What do you think?
Rate this book
Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838–1839
Originally published in 1863, out-of-print and unavailable for almost a century, Frances Anne Kemble's Journal has long been recognized by historians as unique in the literature of American slavery and invaluable for obtaining a clear view of the "peculiar institution" and of life in the antebellum South.Fanny Kemble was one of the leading lights of the English stage in the nineteenth century. During a tour of America in the 1830s she met and married a wealthy Philadelphian, Pierce Butler, part of whose fortune derived from his family's vast cotton and rice plantation on the Sea Islands of Georgia. After their marriage she spent several months living on the plantation. Profoundly shocked by what she saw, she recorded her observations of plantation life in a series of journal entries written as letters to a friend. But she never sent the letters, and not until the Civil War was on and Fanny was divorced from Pierce Butler and living in England were they published.
This Brown Thrasher edition incorporates the valuable introduction written by John A. Scott for the 1961 edition published by Alfred A. Knopf, together with the editor's appendices to that edition. It provides the modern reader with the historical and biographical background to move freely and with ease in Mrs. Kemble's world.
This Brown Thrasher edition incorporates the valuable introduction written by John A. Scott for the 1961 edition published by Alfred A. Knopf, together with the editor's appendices to that edition. It provides the modern reader with the historical and biographical background to move freely and with ease in Mrs. Kemble's world.
415 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1863
195 people are currently reading
906 people want to read
About the author
Fanny Kemble
188 books9 followersFrances Anne Kemble (27 November 1809 - 15 January 1893), was a famous British actress and author in the early and mid nineteenth century.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
March 29, 2023
The journal that Frances Anne “Fanny” Kemble kept, during her months of residence at her husband’s plantation in coastal Georgia in 1838 and 1839, provides a powerful and wrenching look at the institution of slavery in the Deep South during the antebellum era. Kemble’s gift for observation and her empathy with the plight of enslaved African Americans make her book Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, 1838-1839 a powerful example of abolitionist literature.
Kemble’s talent and achievement were recognized long before she published this journal. She was born into an eminent British theatrical family, and she excelled not only as an actress but also as an author of plays, poetry, and travel literature. In connection with her theatrical career, the 23-year-old Kemble traveled to the United States, where she met Pierce Mease Butler, a Philadelphian who was also heir to his South Carolina grandfather’s plantations and all of the people enslaved there. Two years later, Kemble married Butler and retired from her theatrical career.
During the early years of his marriage to Kemble, Butler had made a habit of traveling alone to his plantations, perhaps sensing that Kemble would not like what she would see down there; but eventually he acceded to her increasingly insistent requests to be taken to the Georgia plantations – and, unsurprisingly, she was appalled by what she saw.
The Journal proceeds in the form of a series of letters sent by Kemble to an unknown correspondent ("Dear E-------"). Using dashes to conceal the names of various people whom she encountered, Kemble conveys her sense of the horrors of slavery – the brutal punishments, the inadequate care, and what Thomas Jefferson in Notes on the State of Virginia (1782) calls the “degrading submissions” that are forced upon enslaved African Americans in their everyday dealings with slaveholding whites.
It is interesting to consider Kemble’s status as observer. As a Briton in America, she was a citizen of a country that had abolished slavery in all its dominions in 1833 – five years before her time on the Georgia plantations. And as a woman in a male-dominated society, she expresses particular sympathy for the situation of enslaved women, who are targets for the lust of slaveholding white men, and who are expected to return to field labor three weeks [!] after giving birth.
At one point, Kemble observes how a number of the enslaved people whom she encounters seem to think that lighter skin is preferable, and she comments that “This desperate tendency to despise and undervalue their own race and colour, which is one of the very worst results of their abject condition, is intolerable to me” (p. 135). She adds later that “The mode in which [enslaved people] have learned to accept the idea of their own degradation and unalterable inferiority, is the most serious impediment that I see in the way of their progress, since assuredly, ‘self-love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting’” (p. 158).
Kemble sees the slaveholding antebellum South as part of a worldwide problem of people at the top of the social hierarchy seeking to dehumanize those who carry out the dirty work at the bottom of the scale. In connection with the perceived “necessity” of separating Irish immigrants and enslaved African Americans who are doing the same manual labour on the Brunswick Canal, she remarks that “It strikes me with amazement to hear the hopeless doom of incapacity for progress pronounced upon these wretched slaves, when in my own country the very same sort of language is perpetually applied to these very Irish, here spoken of as a sort of race of demigods, by Negro comparison” (p. 55).
At one point, Kemble hears that an enslaved man was flogged severely for allowing his wife to be baptized. She cannot find out what was considered objectionable about baptism, in the nominally Christian U.S. South (though I can’t help thinking that it mjght have been the enslaved man’s not asking slaveholder permission for said baptism). Whatever the case may have been, the reader will agree with Kemble’s subsequent reflections that “There is not a single natural right that is not taken away from these unfortunate people, and the worst of all is, that their condition does not appear to me, upon further observation of it, to be susceptible of even partial alleviation as long as the fundamental evil, the slavery itself, remains” (pp. 102-03).
Kemble proceeds from an observation of the horrors of slavery to a consideration of how slavery affects all of Southern culture and makes it noticeably different from the culture of the Northern states of the same nation. She comments, as other observers of the time noted, and as historians of more recent times have confirmed, that “The Northern farmer…thinks it no shame to work, the Southern planter does; and there begins and ends the difference. Industry, man’s crown of honour elsewhere, is here his badge of utter degradation; and so comes all by which I am here surrounded – pride, profligacy, idleness, cruelty, cowardice, ignorance, squalor, dirt, and ineffable abasement” (p. 154).
Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, 1838-1839 takes on additional resonance from the knowledge that Kemble, after the family’s return to Philadelphia, would not dismiss from her mind the injustice that she had witnessed. Her disagreements with Butler, over slavery and other matters, led to the couple’s divorce, and Butler gained custody of the children. Kemble paid a high price for her fidelity to her convictions.
An appendix to the Journal includes a letter that Kemble wrote to The Times of London, responding to an article that had attacked Uncle Tom’s Cabin as excessive in its depiction of slavery. Invoking her testimony regarding the realities of slavery – and reminding the Times editors, gently but firmly, that she has been an on-the-ground witness of Southern U.S. slavery, while they have not – she states, perceptively and presciently, why she thinks Southern planters will preserve the slaveholding system for as long as they possibly can:
[F]reedom in America is not merely a personal right; it involves a political privilege. Freemen there are legislators. The rulers of the land are the majority of the people, and in many parts of the Southern States the black free citizens would become, if not at once, yet in process of time, inevitably voters, landholders, delegates to state legislatures, members of assembly – who knows? – senators, judges, aspirants to the presidency of the United States. You must be an American, or have lived long among them, to conceive the shout of derisive execration with which such an idea would be hailed from one end of the land to the other. (pp. 200-01)
Because Kemble did not publish her Journal until 1863, by which time the American Civil War had been raging for two years, she also has the opportunity to remark on the Union government’s war policies, including Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: “[T]he President’s proclamation will reach with but little efficacy beyond the mere borders of the Southern States. The war is assuming an aspect of indefinite duration; and it is difficult to conceive what will be the condition of the blacks, freed de jure but by no means de facto, in the vast interior regions of the Southern States, as long as the struggle raging all round their confines does not penetrate within them” (p. 209). Fortunately, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did more to bring about the end of slavery than Kemble was able to anticipate at the time.
Kemble’s journal may not have been as well-known as other abolitionist works like Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of an American Slave (1845) or Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) because, like Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), it was not published until a civil war over slavery was already in progress. Kemble’s observations of African American life and culture are sometimes permeated by a tone of condescension that will not appeal to modern sensibilities. Yet her sense of the evil of slavery, and her compassionate identification with the plight of enslaved people, will be unmistakable to the contemporary reader of the Journal. More than a century and a half later, it remains a valuable chronicle of a terrible time.
Kemble’s talent and achievement were recognized long before she published this journal. She was born into an eminent British theatrical family, and she excelled not only as an actress but also as an author of plays, poetry, and travel literature. In connection with her theatrical career, the 23-year-old Kemble traveled to the United States, where she met Pierce Mease Butler, a Philadelphian who was also heir to his South Carolina grandfather’s plantations and all of the people enslaved there. Two years later, Kemble married Butler and retired from her theatrical career.
During the early years of his marriage to Kemble, Butler had made a habit of traveling alone to his plantations, perhaps sensing that Kemble would not like what she would see down there; but eventually he acceded to her increasingly insistent requests to be taken to the Georgia plantations – and, unsurprisingly, she was appalled by what she saw.
The Journal proceeds in the form of a series of letters sent by Kemble to an unknown correspondent ("Dear E-------"). Using dashes to conceal the names of various people whom she encountered, Kemble conveys her sense of the horrors of slavery – the brutal punishments, the inadequate care, and what Thomas Jefferson in Notes on the State of Virginia (1782) calls the “degrading submissions” that are forced upon enslaved African Americans in their everyday dealings with slaveholding whites.
It is interesting to consider Kemble’s status as observer. As a Briton in America, she was a citizen of a country that had abolished slavery in all its dominions in 1833 – five years before her time on the Georgia plantations. And as a woman in a male-dominated society, she expresses particular sympathy for the situation of enslaved women, who are targets for the lust of slaveholding white men, and who are expected to return to field labor three weeks [!] after giving birth.
At one point, Kemble observes how a number of the enslaved people whom she encounters seem to think that lighter skin is preferable, and she comments that “This desperate tendency to despise and undervalue their own race and colour, which is one of the very worst results of their abject condition, is intolerable to me” (p. 135). She adds later that “The mode in which [enslaved people] have learned to accept the idea of their own degradation and unalterable inferiority, is the most serious impediment that I see in the way of their progress, since assuredly, ‘self-love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting’” (p. 158).
Kemble sees the slaveholding antebellum South as part of a worldwide problem of people at the top of the social hierarchy seeking to dehumanize those who carry out the dirty work at the bottom of the scale. In connection with the perceived “necessity” of separating Irish immigrants and enslaved African Americans who are doing the same manual labour on the Brunswick Canal, she remarks that “It strikes me with amazement to hear the hopeless doom of incapacity for progress pronounced upon these wretched slaves, when in my own country the very same sort of language is perpetually applied to these very Irish, here spoken of as a sort of race of demigods, by Negro comparison” (p. 55).
