Heading: (African American, 1842)
Author: Holland, Rev. Francis Raymond
Title: Letter from Moravian missionary to Jamaica revealing racist prejudices he brought from America
Place Published: Fairfield, British Jamaica
Publisher:
Date Published: Jan. 22, 1842
Description:

Autograph Letter Signed. 4 pp. including stampless address leaf. To his father, William Holland, Salem, North Carolina.

Descended from devout Protestant Moravian immigrants from Germany, Holland had been sent to the British colony of Jamaica to direct a training school for ministers. Looking forward to pursuing the scientific interests of an amateur botanist, he found, unhappily, that he was also required to preach to the Blacks, recently emancipated from slave labor, who overwhelmingly outnumbered the British colonial white residents. Among long descriptions of Jamaican plants and trees he relates to his father, a North Carolina slave plantation owner, his observations of ex-slaves "of the lowest order - they say they are free and nobody has a right to molest them."

Apart from a few negro converts who observed Christmas in a "comparatively Christian way", celebration of the holiday had led to widespread rioting and a declaration of martial law. White troops called out to prevent "disorderly noises and drumming in the streets" were "saluted with brickbats... the military fired on the mob and killed and wounded several. Fires were then set throughout the city of Kingston, which "only with difficulty" was "saved from an extensive conflagration." Holland noted the general ignorance of the Blacks who were freed from slavery without any attempt at education. When he put an old picture of Declaration of Independence on the wall of his room, the "negroes admired it mightily. I'd say they think it's the Ten Commandments and that the picture of Washington at the top is Moses..." He was "often subject to considerable annoyance", when pursuing botanical jaunts, "from the sedulous attention of the negroes. If they see me clambering among the rocks, they sometimes call: 'High! massa can no git trough dere! No path there, massa!' They cannot understand what I want there. If they see me carry a handful of flowers it is: ' High! Massa, dat no good!' Does massa bile um? (boil them) I expect they think I practice 'obeah' (withcraft) with them. But they cannot comprehend my meaning" and "look wonders at each other" when I tell them when I tell them for what I gather them." He found that the leaves of the various species of palm trees were used by the natives to make doors and roofs for their huts, but they refused his suggestion that they instead use wooden shingles, since palm leaves remained damp and harbored insects, the "old African feels more comfortable in the thatched hut of his native land."

Hole from seal opening and short tear at fold, no significant loss of text; good.