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Puerto Rico in the 1830’s; The Journal of Edward Bliss Emerson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Frank Otto Gatell
Frank Otto Gatell*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Extract

Edward Bliss Emerson, a younger brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born in 1805. Educated at Andover Academy and Harvard, he showed great promise as a scholar. Ill health plagued the young man, however, and he was forced to give up his work as a teacher. A trip to southern Europe failed to cure his tuberculosis. Next he tried to study law in Boston, but this brought on the total ruin of his health and a short spell of mental derangement.

By 1831 it was apparent that a prolongation of Emerson's life required a warmer climate than that of his beloved New England. He went first to the Danish island of St. Croix. A few months later he was in Puerto Rico, and there he remained—with the exception of one brief trip home—until his death in 1834.

Type
Documents
Information
The Americas , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , July 1959 , pp. 63 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1959

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References

1 Teniente General Miguel de la Torre, governor from 1823 to 1837.

2 Using various sources, Cruz Monclova gives the population for 1830 as 323,838; Monclova, Lidio Cruz, Historia de Puerto Rico, Siglo XIX, Tomo 1, 1808–1868 ([Río Piedras, P. R.]: Editorial Universitaria, 1952), p. 272.Google Scholar

3 Manuel Torres, minister to the United States from Colombia, 1820 to 1823; Taylor Parks, E., Colombia and the United States, 1765–1934 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1935), p. 484.Google Scholar

4 One of many Irishmen who served the Spanish Crown, George Dawson Flinter wrote several works on Rico, Puerto including An Account of the Present State of the Island of Torto Rico (London: Longman’s, 1834).Google Scholar

5 General Wade Hampton (1751-1835) of South Carolina?

6 Vivas Maldonado cites a later storm, “San Jacinto,” of 17 August, 1827; Vivas Maldonado, José Luis, Historia de Puerto Rico (Río Piedras, P. R.: Colegio de San José, 1957).Google Scholar

7 Abbad, Fray Iñigo y Lasierra, , Historia Geográfica, Civil y Política de la Isla de San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico (Madrid, 1788).Google Scholar

8 Emerson’s brother, Charles Chauncey Emerson (1808–1836), was on the island at the time for a few months’ visit.

9 Abbad y Lasierra, see note no. 7.