A TRIP TO BRITISH HONDURAS, AND TO SAN PEDRO, REPUBLIC OF HONDURAS. BY CHARLES SWETT, OF WARREN COUNTY, MISS

New Orleans: [George Ellis], 1868. 8vo. [1-title], [1 blank], 125pp. Original printed wrappers, stitched, light wear to spine. Very Good.

Swett, an embittered Confederate, left his home at Warren County, Mississippi, to visit the tiny Central American nation of British Honduras in order to assess its fitness as a refuge for fellow Southerners impoverished by the War. He left his home on December 26, 1867, and returned in March 1868. After his steamy and difficult tour of Belize and other areas, he concluded that the climate and near-impossibility of making a living made emigration a terrible idea. He provides data on the country and on Spanish Honduras, which had received similar attention.
"The narrative of the experiences of a group of 'unreconstructed rebels' from Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana who decided to 'take a walk' into voluntary exile rather than submit to the indignities of Yankee rule and Carpet-bagging domination. In his introduction, Swett says: 'If despite our assertions to the contrary, our country should be brought to the humiliating fact of equality of races existing amongst us---when an inferior holds public position, and ever serves in the capacity of representative of the people, or when we are satisfied this will be the result of what is now transpiring, it will be well to surrender this land to our persecutors.' " [Eberstadt].
FIRST EDITION. Thompson 3203. Palau 325867. Smith, American Travellers Abroad S-212. 105 Eberstadt 288.