At one point, Kemble hears that an enslaved man was flogged severely for allowing his wife to be baptized. She cannot find out what was considered objectionable about baptism, in the nominally Christian U.S. South (though I can’t help thinking that it mjght have been the enslaved man’s not asking slaveholder permission for said baptism). Whatever the case may have been, the reader will agree with Kemble’s subsequent reflections that “There is not a single natural right that is not taken away from these unfortunate people, and the worst of all is, that their condition does not appear to me, upon further observation of it, to be susceptible of even partial alleviation as long as the fundamental evil, the slavery itself, remains” (pp. 102-03).
Kemble proceeds from an observation of the horrors of slavery to a consideration of how slavery affects all of Southern culture and makes it noticeably different from the culture of the Northern states of the same nation. She comments, as other observers of the time noted, and as historians of more recent times have confirmed, that “The Northern farmer…thinks it no shame to work, the Southern planter does; and there begins and ends the difference. Industry, man’s crown of honour elsewhere, is here his badge of utter degradation; and so comes all by which I am here surrounded – pride, profligacy, idleness, cruelty, cowardice, ignorance, squalor, dirt, and ineffable abasement” (p. 154).
Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, 1838-1839 takes on additional resonance from the knowledge that Kemble, after the family’s return to Philadelphia, would not dismiss from her mind the injustice that she had witnessed. Her disagreements with Butler, over slavery and other matters, led to the couple’s divorce, and Butler gained custody of the children. Kemble paid a high price for her fidelity to her convictions.
An appendix to the Journal includes a letter that Kemble wrote to The Times of London, responding to an article that had attacked Uncle Tom’s Cabin as excessive in its depiction of slavery. Invoking her testimony regarding the realities of slavery – and reminding the Times editors, gently but firmly, that she has been an on-the-ground witness of Southern U.S. slavery, while they have not – she states, perceptively and presciently, why she thinks Southern planters will preserve the slaveholding system for as long as they possibly can:
[F]reedom in America is not merely a personal right; it involves a political privilege. Freemen there are legislators. The rulers of the land are the majority of the people, and in many parts of the Southern States the black free citizens would become, if not at once, yet in process of time, inevitably voters, landholders, delegates to state legislatures, members of assembly – who knows? – senators, judges, aspirants to the presidency of the United States. You must be an American, or have lived long among them, to conceive the shout of derisive execration with which such an idea would be hailed from one end of the land to the other. (pp. 200-01)
Because Kemble did not publish her Journal until 1863, by which time the American Civil War had been raging for two years, she also has the opportunity to remark on the Union government’s war policies, including Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: “[T]he President’s proclamation will reach with but little efficacy beyond the mere borders of the Southern States. The war is assuming an aspect of indefinite duration; and it is difficult to conceive what will be the condition of the blacks, freed de jure but by no means de facto, in the vast interior regions of the Southern States, as long as the struggle raging all round their confines does not penetrate within them” (p. 209). Fortunately, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did more to bring about the end of slavery than Kemble was able to anticipate at the time.
Kemble’s journal may not have been as well-known as other abolitionist works like Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of an American Slave (1845) or Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) because, like Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), it was not published until a civil war over slavery was already in progress. Kemble’s observations of African American life and culture are sometimes permeated by a tone of condescension that will not appeal to modern sensibilities. Yet her sense of the evil of slavery, and her compassionate identification with the plight of enslaved people, will be unmistakable to the contemporary reader of the Journal. More than a century and a half later, it remains a valuable chronicle of a terrible time.
August 24, 2014
English actress Fanny Kemble, who married Philadelphian Pierce Butler in 1834, spent the winter and spring of 1838-39 with her husband and their two young daughters on plantations her husband inherited in Georgia. Already philosophically opposed to slavery, Fanny wrote a journal about her observations and experiences in the form of letters to a friend, which were never sent. This was published during the Civil War, more than 10 years after she and Pierce divorced and she returned to England.
Fanny writes with compassion and intelligence about her relationships with slaves and her usually futile efforts to improve their plight. There are vivid descriptions of flora, fauna, people, and architecture, providing a solid feel for the place and time, although it was slow going due to the language of the era and the lack of paragraph breaks. Because so many slaves experienced the same horrible situations the book is a little repetitive, and I’ve noticed that even the most socially enlightened writers of this period tend to express a little prejudice. Still, she was a remarkable and courageous woman with a strong voice, and her writings provide an important record.
Fanny writes with compassion and intelligence about her relationships with slaves and her usually futile efforts to improve their plight. There are vivid descriptions of flora, fauna, people, and architecture, providing a solid feel for the place and time, although it was slow going due to the language of the era and the lack of paragraph breaks. Because so many slaves experienced the same horrible situations the book is a little repetitive, and I’ve noticed that even the most socially enlightened writers of this period tend to express a little prejudice. Still, she was a remarkable and courageous woman with a strong voice, and her writings provide an important record.
May 6, 2020
Frances Anne Kemble’s ‘Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation (1838-1839) is one of the most remarkable primary-source first-person narratives of slavery that I’ve read. This is not the least because she had no crusade as she did not publish her diary, as I read, until 1863 although her memoirs circled around Abolitionist circles before then. She wrote graphic descriptions of the conditions of the slaves and the viewpoints of the slaveowners. As an example, while I read in other sources that a slaveowner bragged about working slaves to death after four years so that he recouped his investment in this journal a slaveowner she records misquoted the Bible as saying that working a slave to death after seven years was their “Jubilee”.
She is disgusted particularly at the condition of older or sick slaves who were unable to work, particularly pregnant women and children with birth deformities. She brings up a lot of things about slavery that I had not thought about. What happened when a child was born into slavery but was not fit for the work? There are just so many things to consider here.
