WCP2073

Letter (WCP2073.1963)

[1]1

Port au Prince

May 9th 1864

My dear Wallace.

I cannot answer your letter2 by this packet as we are in the throes of conspiracies[?] &c. &c. am[?] up to my neck in work. I may however observe that I shall be unable to give you any information about the character of this people, as if I praised them it could be [2] ascribed to flattery, if I blamed them I could not remain here in comfort.

I am a member of the Anthropological Society and know Dr Hunt3 well, he is quite wrong I think about the Mulattos being incapable of continuing their race, my impression is the exact contrary and I told him so one day when we were dining alone[?] [3] together at the Derby[?].

As soon as I have time I will take a certain number of families and trace their descent for three generations and to avoid selection I will take the officials of the town or some other equally fair way. —

I have not seen the Reader4 post me one when you have one to spare.

By the way I may remark that the Mulattos are too [4] proud as a rule to marry with[?] the blacks and there are few whites here to affect the population and yet the Mulattos have greatly increased since the revolution.5

This is not an answer to your letter only an acknowledgement.

Ever sincerely yours | Spenser St. John [signature]

Alfred Wallace Esq

1
Page 1 is numbered 11 by the repository. Every second subsequent page has a consecutive handwritten number written in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
2
Letter not found.
3
Hunt, James (1833-1869) British speech therapist; founder of the Anthropological Society of London.
4
The Reader: A Review of Literature, Science and Art, was published in London 1863-1865 and was under the control of, among others, Charles Darwin. Byrne, John F. 1969. "The Reader": A Review of Literature, Science and the Arts, 1863-67. Victorian Periodicals Newsletter, No. 4, [Vol. 2, No. 1] (Apr., 1969), pp. 47-50. <https://www.jstor.org>.
5
The overthrow of the president of Haiti, Jean-Pierre Boye, in 1843. Wikipedia. History of Haiti. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Haiti> [accessed 10 Jul, 2019].

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP2073.1963)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Powell, Jane [2015-06-05] Transcription checked by Lucas, Paula [2019-12-20]

Please cite as “WCP2073,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2073