Dec 01, 2011 - Sale 2263

Sale 2263 - Lot 336

Price Realized: $ 2,040
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
BRITISH ADVENTURERS AMONG THE MISKITO INDIANS (NICARAGUA.) [Bell, George and James S.] Manuscript diary and commonplace book of two principals in a British colonization venture. [73] pages of manuscript entries plus 7 loose slips of paper. 12mo, original calf with paper covers, worn and mostly disbound; many pages detached but generally sound and legible. Includes the manuscript diary of George Bell, 4 to 25 May [1841] in 24 pages; the manuscript diary of James S. Bell, 30 November to 16 December [1846?] in 9 pages; 40 pages of original and copied poetry and prose, apparently in James S. Bell's hand; and 7 slips of loose paper, some addressed to or signed by James S. Bell. Nicaragua and elsewhere, 1835-56
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The southern Caribbean coast of Central America was the seat of colonial conflict. The long stretch of coast around the town of Bluefields was officially Spanish until Nicaragua achieved its independence in 1821. However, the British had a presence in the area for centuries. Finally, the Miskito Indians continued to claim sovereignty through the 19th century.
In 1841, the British saw an opportunity to seize control, using the Miskitos as a puppet government. George Bell formed the British Segovia Company to take possession of an existing land claim. He arrived with a small crew to receive the necessary signatures from the Miskito king. His diary of this expedition dates from May 1841, beginning with a detailed description of San Andrés Island off Nicaragua, then proceeding to the mainland, where he found two of the king's English-speaking representatives. The party then went on a convoluted search for the king, at one point stopping for the night in a Miskito village where they were led "with pitch pine torches . . . in a grotesque procession, wading up to our knees amidst the rain and lightning thro a swamp." Soon after, Capt. Willock of his party wanted to fight a duel with "my brother James & Mr. Cree for interfering to curb his personal violence on the previous evening." Finally, they reached the Miskito king on the 21st, quickly negotiated the appropriate signatures, and concluded on the 25th, when the diary ends. History shows that Bell and his party then proceeded to Bluefields to take control of their new colony, where they were soon arrested by the Nicaraguan authorities. Bell died that October, shortly after his release.
This diary was apparently left to Bell's brother James Stanislaus Bell, who filled many of the other pages with bits of poetry in his distinctively smaller hand, which he dated from various spots all over the globe from 1835 to 1856--Baltimore, London, Sevastopol, Florida, and Bluefields. He eventually settled in Bluefields as a successful merchant, and became known as a "literate gadfly" and "an independent political voice" (Naylor, page 171). Most notable among his writings is a nine-page diary of a trip into the Miskito interior. No year is given, but a perpetual calendar suggests 1846 as a possibility; Bell is known to have arrived in Nicaragua that November (Naylor, page 160). He describes hunting parties in pursuit of baboons and warrees (a type of Miskito peccary), and describes communal meals in a Miskito village: "Each wife has her fire & working to attend to, but alternately they appear to take the turn of cooking a mess for all when there is meat & serving a portion to each at his setting place (each has one) on a clean fresh leaf" (11 December). Also included is a clipped letter to the editor by "J.S.B." of Bluefields in which he disingenuously defends the sovereignty of the noble Miskitos against Spanish incursions.
This well-worn volume is a vitally important record of British efforts to extend their empire into the Central America. For more on this episode, see Naylor, Penny Ante Imperialism . . . a Case Study in British Informal Empire, pages 129-160.