| Title: | John Kerr to Uncle |
|---|---|
| ID | 6227 |
| Collection | Ulster Migration to America. Letters from three Irish Families [R.A. Wells] |
| File | ulsterm/30 |
| Year | 1850 |
| Sender | Kerr, John |
| Sender Gender | male |
| Sender Occupation | clerk |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | New Orleans, Louisiana, USA |
| Destination | Newpark, Co. Antrim |
| Recipient | Graham, James |
| Recipient Gender | male |
| Relationship | nephew-uncle |
| Source | |
| Archive | |
| Doc. No. | |
| Date | |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | |
| Log | unknown |
| Word Count | 1654 |
| Genre | correspondence, work, emigratoin, family, economy |
| Note | |
| Transcript | From: New Orleans Date: 1 February 1850 I received a letter from you on the 28th of May last, dated April 27th and answered it on the 5th July and sent you several (a good many) papers since, but I have nothing from you since by which I may know that you are yet in the land of the living. My letter may have been lost or your answer miscarried, but as you say that Sam Graham intended to write to me during the summer, it is strange that your letter, if you wrote one and his should both fail to reach me. Besides I advised Sam K. in my letter to come out, gave him all directions etc., told him to be here about the middle of November and all that, and taken these altogether I think it odd that I have not heard something from you. Neither have James nor Wm, nor David in Cincinatti. On the arrival of every steamer mails here I ran to the Post Office, expecting latterly almost certain that I would get a letter, but there was no more from Ireland for me. Sam has neither come nor sent me any intimation that he was or was not coming. Several vessels arrived here from Belfast, I expected him in one of them, but no. My letter advising him to come may very possibly never have reached you and you may like myself be yet looking for an answer. I certainly ought to have written again before this, but as several times before I was rather long in receiving an answer, 1 thought 1 would wait a little longer and I have waited until my patience is exhausted. Have I not been patient? I am very anxious to hear from Newpark, to know how you all are, to know about Elizabeth, if she is even yet living or not. Indeed I expect unfavourable news on this subject. The knowledge of the worst, however, is never so bad as suspense. I have been in this city ever since, in the same place or with the same man as when I wrote you in July. My salary is not much better as he is not able to pay more, yet by continuing here I have a chance, as I get acquainted, to get something better. In this respect New Orleans is rather better than the large Northern or Western cities. Yet it is rather difficult here to get anything worth risking one's health and even [after?] life for. The Raineys have all done well and I sometimes think I may do so too! Yet they had circumstances in their favour which I have not had. I have had some notion lately of going to California, and would perhaps have been there before this if I had had money enough, if I did not expect Sam K; it is very probable that I will go yet in the course of 8 or 10 months. From what I can learn, a man who will neither gamble nor drink will do well there if he can only work. The climate is as healthy as that of New Orleans anyhow. A new country as a general rule without an exception is better for a man without capital, who can do something with cither head or hands, especially with the latter. Then you prosper as the country prospers and one is able to get something there such as property which must necessarily increase in value. You ask my opinion, in your last letter, about your selling off and emigrating to America and I gave it to you at some length, as it is possible you got that letter I need not say anything on the subject farther than this: if I had any amount or kind of property in Ireland no matter how much or how little I would sell it and leave the miserable, ground to the lowest point of degradation and poverty by greedy, cowardly tyrants more ravenous [and?] far more cruel than hungry wolves. I would never subject myself to such circumstances that though any contingency, however improbable, I or anyone belonging to me, or my posterity, if I should have any, should be trampled upon and insulted with impunity too, by such infernal beings as the vast majority of the Irish landlords are. It would actually make my soul burst from my body to have to stand and impassively suffer what many, almost all, the Irish tenantry suffer from the landlords and their more than infernal agents and drivers. I cannot express how much I hate them, why I consider the old Devil himself a humane gentleman compared with them, "Nuf sed." I had a letter from Cincinatti 3 weeks ago, William was very well and was getting on well at his trade. David had taken the smallpox or rather the [virioloid?]. He had but a slight attack and was getting better fast, and would be at work again, William said, in a week. I wrote him not to go to work too soon. James was doing nothing just then as business was dull and had not commenced for the winter. He had been at work for a good while before that in a type foundry. Not finding anything else to do he threw off his coat and went to work just as every man should who has hands and needs something to eat. I sent him some money and he had beside some of his own left, but he thought it was no use to go about idle, so he took the first thing that offered. I was glad to learn that he had so little of that stinking Irish pride so very common to young men raised in the "Isle of Saints," God save the [ ]!—it should be, isle of Demons and Slaves! Since I wrote you before, the cholera visited the western cities. I think it was since I wrote. It was very bad in Cincinatti, St. Louis and in many of the smaller cities of the West. It visited Pittsburgh, but very slightly. New York, Philadelphia and Boston suffered. Baltimore, Charleston and Savannah escaped without a single case, which puzzles the physician here to account for. It is certainly the most mysterious disease in the world. Its progress is governed by no laws known. The 3 cities I named that escaped it, I believe all. I am certain Charleston escaped the disease the time it visited this country before. There must be a cause, however obscure. This city has been very healthy since last spring except a few cases of Yellow Fever in the end of summer. The country all over is quite healthy now and as cotton, tobacco, flour, corn, pork, etc. bring good prices, especially the first two. This year will be a very favourable one for the country. You would be amazed to stand on the wharves in this city and see the vast amount of produce brought there. This is all the product of the West, and one wonders, not where it can come from but what so much is raised by only a few million inhabitants in the Mississippi valley, and which 50 years ago was a vast unbroken wilderness. But this 300,000 a year formerly only 100,000 a year; and it is thought immigration will increase for the next 3 or 4 years rather than decrease. Those who have come the last 2 years have been in general better off than the immigrants of former years. A great many of them had capital. A few of them however from Ireland appeared when they landed here to be in a most destitute condition. I saw some come from the ship who appeared to have been starved for a year before and who had hardly enough clothes to cover their nakedness. I never saw such melancholy specimens of humanity. Why they were far more ragged, torn, and emaciated looking than the soldiers when they returned from Mexico after a hard campaign. They bore evidence of cruel bondage grinding oppression. The people of Ireland talk, in the most horrified terms of negro slavery in this country, but these same slaves present an appearance of comfort, happiness, and content, a hundred per cent greater than the poor Irish, and they are more comfortable and happy. I don't mean to defend slavery here, but [I?] say that it is not half so bad so grindingly oppressive as in Ireland. Why, an American however absolute his power never exercises such tyranny as do Irishmen. They treat their "Niggers" with kindness and with some consideration. No consideration would induce them, however great the gain might be, to starve them. An Irish landlord would see all his tenants expire in the agonies of hunger to gratify his vanity, or increase his rent roll. I think there is no country in the world, where there may be found so many human beings lost to all sense of humanity as are in Ireland, though one half of them are [Hanans?] They treat slaves worse here than the men of any other nation that comes here. I have little more to say. I sent you a paper a few weeks ago which would give you all the news. I am enjoying pretty good health, as good as I can expect from sedentary habits and in New Orleans. I wish you would write me immediately on receiving this. You will not. I hope, put it off more than a week. Let me know how cousin Elizabeth is, now Mrs. Carson, or if she is living yet. Give my respects to all friends and tell them they shall never see me in Ireland. Direct to me care of Frederick Camerden, New Orleans and I am ever yours. Postscript. You need not prepay your letters to me. John Kerr |
