A Canadian Yankee in King Cotton's Court

Here, a Canadian travel writer, unnamed, offers a unique and detailed foreigner's perspective as he treks from Texas to Ottawa in the first months of the Civil War. From prairies to plantations, from coast to capital, he vividly describes daily life in Texas, whether a slave funeral procession in Austin, a Methodist minister's lynching, or a woman chewing tobacco as her family and slaves travel by wagon from Georgia to San Antonio. In doing so, the Ottawan's observations offer insight into the complex racial culture and prejudices that prevailed not only in Texas and the Deep South, but as far north as Canada. His descriptions of the countryside are vivid, his views on Austin and other Texas towns informative and detailed, his perception of the paranoia and doubt throughout the South palpable, his portrayal of plantation life controversial. The Canadian's somewhat sympathetic picture of the Texas plantation system and his own racial stereotypes—of interest to a variety of historians—at times complements, at others contradicts, various historical studies of Texas slavery.

Travel narratives were particularly popular in the nineteenth century, especially as both Americans and foreigners found themselves fascinated by the perplexities of American culture and national identity. Historians now regularly turn to national and international travel narratives to help understand American society and culture. In particular, as John Cox puts it, "texts of travel to the American South by writers from the North illustrate a continuing struggle to come to terms with those questions of most importance to the new nation: What is American culture? Who are America's citizens? Should or must there be a 'national' culture, economy, or identity? Or, in the words of J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, 'What, then, is the American, this new man?'" As the following travel narrative demonstrates, finding the answers to these questions would prove all the more salient on the eve of war.¹

I discovered this Canadian travel narrative entirely by accident, stumbling upon it while working my way through the large periodicals collection at Canada's National Library and Archives in Ottawa. The Canadian author's travelogue was originally entitled "Secession in Texas and the Southern States. Illustrated by the Incidents of a Journey from Galveston to Ottawa," and appeared at irregular intervals in the news pages of the Ottawa Citizen. It offers a glimpse both of Canadian interest in the incipient American Civil War and the mixture of opinions within Canada itself concerning slavery and the South.² The archivists at the Library and Archives were most accommodating, and I was given access to not only the microfilm edition but also the hard copies of the Ottawa Citizen held offsite, wherein I found some entries not contained in the microfilm collection. The first entry appeared in the Ottawa Citizen in early September 1861, the last in early January 1862. Unfortunately, the existing copies of the Ottawa Citizen for the year 1861 remain incomplete, both on microfilm and hard copy. In particular, the first couple of entries are missing. I hoped that I might fill in the gap and track down the missing entries, which apparently covered the Canadian's stay in San Antonio. After getting in touch with the Citizen's librarian, Liisa Tuominen, I was informed that a fire had destroyed the originals some time ago and that the microfilm and archival holdings at the Library and Archives would be as complete as could be found. The Canadian writer's use of nicknames for some of those he came into contact in turn made it difficult to find out exactly who some personages were, particularly "Poor Tom" and the "Colonel." Following a great deal of historical sleuthing, where possible I have tried to discern their identities. With these various caveats in mind, "A Canadian Yankee in King Cotton's Court" offers a fascinating and engaging outsider's account of life in Texas—from Galveston and La Grange, to Bastrop and Austin, to Waco and Nacogdoches—during the first year of the Civil War.³

About noon I reached Lagrange, but too late...