An Englishman's Travels in America: his observations of life and manners in the free and slave states was written by John Benwell in 1857, four years before the civil war.
I always find it critical to know a book's author in order to understand his writing. But there is hardly any information on the Internet about John Benwell, an obscure writer, it seems.
It was riveting reading nevertheless. Mr. Benwell, being this perfect English gentleman, examined the people, cities and towns of America along his travels from New York down to Florida and South Carolina with an almost indiscernible supremacy. Especially in New York City, Mr. Benwell frequently made comparisons to his home country, or America's "mother country," on either the qualities of hotels or the appearances of the ladies.
But down South to the slave states, the author's observations became much less lighthearted. Mr. Benwell was first forced to leave a theater box belonging to a colored friend who married a white woman (the woman being ostracized). He witnessed the constant whipping and torturing of slaves, which made him indignant. In Florida, there's open war between the settlers and the Indians. One of his friends was cruelly murdered by Indians. The South described by Mr. Benwell is certainly a different world from that of Ms. Scarlett O'Hara.
The author expected the population changes, in that blacks would outnumber their masters in some states, could lead to a resolution of the conflict. Of course, it was the civil war that took care of slavery. By that time, our honest observer was probably in England, recovering from a rough journey in a country that cost his health, and almost his life. Here are some excerpts:
Their habits at table also often fill one with disgust, and the want of good-breeding I witnessed on more than one occasion would have been resented in England. This is the more remarkable, as the Americans entertain high notions of refinement, and yet, paradoxical as it may appear, seem to glory in their contempt of good manners. I do not, however, include the ladies in this remark;
(men chewing tobacco)..incessantly, and, to the great annoyance of those who do not practise the vandalism, eject the impregnated saliva over everything under foot. The deck of the vessel was much defaced by the noxious stains; and even in converse with ladies the unmannerly fellows expectorated without sense of decency.
…..determined opposition to intermixed marriages, were known in the place as "anti-amalgamists." On this occasion poor P—- nearly lost his life, and, but for running, would, no doubt, have done so; as it was, he was much burnt about the head and neck, the ruffians in the scuffle having set fire to his frock-coat, which was of linen.
Their healthy look under such circumstances completely shook my faith in the Brahminical vegetarian theory, and goes far, I think, to prove that man was intended by his Maker to be a carnivorous animal.
for so jealous are the citizens of men entertaining hostility to the pro-slavery cause, that spies are often sent on board newly-arrived boats, to ascertain if missionaries are amongst the passengers. These spies, with Jesuitical art, introduce themselves by making apparently casual inquiries on leading topics of those they suspect, and if their end is subserved, basely betray them, or, what is more usual, keep them under strict surveillance, with a view to their being detected in disseminating abolition doctrines amongst the slaves, when they are immediately made amenable to the laws, and are fined or
(in describing Florida) This country is, for the most part, a howling wilderness, and is never likely to become thickly populated. The dreary pine-barrens and sand-hills are slightly undulating, and are here and there thickly matted with palmetto.
every one of which swarmed with alligators. This, although not a very pleasant reflection, did not trouble me much, as I had by this time become acquainted with the propensities of these creatures, and knew that they were not given to attacking white men, unless provoked or wounded, although a negro or a dog is never safe within their reach. They are, however, repulsive-looking creatures, and it is not easy to divest the mind of apprehension when in their vicinity.
At the top of King-street, facing you as you advance, is a large Protestant episcopal church. I went there to worship on the following Sunday, but was obliged to leave the building, there being, it was stated by the apparitor, no accommodation for strangers, a piece of illiberality that I considered very much in keeping with the slave-holding opinions of the worshippers who attend it.
This want of politeness I was not, however, surprised at, for it is notorious, as has been before observed by an able writer, that, excepting the Church of Rome, "the members of the unestablished Church of England–the Protestant Episcopalian, are the most bigotted, sectarian, and illiberal, in the United States of America. Being fully persuaded," to follow the same writer, "that prelatical ordination and the three orders are indispensable to their profession, they are, like too many of their fellow professors in the mother country, deeply dyed with Laudean principles, or that love of formula in religion and grasping for power which has so conspicuously shown itself among the Oxford tractarians, and which, it is to be feared, is gradually undermining Protestant conformity, by gnawing at its very heart, in the colleges of Great Britain."
So heinous in a negro, is the crime of lifting his hand in opposition to a white man in South Carolina, that the law adjudges that the offending member shall be forfeited. This is, or was, quite as inexorable as the one I have before spoken of, and when in Charleston, I frequently, amongst the flocks of negroes passing and repassing, saw individuals with one hand only. Like the administration of miscalled justice on negroes in all slave-holding states in America, the process was summary; the offender was arrested, brought before the bench of sitting magistrates, and on the ex parte[A] statement of his accuser, condemned to mutilation, being at once marched out to the rear of the building and the hand lopped off on a block fixed there for the purpose. I noticed a block and axe myself in the yard of a building near the town-hall, and on looking at them closely, saw they were stained almost black, with what I have little hesitation in saying was human blood.
