Skip to main content

Excerpt from "Letters from Alabama, (U.S.) Chiefly Relating to Natural History" by Philip Henry Gosse, an English naturalist.

View
@ Alabama Department of Archives and History, 624 Washington Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36130

Description

This passage includes a letter written by Gosse, on September 1, 1838. He discusses slavery in Alabama ("a huge deadly serpent"), describing cruel punishments, poor living conditions, and impediments to emancipation. In his view, the institution taints the character of the entire state: "In spite of the beauty and grandeur of the country, the lucrative remuneration which a person of education receives for his talents and time, and the rich and almost virgin field for the pursuit of natural history...I feel slavery alone to be so enormous an evil that I could not live here: I am already hastening to be gone."
Type:
Text
Format:
600 Ppi Tiff
Created Date:
1859 1859 00 00
Rights:
This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though ADAH has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections.;
View Original At:

From Collection

Alabama Textual Materials Collection

Record Contributed By

Alabama Department of Archives and History, 624 Washington Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36130