Finally, she leaves a rebuttal to criticism which is probably one of the most reasoned arguments against slavery that you will find and was prophetic about post-Civil War America. Slavery was wrong and although the cruelty of it didn’t affect that If you have to listen to people who keep going on about how slavery “wasn’t so bad” or that slaveowners took care of the property they invested in then read this eyewitness account of the American tragedy.
She is disgusted particularly at the condition of older or sick slaves who were unable to work, particularly pregnant women and children with birth deformities. She brings up a lot of things about slavery that I had not thought about. What happened when a child was born into slavery but was not fit for the work? There are just so many things to consider here.
Finally, she leaves a rebuttal to criticism which is probably one of the most reasoned arguments against slavery that you will find and was prophetic about post-Civil War America. Slavery was wrong and although the cruelty of it didn’t affect that If you have to listen to people who keep going on about how slavery “wasn’t so bad” or that slaveowners took care of the property they invested in then read this eyewitness account of the American tragedy.
September 14, 2012
This is one of those books that I'm glad I read, but was glad to be finished with. Before I read it, I knew that Kemble was a British actress who spent a winter on a Georgia plantation before the Civil War, but I didn't know the whole story, which was only slowly revealed in the text. (A little web research clarified a lot of points for me.) Kemble married an American man who subsequently inherited two plantations, on Butler Island and St. Simons Island. Kemble suddenly found, to her horror, that she was married to a slaveowner.
During her months in Georgia, she did her best to improve the lives of her husband's slaves, but her account confirms how inhuman and degrading the institution of slavery was, even though the slaves on Butler island considered themselves lucky to be on the Butler plantation instead of on some of the neighboring farms. Ultimately, she was unable to reconcile herself to her unexpected new life, and divorced Butler in the 1840's.
Kemble was a product of her time, and even though she was horrified by slavery, many of her characterizations of African-Americans would be considered quite condescending and prejudiced today. But all things considered, she was quite clear-eyed, and recognized that the qualities her neighbors saw as proof of their slaves' inferiority were the result of generations of dehumanization.
This book is a tough read, but it's a worthwhile read for every Southerner, and probably every American.
During her months in Georgia, she did her best to improve the lives of her husband's slaves, but her account confirms how inhuman and degrading the institution of slavery was, even though the slaves on Butler island considered themselves lucky to be on the Butler plantation instead of on some of the neighboring farms. Ultimately, she was unable to reconcile herself to her unexpected new life, and divorced Butler in the 1840's.
Kemble was a product of her time, and even though she was horrified by slavery, many of her characterizations of African-Americans would be considered quite condescending and prejudiced today. But all things considered, she was quite clear-eyed, and recognized that the qualities her neighbors saw as proof of their slaves' inferiority were the result of generations of dehumanization.
This book is a tough read, but it's a worthwhile read for every Southerner, and probably every American.
August 25, 2025
A unique and meticulous account of life on a southern plantation during the Antebellum period, Journal of a Residence on A Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 is a must read for anyone wishing to gain a broader understanding of life in the American slave system.
Having acquired great renown as an accomplished English actress, Fanny Kemble married a rich plantation-owning Philadelphian named Pierce Butler and accompanied him, along with her two children and nurse, to his plantation in Georgia for several months. Though Kemble was an ardent opponent of slavery, she considered herself a "moderate abolitionist," believing that it was the slaveowners' own responsibility to come to the realization that manumission was morally just.
Her unique perspective as an English plantation mistress offers readers a distinct look at the different forces and influences of the American slave institution. Though racist language is found throughout certain parts of book, Kemble's scrupulous insight regarding the nature of the Southern slave-owning aristocracy is crafted with such poise and eloquence that it leads one to wonder how this journal has not become a staple in American History classes. Fanny Kemble juxtaposes the brutality of life on a plantation with the aesthetic beauty of the South, providing readers with two very intriguing themes.
Her multitudinous stories of oppression, degradation, and injustice along with her endlessly astute identifications of hypocrisy and fallacy in the pro-slavery argument are woven into an insightful and captivating story. With a special emphasis on the plight of enslaved women and children, and a supplemental concentration on the culture of the antebellum slave-owning aristocracy, this diary provides information and observations regarding commonly overlooked aspects of slavery.
Having acquired great renown as an accomplished English actress, Fanny Kemble married a rich plantation-owning Philadelphian named Pierce Butler and accompanied him, along with her two children and nurse, to his plantation in Georgia for several months. Though Kemble was an ardent opponent of slavery, she considered herself a "moderate abolitionist," believing that it was the slaveowners' own responsibility to come to the realization that manumission was morally just.
Her unique perspective as an English plantation mistress offers readers a distinct look at the different forces and influences of the American slave institution. Though racist language is found throughout certain parts of book, Kemble's scrupulous insight regarding the nature of the Southern slave-owning aristocracy is crafted with such poise and eloquence that it leads one to wonder how this journal has not become a staple in American History classes. Fanny Kemble juxtaposes the brutality of life on a plantation with the aesthetic beauty of the South, providing readers with two very intriguing themes.
Her multitudinous stories of oppression, degradation, and injustice along with her endlessly astute identifications of hypocrisy and fallacy in the pro-slavery argument are woven into an insightful and captivating story. With a special emphasis on the plight of enslaved women and children, and a supplemental concentration on the culture of the antebellum slave-owning aristocracy, this diary provides information and observations regarding commonly overlooked aspects of slavery.
