Excerpt from "Letters from Alabama, (U.S.) Chiefly Relating to Natural History" by Philip Henry Gosse, an English naturalist.
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: &q...
| Format: | Electronic |
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Alabama Department of Archives and History
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| Online Access: | http://cdm17217.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/voices/id/1815 |
| Summary: | 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." |
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