Lost and found at the American War Mirror 1879

Thomas J. NEVIN, Hobart Town Hall Keeper 1876-1880
WHITTINGTON's Panoramas of Dickens' life and work
BACHELDER's dioramas of the American Civil War
THOMPSON's dioramas of the American Civil War and Zulu War
Diorama of Tasmanian Aboriginal Group at campfire 1930s, medallion of 1976

1876-1880: Thomas J. Nevin, Keeper of the Hobart Town Hall
Professional photographer and government contractor Thomas J. Nevin (1842-1923) was appointed to the position of Hobart Town Hall Keeper in January 1876 over 24 applicants. He took up residence in the Keeper's apartment (top of diagram below) with wife Elizabeth Rachel (Day) Nevin (1847-1914) and the first two of their seven children - Mary Florence Elizabeth (aka May) Nevin (1872-1955) and Thomas James (aka Sonny) Nevin (1874-1948). Three more children were born at the Hobart Town Hall - Sydney John Nevin who died within months of birth (1876-1877), William John Nevin (1878-1927) and George Ernest Nevin (1880-1957). Their sixth child Mary Ann (aka Minnie) Nevin (1884-1974) and seventh, Albert Edward Nevin (1888-1955) were born after their father's dismissal for alleged inebriation from the position of Town Hall Keeper in December 1880. Family BDM documents, including the marriage licenses of his children Albert and Minnie and his own burial registration, consistently recorded Thomas J. Nevin's occupation as "Photographer" up to the time of his death in 1923.



Plan of Hobart Town Hall signed by the architect Henry Hunter. nd
Item Number: NS78/1/2
Start Date: 01 Jan 1860
Format: map/plan
Link: https://stors.tas.gov.au/NS78-1-2

Panoramas & dioramas in 19th century Tasmania
The Theatre Royal in Hobart, the Mechanics Institute in Launceston, and the Hobart Town Hall hosted the newest technological innovations in visual entertainment during the 1860s-1880s.

1863-1868: Bachelder's Grand Historic Mirror
John Bachelder brought dioramas of the American Civil War to Hobart, and W. H. Thompson showed dioramas of both the American Civil War and the Zulu Wars. These were a staple of popular entertainment during the 1870s-1880s. Newspaper advertisements attracted huge crowds with enticements of free gifts including papier-mâché tables, work boxes, picture frames, new clothing, watches and baked cakes.

John Badger Bachelder (1825-1894) was a portrait and landscape painter, lithographer and photographer, best known as the preeminent 19th-century historian of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. He was a dominant factor in the preservation and memorialization of the Gettysburg Battlefield in the latter part of the century.

Read more at Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Bachelder



Bachelder's grand historic mirror of the American war and the wonderful dioramas
Publication Information: Hobart : Mercury Steam Press, [1863].
Physical description: 1 print (poster) on silk : Black text on cream ; 450 X 170 mm.
Format: poster image (online)
Notes: "Tonight, Thursday, Aug 27 ... illustrating the great naval engagement between the ironclad monsters Merrimac & Monitor, and the terrific naval combat off the coast of France between Kearsage & Alabama ... funeral procession of the late President Lincoln in the city of Washington"
"Under the especial patronage of Colonel Gore Browne, C.B., and Mrs. Gore Browne, and suite".
Measurement including fringe: 510 X 225 mm.
Citation: Digitised item from: Tasmaniana Library, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office
Link: https://stors.tas.gov.au/AUTAS001126074780w800

NEWSPAPER REPORT: TRANSCRIPT

TOWN HALL.
BACHELDER'S DIORAMA
The Town Hall was again crowded last evening to witness Bachelder's Grand Historic Mirror of the American War. This complete and magnificent moving panorama cannot fail to instruct and amuse the beholder, the representations throughout are lifelike and beautifully painted. The exciting scenes and events in the memorable rebellion as they appear before the audience, call forth long and loud applause. Mr. Bachelder takes considerable pains to describe each scene as it is presented to View, which adds considerably to the interest of the picture, as also does the appropriate music arranged expressly for the exhibition. The concluding portion of the entertainment as upon former representations, was well received and loudly cheered by all present. We again recommend our readers to pay a visit to this first class exhibition, it must be seen to be appreciated. This evening is announced as a grand million night at prices to suit all classes, reserved seats 2s. body of the hall 1s. Children half prices to reserved seats.