June 28, 2009
After having read this, my father-in-law took it up on a visit. He wasn't finished when it was his time to leave so I gave it to him. When I started rebuilding my library I decided I had to purchase it again. I never really fully understood the horrors of slavery until I read this book. Frances Anne Kemble was an amazing and brave woman.
August 28, 2014
Important reading.
How on earth could the slave owners and overseers not realize that in listening to the complaints of the slaves, this woman was actually doing the owners themselves a favor -rather than increasing discontent, listening gave an outlet to those slaves who confided in her, thus actually decreasing their discontent by making them feel heard, and actually adding years to the lives of the masters and overseers. Had the slaves not felt listened to, they might have slit the throats of all the white men on the plantation, despite (or because of) the repressive conditions. How on earth could they not realize that their very deafness and blindness to their cruelty increased the risk of revolt? Discontent penned up boils over, as the Great Depression showed (which was why we got Social Security, Medica* and Welfare -that, and the fact that FDR did not want the Japanese using segregation and Bread Lines as bad P.R. against US...).
Courage, and hope against hope.
In Service to Community,
MEOW Date: 27 August 12,014 H.E. (Holocene/Human Era)
How on earth could the slave owners and overseers not realize that in listening to the complaints of the slaves, this woman was actually doing the owners themselves a favor -rather than increasing discontent, listening gave an outlet to those slaves who confided in her, thus actually decreasing their discontent by making them feel heard, and actually adding years to the lives of the masters and overseers. Had the slaves not felt listened to, they might have slit the throats of all the white men on the plantation, despite (or because of) the repressive conditions. How on earth could they not realize that their very deafness and blindness to their cruelty increased the risk of revolt? Discontent penned up boils over, as the Great Depression showed (which was why we got Social Security, Medica* and Welfare -that, and the fact that FDR did not want the Japanese using segregation and Bread Lines as bad P.R. against US...).
Courage, and hope against hope.
In Service to Community,
MEOW Date: 27 August 12,014 H.E. (Holocene/Human Era)
March 18, 2018
Francis Anne Kemble was born and raised in England. She became an actress and eventually traveled to America performing. While there she met and eventuallly married Pierce Butler. Butler and Fanny lived in the North, but their money came from Butler's rice plantation in the South.
When Fanny made one trip down to the South to live on her husband's plantation, she was appalled by slavery. She kept a diary and this is it.
At first, it took me a minute to get into the book. The writing style is different then now and Fanny is a little bit of a complainer. But once you get used to it, there are so many fascinating facts. I learned a lot of interesting tidbits about the time and treatment of slaves.
If you are interested in history and this time period, this is a great read. If you're not, then I would skip it.
When Fanny made one trip down to the South to live on her husband's plantation, she was appalled by slavery. She kept a diary and this is it.
At first, it took me a minute to get into the book. The writing style is different then now and Fanny is a little bit of a complainer. But once you get used to it, there are so many fascinating facts. I learned a lot of interesting tidbits about the time and treatment of slaves.
If you are interested in history and this time period, this is a great read. If you're not, then I would skip it.
December 8, 2014
A book everyone in America should read, not for style but for content. It gives priceless insight into the life of both slave and slave holder from the eyes of an English woman who married into a slaveholding family. Difficult to read at times due to subject matter but essential nonetheless.
April 4, 2023
This book was a true eye opener of how things were on the Plantation for the people that were called slaves during those days. Before reading the letters in this book that Fanny Kemble wrote to her friend, it has been portrayed time and time again it was made sure that slaves were healthy, taken care of and lived in clean conditions because they were considered valuable to their owners. After reading this book, however, the opposite has been exposed. Fanny married Mr. Butler, who was a slave owner of 650 slaves and saw firsthand how poorly they were treated, and that's putting it mildly. They lived in squalid conditions and no adequate medical care whatsoever if they fell ill. Fanny had been these slaves sliver of hope in this tunnel of darkness, by helping improve things for them, but of course, her husband challenged it. He even went as low as to sell 436 slaves to pay off a debt due to his gambling habit. I know that slaves had it rough back then, but after what I read, I have learned more to what magnitude they had it rough and it's really sad. Enough of my rambling though If you want a candid description of what life was like on a slave plantation, and can handle this sordid things that was witnessed by Fanny Kemble, then this is worth reading. Be prepared to be pissed the f*** off after reading this, but also be prepared to be educated as well.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 20, 2022
Kemble's collection of letters documenting her moral outrage provides an intimate and disturbing primary account of enslaved people's lives on her husband's plantations. Although her letters all weave an abolitionist thread, her comments about slaves, at times, are demeaning and racist but should be expected due to the period. She frequently attempts to ameliorate the living conditions of the slaves; however, it also sometimes feels like she portrays herself as a missionary. Her more lucid and harsh descriptions of the enslaved come from the infirmary. Listening to the grievances of the often malnourished, rheumatic, and beaten heightens her disgust at the acts of villainy widely accepted in the Southern slave states. Kemble, towards the end, comes to the correct and quite obvious conclusion that the negative stereotypes towards Black people result from deplorable living conditions and acts of violence and degrading behavior towards them. For anyone interested in American history, this is a must-read.
October 11, 2019
I saw a reference to this book somewhere (can't recall where) and was pleased to find that Saskatchewan's excellent interlibrary loan system had a copy. Somewhere.
