Submitted by: Cat Edwards
Province Sao Paulo, Brazil
Nov 1, 1873
Dr. J. J. Crisp
Dear Son,
I have recieved but one letter from you since I came to Brazil and am anxious to hear
from you and your sister and family. After being broke up so completely after the war, I
left the United States to come to Brazil and try again and make something for my children,
but in that have been mistaken, only making a support. I find that an old man cannot do
what a young one can. I was 70 years old on the 19th of last April and am still a practicing
medicine & farming , but find I neither have the action or the strength to do much. My
principal crop has been cotton. The price for the last two years is down and has been so
low that I can scarcely make both ends. Although this is the most productive country I
have ever seen. It is dependent on the land and water to do all and man nothing. The
population of the country's art of Mexico. The Comarada answering for the Peon in
Mexico. The slaves here are about like they are in the United States. The government
authority, an imperial one, is as free as ever it was in the United States, but the
Portuguese, Spaniards, and Italians of which the country is composed, are effect Latin
Race, worn out by corruption and disease generated by the profiliging and debauchery of
the nation. This is I think the finest corn country I ever saw. I have seen corn here make
from 40 to 50 bushels per acre by going into the woods a cutting all the undergrowth as
high as 18 inches in diameter and letting it by four or five weeks, then set fire to it and
plant with a hoe and never go work it anymore until gathering time and now corn is worth
$1.50 per bushel. Sugar is the cheapest thing we buy. It is worth from 4 to 6 cents per lb.
Coffee is worth about 17 or 15 cents although the crops this year are overwhelming ones.
But the increase of cultivation does not keep pace with the consumption. The calculation
is from $1,000 to $1,200 per hand per annum and it takes 5 years for a tree to get in full
bearing and as sugar is an annual crop, there are more at it than coffee. Owing to my age
and unwilling to be away from my children, I sold out last year everything, but the man
finally backed out when it come time to closing up. If I meet a purchaser, I will still sell
and I can spend the remainder of my days among my children. Alexander is still living
near me and having lost his wife, he has two little children and thinks of sending them back
to his wife's brother and sister as they are writing all the time for him to do so.
Richard has been in the United States now 3 years, but I am looking for him back here. The last I
heard from him, he was gone to Kansas with a drove of beeves and on his return would
come out here. We have 70 or 80 American families in the neighborhood and surroundings of Santa Barbara and a good deal of dissification among them. Although we
have a good many members of the different churches, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist
and Baptist. You will regret to hear of the death of Col. A. T. Oliver who was killed in his
cotton field by one of his & two of his neighbors negroes, who was stealing of them. It
was on Sunday they found him late in the evening & sent for me immediately. I went up to
his house & they had not removed him from the place he was murdered. The laws are
very strict here and we had to send for the Coroner & held a jury over him and then we
moved him to his house and the next day buried him. He leaves his little son Shelton by his
first wife & two by his last wife. He was in a condition to do well, but was cut off in the
fullness of manhood. How is Elizabeth & her children succeeding. I never hear from
them. John is grown by this time & Lula must be nearly grown. I am anxious to come
back & see them and superintend their education as they will not have much left - That
war was ruinous. I cannot look on a Yankee with any kind of allowance & still think as a
people the ____ in the world - Your acquaintance, T. B. White & Joe Henry are living on
the coast and are harvesting Rosewood and not doing much good at anything. They have
swindled so much, both Americans & Brazilians, that nobody has any confidence in them
and they are dependent on their own labor to make a living. The old Colonel has a young
wife and child tacked onto him since he came here. As he lives some 6 or 7 hundred miles
from me, I rarely hear from either of them. Lucius has married some girl down there, but I
do not know who or what she is as he is as little account as they ever make them, lazy and
drunken and no education. The American Missionaries of the Southern Presbyterian
Church are building a large College in Campinas, but what will be the result I cannot say,
as the country is chiefly Catholic and to change that belief will take a long time as it is
intermarried with the Civil Government. Though absent from the land the finely educated Virginia Gentlemen and are much respected by the better class of Brazilians. I have this year planted about 70 acres in cotton. The general calculation is a bale to acre, but there
are so many casualties about it that I can make no positive calculation. We are troubled
here with the ant as in Texas. Some years the caterpillars come and injure the crop very
much. I do not know whether you know Mr. Perkins on the Brazos in Grimes Co., Texas
or not. He lives near me here. A very excellent gentleman. You must remember me
kindly to Elizabeth and her children and all our other relatives.
Affectionately, you father
John H. Crisp
P. S. - How many children have you. Kiss them and your wife for me and try and do as
well for them as I tried to do for you.
