November, and returned to my home in
Florida. My son wrote to us frequently, giving an account of
his progress. Some of the fallen timber was dry enough to
burn in January, 1837, when it was cleared up, and eight
acres of corn planted, and as soon as circumstances would
allow, sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, rice, beans, peas,
plantains, oranges, and all sorts of fruit trees, were
planted in succession. In the month of October, 1837, I
again set off for Hayti, in a coppered brig of 150 tons,
bought for the purpose and in five days and a half, from St.
Mary's in Georgia, landed my son's wife and children, at
Porte Plate, together with the wives and children of his
servants, now working for him under an indenture of nine
years; also two additional families of my slaves, all
liberated for the express purpose of transportation to Hayti,
where they were all to have as much good land in fee, as
they could cultivate, say ten acres for each family, and all
its proceeds, together with one-fourth part of the net
proceeds of their labor, on my son's farm, for themselves;
also victuals, clothes, medical attendance, etc., gratis,
besides Saturdays and Sundays, as days of labor for
themselves, or of rest, just at their option."
"On my arrival at my son's place, called Cabaret
(twenty-seven miles east of Porte Plate) in November, 1837,
as before stated, I found everything in the most flattering
and prosperous condition. They had all enjoyed good health,
were overflowing with the most delicious variety and
abundance of fruits and provisions, and were overjoyed at
again meeting their wives and children; whom they could
introduce into good comfortable log houses, all nicely
whitewashed, and in the midst of a profuse abundance of good
provisions, as they had generally cleared five or six acres
of their land each, which being very rich, and planted with
every variety to eat or to sell on their own account, and
had already laid up thirty or forty dollars apiece. My son's
farm was upon a larger scale, and furnished with more
commodious dwelling houses, also with store and out houses.
In nine months he had made and housed three crops of corn,
of twenty-five bushels to the acre, each, or one crop every
three months. His highland rice, which was equal to any in
Carolina, so ripe and heavy as some of it to be couched or
leaned down, and no bird had ever troubled it, nor had any
of his fields ever been hoed, or required hoeing, there
being as yet no appearance of grass. His cotton was of an
excellent staple. In seven months it had attained the height
of thirteen feet; the stalks were ten inches in
circumference, and had upwards of five hundred large boles
on each stalk (not a worm nor red bug as yet to be seen).
His yams, cassava, and sweet potatoes, were incredibly
large, and plentifully thick in the ground; one kind of
sweet potato, lately introduced from Taheita (formerly
Otaheita) Island in the Pacific, was of peculiar excellence;
tasted like new flour and grew to an ordinary size in one
month. Those I ate at my son's place had been planted five
weeks, and were as big as our full grown Florida potatoes.
His sweet orange trees budded upon wild stalks cut off
(which every where abound), about six months before had
large tops, and the buds were swelling as if preparing to
flower. My son reported that his people had all enjoyed good
health and had labored just as steadily as they formerly did
in Florida and were well satisfied with their situation and
the advantageous exchange of circumstances they had made.
They all enjoyed the friendship of the neighboring
inhabitants and the entire confidence of the Haytian
Government."
"I remained with my son all January, 1838 and assisted him
in making improvements of different kinds, amongst which was
a new two-story house, and then left him to go to Port au
Prince, where I obtained a favorable answer from the
President of Hayti, to his petition, asking for leave to
hold in fee simple, the same tract of land upon which he
then lived as a tenant, paying rent to the Haytian
Government, containing about thirty-five thousand acres,
which was ordered to be surveyed to him, and valued, and not
expected to exceed the sum of three thousand dollars, or
about ten cents an acre. After obtaining this land in fee
for my son, I returned to Florida in February, in 1838." See
"The African Repository", XIV, pp. 215-216.