A truly informative book about the conditions faced by slaves on one Georgia plantation in 1838 - and on neighbouring estates. Frances Kemble's is clearly a very educated woman, using lots of references to history, mythology, and current events in her writing.
I learned about some of the social factors of slavery that I hadn't considered, principally the aversion to physical labour among the southern white population, since it was seen as work to be done by slaves. She can't believe for example that a doctor's wife that she visited in Darien was surprised that she (Kemble) had walked all the way from the wharf to the house rather than sending for a carriage. She estimated the distance as about a quarter mile.
A long read. Especially with many pages of appendices giving details of persons mentioned in the book. And - I read it after reading Kemble's journals - the sixty pages of editor's notes at the beginning.
A truly informative book about the conditions faced by slaves on one Georgia plantation in 1838 - and on neighbouring estates. Frances Kemble's is clearly a very educated woman, using lots of references to history, mythology, and current events in her writing.
I learned about some of the social factors of slavery that I hadn't considered, principally the aversion to physical labour among the southern white population, since it was seen as work to be done by slaves. She can't believe for example that a doctor's wife that she visited in Darien was surprised that she (Kemble) had walked all the way from the wharf to the house rather than sending for a carriage. She estimated the distance as about a quarter mile.
A long read. Especially with many pages of appendices giving details of persons mentioned in the book. And - I read it after reading Kemble's journals - the sixty pages of editor's notes at the beginning.
July 28, 2024
This was one of the most influential pieces published against slavery during the Civil War. The stories shared in this journal are tragic. At times, she expresses herself in ways that today we would call racist, I believe her intentions were to enlighten the reader to the horrors of slavery. This journal is just as relevant today as when it was written. She also debunks myths that are still perpetuated as facts over 150 years after slavery has ended. Myths like slave holders won't abuse their slaves because they were valuable property and the benevolent slave holder. Fanny Kimble had a front row seat to the horrors of the institution and has left us all a clear picture of what it was like. This should be required reading for all high school history classes.
August 17, 2017
This is a collection of letters written by Frances Kemble-Butler to her friend Elizabeth Sedgwick, a notable American novelist. Fanny is a British actress who married an American man, not knowing when she married him that he would someday inherit a large plantation with hundreds of slaves. Fanny is an abolitionist. In these letters she recounts the day to life she is experiencing in Georgia. Her observations are fascinating as she recounts first hand the conditions endured by the slaves. She at times feels helpless to help them although she does all that is within her power aid them. In some instances, her assistance to the slaves ends causing more trouble for the slaves as they are punished for asking for her help.
Fanny is a fascinating woman. She is intelligent and independent and not one to bend to the whims of society. She eventually divorces her husband (an astounding scandal at the time) partially over the issue of slavery and moves to Lennox Massachusetts, away from the soul poisoning effects of slavery.
Fanny is a fascinating woman. She is intelligent and independent and not one to bend to the whims of society. She eventually divorces her husband (an astounding scandal at the time) partially over the issue of slavery and moves to Lennox Massachusetts, away from the soul poisoning effects of slavery.
November 6, 2019
A quiet read
While I enjoyed reading the book, I could not help but wonder if the author deliberately leave out the names of the various plantation owners and overseers I've was it decided I more recent times? As a person of colour, reading this book, it seemed that even in death the oppressors are being protected.
While I enjoyed reading the book, I could not help but wonder if the author deliberately leave out the names of the various plantation owners and overseers I've was it decided I more recent times? As a person of colour, reading this book, it seemed that even in death the oppressors are being protected.
March 22, 2020
An interesting peek into the times. I'm basically a really nosy person and I love reading diaries. I might have edited some parts for clarity but overall a nice diary. I love seeing these published so we can remember that the great and epic upheavals in our history involved actual people. It makes it more human and we should always remember the humanity in our history.
October 22, 2023
I'm not deeply into antebellum stories nor am I such a political-type who reads my fill just partake in the discourse around "Black Lives Matter" et al. I am nearly a 50-year old caucasian guy who grew up within a mile of a West Virginian known to most as "Harper's Ferry," - where abolitionist John Brown took over an armory and got hung in what we were taught was basically a local kangaroo court for his actions (at the time, this part of the nation hadn't really decided to go that way). Centrist and Libertarian, I don't automatically ally with either party or person.
But, in watching the television show "Mysteries of the Abandoned : America" on the Discovery network, they were documenting the vacant old house where a very rich grandson of one of America's founders had owned a couple of plantations.. Specifically, the house on Butler Island Plantation with a house built on it in the 1930s by Hutson of the NY Yankees fame (who signed Babe Ruth) and how it could have also been the setup for Gone with the Wind.
They mentioned that during the pre-Civil War period, Pierce Butler had married the author Fanny Kemble and she wrote anonymous letters - never sent - about her time there. This is a fascinating account of a first hand white abolitionists' point of view while living in the Deep South on a Plantation. She discusses both the rice and the cotton plantation in the text, and it's fascinating, if not required reading for any American, to really get immersed into the thinking of the time and what's led us to this point in our national discourse.
She points out some things in this book which are quite notable, and impressively prognostic:
- Anti-abolitionists often used the Bible/Jewry's historical "slavery" system as a defense against the peculiar institution
- She (the author) correctly forecasted here that even if emancipation were to occur, it'd take quite a lot of muscle politically for those who are of African-descent to co-exist among the White population without discrimination. [Which correctly predicts that it'd take nearly another 100 years for the Civil Rights amendment *and* we're still talking about this subject in 2023]
- There was an obvious logic flaw she kept finding within the pro-slavery movement was the existence of the "mulatto" ; ironically, laws prohibited the races from intermarrying yet there were white slave owners having children with their slaves quite a bit. It wasn't an abnormal occurrence and could often bring the slave owner more money by increasing the slave pool.
