Boston - Ponta Delgada 1815

Boston-Ponta Delgada 1815 EDGARDO MEDEIROS SILVA Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa Centro de Estudos Anglísticos da Universidade de Lisboa ISBN 978-972-8886-24-0 • FROM BRAZIL TO MACAO • CEAUL / ULICES 2013 1. Introduction I would like to suggest in this paper that from very early on in United States history the islands of the Azores served as mid-Atlantic meeting point for Portuguese and American culture. A good example of that is the description the historian William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) left us of his stay on the island of São Miguel as a young man (he was nineteen years old at the time), in connec - tion with a visit to his grandfather, Thomas Hickling, the American diplomatic representative there. Although Prescott’s stay on the island lasted for six months, that is, between October 1815 and April 1816, due to a serious eye condition, which he was to suffer from most of his life, the young traveller was confined to a darkroom for much of the time he spent there. Had that not been the case, we would certainly have today a more complete account of his stay, thus sup - plementing the scanty number of foreign sources we have for the Azores and for the period in question. Still, what Prescott wrote about São Miguel and its inhabitants, though filtered through the eyes of a foreigner, allows us to draw an interesting picture of life on this Azorean island in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. For this paper, I have drawn primarily on two sources of information: the extant correspondence of Prescott which George Ticknor (1791-1871), fellow scholar and friend, included in his Life of William Hickling Prescott (1864), as well as the personal diary kept by Prescott during his European Grand Tour and which exists in manuscript form at the Massachusetts Historical Society.1 2. Contacts between the Azores and the United States Contacts between the United States and the Western Islands, as the Azores were known, date back to the founding of the American Republic. During the Revolutionary War, for example, the Continental Congress maintained contact 1William Hickling Prescott’s travel diary is part of the Prescott Family Papers, deposited at the Massachusetts Historical Society. It has 185 pages and covers the period from 26 September 1815 to 14 May 1817. 2 David Humphreys was the first American diplomatic representative to Portugal; he held the post of Minister in Lisbon from 1791-1797. The first U.S. Consul in Lisbon was Edward Church, appointed in 1792. This means that the American Consulate in the Azores (first in Horta, Faial, and then in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel) is the oldest continuously operating U.S. Consulate in the world. 3 The documents show that Thomas Hickling, through two companies, exported a total of 106, 484 boxes of oranges. Cf. “Carta de Thomas Hickling Jr.,” Tradução e notas de Henrique de Aguiar Oliveira Rodrigues, Insulana, vol. 51, nº2 (1995), p. 210, nota nº 14. Timothy Pikkin in his A Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States of America (1835), pp. 227-230, provides the value of the import/export trade between the United States, mainland Portugal and the island of Madeira down to 1833, but he does not include the Azores. The reason is undoubtedly related to the fact that it was not significant in volume. Pitkin’s figures also reveal the impact of Napoleon’s Continental Blockade on the trade between the two countries. 4 Thomas Hickling (1745-1834), William Hickling Prescott’s grandfather, was born in Boston but died in Ponta Delgada. He arrived in São Miguel island on board the sailing ship “St. John” in 1769, where he settled for good. He never returned to his native country, but when the U.S. became independent, he adopted American nationality. His son, Thomas Hickling Jr. (17811875), continued the family business, namely the export of oranges, which was heavily affected by the War of 1812. with the Azores in order to coordinate the travel of its emissaries to Europe in its effort to get support for the independence movement. There have been American diplomatic representatives in the Azores since 1795, when George Washington appointed John Street as United States Consul for the Islands, based in Horta, Faial.21795 was also the year Thomas Hickling, Prescott’s grandfather, was appointed Vice-Consul, but based in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel. Thomas Hickling had arrived on the island of São Miguel in 1769, approximately a quarter of a century before, where he was involved in the import/export trade. He became the single largest exporter of oranges from São Miguel when these first started to be despatched to Northern European ports. According to the records of the Ponta Delgada Customs House, between 1800 and 1809 Thomas Hickling exported some 100,000 crates of the fruit.3There is no evidence to suggest that he settled in São Miguel as a result of a disagreement with