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The slave-trader's letter-book : Charles Lamar, the Wanderer, and other tales of the African slave trade / Jim Jordan

Author
Jordan, Jim
Published
Athens [Georgia] : University of Georgia Press, [2018]
Copyright Date
©2018
Physical Description
xiv, 327 pages ; 24 cm.

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Contents
Introduction : the journey of the slave-trader's letter-book -- The last laugh : December 2, 1858 -- "You are a noble boy" : June 1838 -- "Young as you are, you are failing already in mind" : 1838-1854 -- "I have no fears of the consequences" : 1851-1856 -- "I never was so hard up in my life" : 1855-1857 -- "An expedition to the moon would have been equally sensible" : October 1857-July 1858 -- "Let your cruisers catch me if they can" : April-July 1858 -- "As near perfection as anything of the kind" : March-September 1858 -- "The degraded children of Africa" : July-November 1858 -- "I tell you hell is to pay" : November-December 1858 -- "She could not possibly accommodate more than half that number" : December 1858-January 1859 -- "I am afraid they will convict me" : January-October 1859 -- "I shall simply put an indignity upon him" : April-May 1859 -- "Tell the people of Savannah they can kiss my arse" : June-October 1859 -- "Such men as C.A.L. Lamar run riot without hindrance" : November-December 1859 -- "The Wanderer bothers me to death" : December 1859-May 1860 -- "The most strangely constituted piece of human nature" : May-December 1860 -- "I want dissolution" : April 1860-December 1861 -- "He was a prime mover in secession" : 1862-1864 -- A sad legacy : 1864-1865 -- Letters of the slave-trader's letter-book, part A : letters concerning filibustering and slave trading -- Letters of the slave-trader's letter-book, part B : letters concerning miscellaneous subjects.
Summary
In 1858 Savannah businessman Charles Lamar, in violation of U.S. law, organized the shipment of hundreds of Africans on the luxury yacht Wanderer to Jekyll Island, Georgia. The four hundred survivors of the Middle Passage were sold into bondage. This was the first successful documented slave landing in the United States in about four decades and shocked a nation already on the path to civil war. In 1886 the North American Review published excerpts from thirty of Lamar's letters from the 1850s, reportedly taken from his letter book, which describe his criminal activities. However, the authenticity of the letters was in doubt until very recently. In 2009, researcher Jim Jordan found a cache of private papers belonging to Charles Lamar's father, stored for decades in an attic in New Jersey. Among the documents was Charles Lamar's letter book, confirming him as the author. This book has two parts. The first recounts the flamboyant and reckless life of Lamar himself, including Lamar's involvement in southern secession, the slave trade, and a plot to overthrow the government of Cuba. A portrait emerges at odds with Lamar's previous image as a savvy entrepreneur and principled rebel. Instead, we see a man who was often broke and whose volatility sabotaged him at every turn. His involvement in the slave trade was driven more by financial desperation than southern defiance. The second part presents the "Slave-Trader's Letter-Book." Together with annotations, these seventy long-lost letters shed light on the lead-up to the Civil War from the remarkable perspective of a troubled, and troubling, figure.
Subject(s)
Genre(s)
ISBN
9780820351964
0820351962
Note
"A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund publication"--Back cover.
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-315) and index.
View MARC record | catkey: 22593419