- Northerners and Northern States were largely complacent in the author's view which exacerbated the problem. Therefore, again in her view, the Civil War was a necessity. It's interesting how she perceives that President Buchanan kept the country at ease for a little as toeing the Democrat Party line, which was a "strategic ambiguity" of sorts, until Lincoln was elected, and the writings of Henry Clay and others are mentioned. While we're still armwrestling with the consequences today, this was a very divisive topic less than 100 years after the founding of America.
Again, I'm not deeply political nor am I a policy wonk. But I think this is beyond being "interesting," it's "important and necessary" to read before entering in the conversations we are having publicly today.
It's 4 stars instead of 5 because of it's readability is like any book written of this time period - they would use flowery language unnecessarily and had no good cadence or structure to it. Part of this also owes to the fact that these were supposedly letters she never sent, so there's a bit of first person / third person transitioning that must take place throughout which can become distracting.
Therefore, I would recommend the help of ChatGPT to get through some of the language. It can modernize much of it since the writing style was considered eloquent but it's considerably more formal for the modern reader to not drift asleep while trying to read.
The fact is, we've (as a society) have learned to write in a more digestive form, as we're no longer using formal language to describe even a mundane detail. This vernacular is simply common in the mid-1800s in English and being able to deeply understand it will either take the average reader some time (re-reading it) or takes a bit of help from AI to modernize the approach in storytelling to grasp the details of what the author was intending the reader to come away with.
The next stop is to read the follow-up to this book, Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War which is written by the author's daughter some time after this was and takes an opposing view during reconstruction. It's one of the next books to read since it completes the narrative between mother and daughter on seeing both sides of the coin and being witness to both viewpoints both before and after the war.
But, in watching the television show "Mysteries of the Abandoned : America" on the Discovery network, they were documenting the vacant old house where a very rich grandson of one of America's founders had owned a couple of plantations.. Specifically, the house on Butler Island Plantation with a house built on it in the 1930s by Hutson of the NY Yankees fame (who signed Babe Ruth) and how it could have also been the setup for Gone with the Wind.
They mentioned that during the pre-Civil War period, Pierce Butler had married the author Fanny Kemble and she wrote anonymous letters - never sent - about her time there. This is a fascinating account of a first hand white abolitionists' point of view while living in the Deep South on a Plantation. She discusses both the rice and the cotton plantation in the text, and it's fascinating, if not required reading for any American, to really get immersed into the thinking of the time and what's led us to this point in our national discourse.
She points out some things in this book which are quite notable, and impressively prognostic:
- Anti-abolitionists often used the Bible/Jewry's historical "slavery" system as a defense against the peculiar institution
- She (the author) correctly forecasted here that even if emancipation were to occur, it'd take quite a lot of muscle politically for those who are of African-descent to co-exist among the White population without discrimination. [Which correctly predicts that it'd take nearly another 100 years for the Civil Rights amendment *and* we're still talking about this subject in 2023]
- There was an obvious logic flaw she kept finding within the pro-slavery movement was the existence of the "mulatto" ; ironically, laws prohibited the races from intermarrying yet there were white slave owners having children with their slaves quite a bit. It wasn't an abnormal occurrence and could often bring the slave owner more money by increasing the slave pool.
- Northerners and Northern States were largely complacent in the author's view which exacerbated the problem. Therefore, again in her view, the Civil War was a necessity. It's interesting how she perceives that President Buchanan kept the country at ease for a little as toeing the Democrat Party line, which was a "strategic ambiguity" of sorts, until Lincoln was elected, and the writings of Henry Clay and others are mentioned. While we're still armwrestling with the consequences today, this was a very divisive topic less than 100 years after the founding of America.
Again, I'm not deeply political nor am I a policy wonk. But I think this is beyond being "interesting," it's "important and necessary" to read before entering in the conversations we are having publicly today.
It's 4 stars instead of 5 because of it's readability is like any book written of this time period - they would use flowery language unnecessarily and had no good cadence or structure to it. Part of this also owes to the fact that these were supposedly letters she never sent, so there's a bit of first person / third person transitioning that must take place throughout which can become distracting.
Therefore, I would recommend the help of ChatGPT to get through some of the language. It can modernize much of it since the writing style was considered eloquent but it's considerably more formal for the modern reader to not drift asleep while trying to read.
The fact is, we've (as a society) have learned to write in a more digestive form, as we're no longer using formal language to describe even a mundane detail. This vernacular is simply common in the mid-1800s in English and being able to deeply understand it will either take the average reader some time (re-reading it) or takes a bit of help from AI to modernize the approach in storytelling to grasp the details of what the author was intending the reader to come away with.
The next stop is to read the follow-up to this book, Ten Years on a Georgia Plantation Since the War which is written by the author's daughter some time after this was and takes an opposing view during reconstruction. It's one of the next books to read since it completes the narrative between mother and daughter on seeing both sides of the coin and being witness to both viewpoints both before and after the war.
December 18, 2014
Well done but tedious reading. I came away w/a more hardened look towards how the southern slave owners treated their slaves.
