دانلود کتاب Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839

A few years after her marriage to a wealthy American, the English stage-actress Frances Anne Kemble (1809–1893) moved with her husband to his residence in Georgia, where he had inherited two plantations. There she kept a journal of her shocking observations of the practice of slavery. Written over a period of less than four months, Kemble's journal records her day-to-day encounters with her husband's slaves, and attempts to expose the moral injustice of slavery. The journal circulated privately among her friends, but was not published until 1863, long after Kemble's divorce in 1849. Her book is credited with influencing Britain's position of neutrality during the American Civil War despite the cotton industry's lobbying in favour of the South. Kemble's journal remains a lasting and important critique of slavery, and a valuable document about the nineteenth-century American south.

This journal is extremely readable, unlike the style of many obsolete manuscripts. A significant portion is dedicated to the natural and environmental discoveries the author makes in explorations into the far reaches of the plantation boundaries, but the more interesting sections are given to observations and interactions with the slaves. There are actually two plantations in which the author resided for a winter, both in the coastal region of Georgia, near or on Saint Simon's Island. One estate was dedicated to rice production, the other to sea island cotton. Although both offer squalid conditions for the slaves, one is better than the other and the author explains this and other states of affairs in a mostly detached, journalistic and thoroughly creditable style. This journal is a must-read for anyone wanting an authentic description of life on a slave plantation.