his father over his support for the Revolution.4 3. Prescott’s Visit to the Azores As a historian, William Hickling Prescott is best known for his work on imperial Spain and Latin America. Although he never taught, he holds a unique position in the historiography of Spain and Latin America, because he was the first US historian to dedicate himself to the study of these matters. He was especially active in the 1830s and 1840s, when he published his historical works on the Edgardo Medeiros Silva 440 reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic, and Philip II, as well as his grand narrative stories of the conquests of Mexico and Peru.5He wrote with a Romantic view of history, characterised by a strong authorial presence, a tendentious preference for political and constitutional matters, as well as a keen interest in the personality of the individuals who shape historical events. Like other historians of the period, his works do show a certain degree of cultural bias. He analysed the pre-Conquest Inca and Aztec cultures, for instance, according to a “Christian understanding of the ancient Mediterranean past,” (Boyd 960) his writings being informed by a Protestant notion that Catholicism represented an inferior and essentially superstitious form of Christianity. This, as I hope to show, is already evident in some of the letters he wrote to his family and friends from São Miguel island. Prescott sailed from Boston on 26 September 1815 (20 Sept, according to Ticknor), on board the USA Brigantine “Legal Tender,” commanded by Captain Lindsay. Ticknor writes that it was a small vessel similar to the ones that were used to carry trade with the Western Islands. After a “rough passage,” with some strong gales and head winds, Prescott landed at Ponta Delgada (written as Ponta del Gada in his diary) on 16 October (18 October, according to Ticknor), after a twenty-two day voyage. Conditions on board the vessel were far from satisfactory for the young Prescott as the following excerpt from his 18 October letter to his parents attests: I have been treated with every attention by the captain and crew, and my situation rendered as comfortable as possible. But this cabin was never designed for rheumatics. The companion-way opens immediately upon deck, and the patent binnacle illuminator, vice windows, are so ingeniously and impartially constructed, that for every ray of light we have half a dozen drops of water. The consequence is, that the orbit of my operations for days together has been much restricted. I have banished ennui, however, by battling with Democrats and bed-bugs, both of which thrive on board this vessel, and in both of which contests I have been ably seconded by the cook, who has officiated as my valet de chambre, and in whom I find great congeniality of sentiment (Ticknor 31). Boston-Ponta Delgada 1815 441 5 The History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) is regarded as his best work. Written in three volumes, it describes how Hernando Cortés subdued the Aztec Indians. It also highlights the inferiority of Aztec religion in comparison with Christianity. The History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), whose central character is Pizarro, evidences similar themes. Because of his poor eyesight, Prescott used to write with the help of a secretary and a noctograph, a wooden tablet with wires used to make notes without looking at the page. Two reasons account for Prescott’s visit to São Miguel, following his graduation from Harvard University with a law degree. He had been suffering from an eye infection (“rheumatism”) for some time, which had been caused by a bread crumb thrown by a fellow student. The voyage to the Azores was an attempt to mitigate this condition (by avoiding the harshness of the Boston winters) as well as an opportunity to see his grandfather, whom we suspect he had never met.6A second reason has to do with the fact that he had just completed his university studies. As such, in line with common practice in the Anglo world, and as a member of New England’s upper classes, Prescott was to visit continental Europe (the Grand Tour), in particular the ancient sites of Greece and Italy. After his stay in São Miguel, Prescott went on to visit London and Paris (where he did seek medical advice for his eye condition), as well as Italy, but he left Greece out of his travel plans altogether. 4. Representations of the Azores in Prescott’s Travel Writings Prescott’s first impressions upon his arrival in São Miguel island could not have been better. In note form, he jotted down in his diary: “fine marine views, houses white lime and lava, streets narrow“ (Prescott 1). At his grandfather’s home in Rosto de Cão (a suburb of Ponta Delgada), he added the following: “Rosto de Cão, charming gardens at my Grand fathers [sic], exotics of every description, faya trees, oranges, lemons and citreous trees, pomegranates, utopia (?), flowers, plants, etc, etc,” (Prescott 1). Ticknor is quite accurate about the details surrounding the place where Prescott’s grandfather lived at the time when he observes that Thomas Hickling lived at a place called Rosto de Cão, “due to the supposed resemblance of its rocks to the head of a dog” (Ticknor 32). We are told by him that Hickling lived in a country house surrounded by gardens with tropical vegetation, where laurels and myrtles dominated. He alludes to the large number of orange groves which Prescott’s grandfather owned and from which he drew his income: these orange groves were “cultivated and extended chiefly through his grandfather’s [Prescott’s grandfather, that is] spirit and energy, until their fruit had become the staple of the island […]” (Ticknor 32). Ticknor seems to imply that the export of oranges, which was to be the basis of the local economy for decades to come, was indeed started by Prescott’s grandfather. (This is only partially true as there were other orange growers and exporters on the island.) He concludes the passage by drawing an analogy between the island of São Miguel and the Garden of the Edgardo Medeiros Silva 442 6 Ticknor says that Prescott was going to visit his grandfather Thomas Hickling, “Consul of the United States at St. Michael’s,” which was not exactly true. In fact, Hickling was Vice-Consul. Hesperides, Hera’s mythical orchard of golden apples in Western lands (to be more precise the reference is to Hesperian fables).7Visits to orange groves seem to have been a popular pastime for the young Prescott, as his diary entries attest: 19 October 1815, visit to “Donna Anna Rosa’s garden, the finest in the island, delicious orange groves [...] and myrtles, twenty feet in height”; 7 February 1816: “atmosphere remarkably pure and perfumed orange groves” (Prescott 3); 15 February 1816: still another excursion to yet another orange grove: “good orange trees average 4 or 5000 oranges annually, 20,000 have been known, prices of oranges formerly 10 cents per 1000, now 6 or even 9 dollars, but property in the island yields 8 or 9 per cent” (Prescott 4). In a letter written to his parents from the above-mentioned location, dated 13 November 1815, Prescott describes the town of Ponta Delgada as a unique, enchanted place, more fitting in some fictional account than in reality itself. Prescott writes that the city is located at the base of hills covered with yellow fields of corn. These fields of corn contrasted with the whiteness of the buildings and the picturesque turrets of the numerous convents, the whole setting creating in him, as he puts it, “a coup d’oeil on which the genius of a Radcliffe, or indeed any one, much less an admirer of the beauties of nature than myself, might expend a folio of sentimentality and nonsense” (Ticknor 33). In this passage, Prescott confesses himself an admirer of nature, but not of the excesses of feeling associated with some Romantic poetry. Further down in the same letter, Prescott stresses the novelty of the scenery and of the vegetation, so unlike that which could be found in Northerner climates. In particular, he is surprised to see plants that he had only seen inside greenhouses growing in the open sky, without artificial heat. The luxuriant vegetation he could see all around him, boxwood, cypress, and myrtle, prompts him to remark that he felt as if he had been transported to the age of Horace and Anacreon (one of many classical allusions we can find in his correspondence). As to the climate, we have to say that Prescott was able to capture the unpredictable nature of the Azorean weather quite well when he writes that the winters there were mild and the summers rather chilly. He adds, though, that the weather was “capricious,” making the local inhabitants “absolutely amphibious,” no doubt a reference to the large amounts of precipitation to which the island was, and still is, prone: “if they [the local inhabitants] are in sunshine one half of the day, they are sure to be in water the other half” (Ticknor 35). Boston-Ponta Delgada 1815 443 7 According to the myth, the Garden of the Hesperides was located either in Italy or the Iberian Peninsula. This is a reference to Hera’s orchard of golden apples, tended by nymphs called Hesperides. The Garden of the Hesperides is often employed as an allusion to a blessed island in the West. He was also able to experience what it felt like to be subjected to regular volcanic activity. On 1 February 1816, an earthquake of considerable magnitude struck the town of Ponta Delgada and its environs, damaging some forty houses and many public buildings. According to Prescott’s account, the walls of his grand father’s house were cracked from top to bottom as a result of the tremor. The earthquake, which lasted three and a half minutes, pulled the whole family out of bed unexpectedly, reminding the young Prescott of the disasters of Lisbon and Herculaneum. The letter to his sister, Catherine Elizabeth Prescott (1799-?), dated 12 March 1816, contains a number of details on housing in São Miguel. In it, Prescott writes that the houses on the island were built of stone, and that they were mostly twostoried, with the lower floor of these being used by the locals as a place for keeping the cattle. These houses were painted in white lime. Elsewhere, more specifically in Prescott’s letter to his parents, dated 15 March 1816, he complains about the fact that the windows of his grandfather’s house at Rosto de Cão were poorly built. In his view, they were constructed the way the doors of barns in New England were built: the windows had no blinds, they were not well insulated from the winds, and let in too much light (Ticknor 38).8Although the quality of the construction of his grandfather’s house in the city was slightly better, the family still had to nail baize to the windows to make the room darker and thus prevent the deterioration of his eye inflammation. In the entry in his diary dated 17 October 1815, shortly after his arrival, Prescott had noted apropos his visit to the Fajen [sic]: “high stone walls obstruct the prospects, cottages without windows, fireplaces, or comforts” (Prescott 1). The simplicity of the island’s domestic architecture contrasted, however, with the richness of construction seen in churches. It struck Prescott that the Azoreans had lavish churches, “profusely ornamented with gilding and carving,” even though the quality of the craftsmanship was poor (Ticknor 34). Implicit here seems to be, in my view, criticism of the artistic excesses of Catholics to the detriment of the spiritual side of their religious faith. The general attitude of suspicion (and sometimes, overt antipathy) many Anglophone authors of this period (and before) often displayed in their writings for followers of the Catholic faith is also present in Prescott. For instance, when describing the contrast between the yellow corn fields on the hills that surround the city of Ponta Delgada and the whiteness of the turrets of the many convents he could observe in it, Prescott does not fail to remark that those convents both “beautify and disgrace the city” (Ticknor 33). As we know, there is a long Edgardo Medeiros Silva 444 8 Letter dated 15 March 1816. Boston-Ponta Delgada 1815 tradition in the Anglo-Saxon world about the negative image of Catholic convents, going back to the Protestant Revolution of the 1600s, which tended to equate nunneries with places of ill-repute. Prescott reveals a bit more of this very same attitude in the letter he wrote to his friend and later editor W. H. Gardiner (March 1816, no day). There Prescott refers to the fact that he has visited nunneries frequently and that they do not correspond in any way to the Romantic notion people have of them as places of “purity and simplicity.” He displays the common idea among Protestants that nunneries were places of debauchery and depravity, as we can infer from this passage: Almost every nun has a lover; that is, an innamorato who visits her every day and swears as many oaths of constancy, and imprints as many kisses on the grates as ever as Pyramus and Thisbe did on the unlucky chink which separated them. I was invited the other day to select one of these fair penitents, but, as I have no great relish for such a — correspondence, I declined the politeness, and content myself with a few ogles and sighs en passant (Ticknor 36-7). Prescott, therefore, refused to engage in what was apparently a favourite pastime on the island, even though on one occasion, as he noted in his diary entry for 8 February 1816, he drank tea and ate sweets with the nuns from Convento da Esperança (Prescott 3). In the above-mentioned letter to his sister Catherine, we have a number of lines written in the same vein. When describing the lavishness of Azorean churches, with their eight, and sometimes ten, tower bells, Prescott adds the following comment jokingly: “[...] when a great character walks off the carpet, they keep them [the tower bells] in continued jingle, as they have great faith in ringing the soul through Purgatory” (Ticknor 34). As an American brought up under the strictures of New England Protestantism, it is clear that Prescott finds all this too much. So much so that he ends this paragraph of his letter by saying that when a poor man happens to lose his child, the local population congratu - late him on the joy of the occasion, but if that same man loses a pig, his friends console him. For Prescott, this is undoubtedly an example of the kind of irrational behaviour often associated with Catholic practices. For Prescott, politics and religion were no doubt intertwined. He was especially hard on countries such as Portugal, which he believed were still under the influence of papal power, as we may gather from the letter he wrote to his friend W. H. Gardiner. In his view, the inhabitants of Catholic countries were very much “oppressed by arbitrary power and papal superstition” (Ticknor 36). As an inhabitant of a “free country, flourishing under the influences of a benign religion,” as Prescott writes, what he was given to observe of Azorean society 445