September 29, 2014
Highly informative book but the language is tough.
December 8, 2025
Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 by Frances Anne Kimble edited by John A. Scott (University of Georgia Press 1984) (973.803) (4103).
Frances Anne “Fanny” Kemble was a noted British actor of her day. In 1838 while in Philadelphia during a tour of the US she met and married a Georgia plantation owner named Butler. Fanny then took a trip to the Georgia Sea Islands where she (by dint of her marriage) suddenly found herself the nominal half-owner of a working cotton and rice plantation as well as the owner of a large group of Black slaves who provided the plantation’s manpower. This journal is her account of her months on the plantation in Georgia.
Kemble was horrified by what she found there. She wrote extensively of the workings of the plantation’s operations and of the lives of the workers. Kemble meant well, but her condescending (matriarchal?) tone toward the unfortunate slaves occasionally crept into her account which somehow lessened her moral superiority and her good intentions. Indeed, she referred to the “slovenly desolation” of coastal Georgia and the “slimy waters” that she found in abundance there. When she was not actively moralizing over the sin of slavery, she referred to the Black population as “ignorant brutes.” (p.180).
She did not reserve her opprobrium only for the Black slaves she encountered, for she didn’t think much of the local White Georgians either. She denounced them as “a different race of Anglo-Saxons” which she termed “Georgia Pinelanders” whose characteristics she described as “...filthy, lazy, ignorant, brutal, proud, penniless savages.” (p.182).
I picked up this journal when it was referenced in a series of nonfiction accounts of slavery in the US. My reading revealed that this book was important because it provided a first-hand account of slavery well before the Civil War. I’m glad to have read it, and I’m glad to be done with it.
I purchased a used PB copy in like-new condition for $7.64 through Amazon on 11/16/24.
My rating: 7/10, finished 12/08/25 (4103).
PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
April 2, 2025
Fanny Kemble was an actress that eventually married a man who owned a plantation.
During the few months she lived on the plantation, she wrote journal entries as letters to a friend but never mailed them.
The entries contained her observations, experiences, and the shocking things she witnessed.
It wasn't released as a book until the Civil War had already begun. While it probably wasn't as impactful as a book like Uncle Tom's Cabin, it gives a firsthand view of plantation life.
Fanny cared for the slaves and tried to make their conditions better. Her writings were compassionate, thoughtful, and intelligent.
It's a tough but worthwhile read.
During the few months she lived on the plantation, she wrote journal entries as letters to a friend but never mailed them.
The entries contained her observations, experiences, and the shocking things she witnessed.
It wasn't released as a book until the Civil War had already begun. While it probably wasn't as impactful as a book like Uncle Tom's Cabin, it gives a firsthand view of plantation life.
Fanny cared for the slaves and tried to make their conditions better. Her writings were compassionate, thoughtful, and intelligent.
It's a tough but worthwhile read.
April 22, 2022
This wasn't an easy book to read. I'm not talking about Kemble's writing style but the subject matter. She gives a detailed, eye witness, no-holds-barred, account of slavery. Be prepared. I thought I knew a lot about slavery (I was a history major in college and read a lot of history). However, I was completely unprepared for the true horrors of a "good" southern plantation. This book should be required reading for all!
Please read the long introduction at the beginning. It gives the background to Kemble's life beyond her few months on the plantation.
Please read the long introduction at the beginning. It gives the background to Kemble's life beyond her few months on the plantation.
August 31, 2023
Mind-blowingly important! Smart woman. Erudite. Astonishing grasp of American politics and the English participation in using the fruits of slavery. Both the journal and her opinion pieces (lengthly letters) are insightful and brutally honest. She writes beautifully.
Among her insights are the understanding that only when it was beneficial to the majority white community was action taken on behalf of the enslaved persons, and then it was not enough.
Among her insights are the understanding that only when it was beneficial to the majority white community was action taken on behalf of the enslaved persons, and then it was not enough.
December 1, 2019
Riveting and enlightening. I highly recommend this journal to anyone at all interested in the American South and its history. Frances offers an insightful record of life as a plantation owner's wife on the Golden Isles of Georgia prior to the Civil War. Her indictment of the practice of slavery is well thought out and well expressed. I intend to seek further study of her journal.
July 8, 2020
I really recommend this book for it's first person relationship with the institution of slavery on St. Simon's. Fanny Kemble was a British abolitionist who married a northern slaveholder. He brought her to his plantation for a year, and she formed relationships with the slaves, asking them about their lives and writing down their answers.
December 11, 2017
good view of the life of a slaveholder from journal written by English wife who had abolitionist leanings. So grateful we don't have to stay married to morally abhorrent people anymore to get by. I am losing my ability to focus on historical texts like this and didn't finish.
October 12, 2019
Local history and a good reminder that the good old South wasn't so good during slavery. We often get a sanitized view of people just having to work hard. This book was instrumental to the abolitionist movement.
Want to read
November 24, 2025___________________________________
FROM BOOK: Il giardino contro il tempo. Alla ricerca di un paradiso comune (Olivia Laing)
FROM BOOK: Il giardino contro il tempo. Alla ricerca di un paradiso comune (Olivia Laing)
October 4, 2017
Because of my intense interest in first-person accounts of the past, I loved this book.
July 9, 2018
As a student of Roswell Georgia history, I found this amazing old book valuable in reading about early days before the Civil War in Darian, Ga on the plantation of Pierce Butler.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews