Historical sketches of the south by Emma Langdon Roche
"Historical sketches of the south" by Emma Langdon Roche is a historical account written in the early 20th century. It traces the origins, laws, and persistence of American slavery, then narrows to a vivid, documentarian chronicle of the last known slave ship, the Clotilde, and the Africans (the Tarkars) brought to Alabama. Blending broad history with eyewitness testimony and the author’s own illustrations, it focuses especially on Mobile, the illegal trade’s networks,
and the formation of a distinct African community. The opening of the work surveys how contrasting colonial cultures in Virginia and New England shaped attitudes toward slavery, outlines the rise of the tobacco economy and the 1619 arrival of enslaved Africans, and follows early Southern-led efforts (notably Jefferson’s) to restrict the trade amid Northern commercial complicity. It then details how illegal trafficking flourished despite the 1808 ban, covering diplomatic clashes with Britain, the Ashburton Treaty patrols, and notorious cases like the Wanderer and Echo. The narrative shifts to Mobile in 1858–1859—amid filibuster tensions and local defiance—where river-man Tim Meaher and Captain William Foster send the schooner Clotilde to Dahomey; it recounts the Dahomean raid on the Tarkars, their laws and customs, their sale at Whydah, and the harsh but comparatively less brutal “middle passage” under Foster. Finally, it describes the clandestine night tow up Mobile Bay, the burning and scuttling of the Clotilde, and the secret removal of 116 captives to a canebrake plantation, where they were hidden in whispered silence—marking only the beginning of their story. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
| How to read | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77013.html.images | 215 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77013.epub3.images | 2.3 MB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77013.epub.images | 2.3 MB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77013.epub.noimages | 292 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77013.kf8.images | 2.7 MB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77013.kindle.images | 2.7 MB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77013.txt.utf-8 | 184 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77013/pg77013-h.zip | 2.2 MB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Roche, Emma Langdon, 1878-1945 |
|---|---|
| LoC No. | 14014314 |
| Title | Historical sketches of the south |
| Original Publication | New York: The Knickerboxer Press, 1914. |
| Note | The last chapter "Impressions of Alabama in 1846" is "reprinted from 'South Atlantic quarterly', July, 1908." |
| Contents | Beginnings of American slavery -- Early legislation against the slave traffic -- Illegal traffic in slaves -- Preparations for "Clotilde's" voyage -- The capture of the Tarkars -- Voyage of the "Clotilde" -- The return -- The Tarkars at Dabney's plantation -- Tarkar life in America -- Impressions of Alabama in 1846. |
| Credits | BlueDiamondHead, Mary Glenn Krause and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | E300: History: America: Revolution to the Civil War (1783-1861) |
| Subject | Slavery -- Alabama |
| Subject | Slave trade -- United States |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77013 |
| Release Date | Oct 8, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 721 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |