ABSTRACT
The E. Chapman letter of 1852, written from Utica, New York, to Kettering in North-amptonshire, includes advice for other immigrants. But it is especially interesting for its observations of the paradox of American liberty. Chapman nicely sums up what many British immigrants struggled with as they confronted a land of both liberty and slavery:
America is a fine country and to men of Industry and Iron Constitution it is generally a Land of profit, but while half of its States are Slave holding states and between 3 and 4 Million of poor Africans are in Bondage and groaning under oppression, and besides this the Noble Indian the original occupiers and owners of this land are by artifice and cruelty driven to far distant Mountains for Refuge, I consider it an awfull profanation of the Name to Call it a Land of Liberty. Yet in a variety of ways a part of it is so
Finally, Chapman includes observations from current events. There is a reference to ‘Jenny Lind fever’ (the sensation over the touring opera singer known as the ‘Swedish Nightingale’, who arrived in New York in 1850 at the invitation of P. T. Barnum). Observations on politics and the visit of the Hungarian leader Lajos Kossuth (who addressed the United States House of Representatives on 7 January 1852 – two weeks before Chapman writes – and whose behaviour disappointed Chapman) make this letter especially interesting.