Source: TOWN HALL. (1868, August 22). The Tasmanian Times (Hobart Town, Tas), p. 2.
Link: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article232862600

1871-1877: H. J. Whittington's Panoramas of Charles Dickens
Exhibited in Hobart and Launceston during the 1870s, these panoramas utilised innovative techniques illustrating scenes from Dickens' life and works to the accompaniment of live performances delivered by actors and musicians:



"Mrs. Gamp Propoges a Toast" by Phiz, June 1844
Steel-engraving 11.9 cm high by 10.5 cm wide, vignetted
Frontispiece for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit in the Gadshill Edition, Vol. 2. Chapter XLIX, facing page 563, 1844 edition.
Source: https://victorianweb.org/art/illustration/phiz/mc/37.html

NEWSPAPER REPORT: TRANSCRIPT

TWO HOURS WITH DICKENS.
An entertainment bearing the above title, being a, combination of music and Panoramic scenes, illustrative of the works of Dickens, will be opened in the Mechanics' Hall on Monday evening next. The agent of the company, Mr H. J. Whittington, arrived here from Hobart Town on Tuesday, and at once took steps to advertise the entertainment. Mr Whittington is both energetic and novel in his styles of advertising, his most original mode being to utilise the large mirrors of the principal hotels. Across the glass of these reflectors he writes, with a piece of common soap, the startling warning, " Look out for Charles Dickens !" The panorama has been painted in New Zealand by a well-known artist, Mr Massey, who has very ably depicted a number of beautiful scenes, including the following :—
A view of Gadshill Place, the favorite residence of Charles Dickens; Election of Beadle; Mr Pickwick on the Ice; Oliver Twist asking for more; the country manager rehearsing a combat; Quelp and Dick Swiveller; Condin and Snort; Sarah Gamp and Betsy Prig; Captain Cuttle sees a shadow on the wall; David Copperfield visits his aunt; Ham Pegoty and the wrecked ship; Micawber throws off his allegiance with Uriah Heep; rescue of Stephen Blackpool from the old shaft Little Dorrit's visit to her father in the Marshalsea prison; capture of prisoners on the Kentish Marshes; the Bird of Prey; the Opium Smokers; Poet's Corner, Westminister Abbey. Mr W. L. Skinner, one of the proprietor, lectures on the scenes, and vocal music is rendered by Messrs Skinner, Barrington, and Turner. We understand the company have been well patronised in Hobart Town, where the views were first exhibited. Each evening a number of valuable gifts are distributed, upwards of £90 worth having been given away in Hobart Town during last week. Some of those intended for distribution here are on view at Davies', Havana House, where tickets may be secured.

Source: TWO HOURS WITH DICKENS. (1877, May 11). Cornwall Advertiser (Launceston, Tas. : 1870 - 1877), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article232915636

1871: C. B. Charles' Panorama of the Franco-Prussian War
Originally from Melbourne, C. B. Charles was living in London when he commissioned a moving panorama of the Franco-Prussian War. He returned to Melbourne as the panorama's proprietor in mid January 1871. The first half of his program exhibited pictures of the Suez Canal and the Nile painted by Charles James after David [Daniel ?] Roberts.



NEWSPAPER REPORT: TRANSCRIPT

CHARLES'S PANORAMA - This really meritorious panorama, illustrative of Egyptian and African scones and of the recent Franco-Prussian War, was again exhibited yesterday evening to an appreciative audience, though one by no means so large as the merits of the entertainment should command. The various African views, the Suez Canal, the Nile, the great bazaar at Cairo, the Mosque of Sultan Haroun, the pyramids, the sphynx, Siout, Alexandria, the temple of Isis, Thebes, and the ruins of Karnac, the temple of Edfon are all well executed works of pictorial art, and both the colouring and perspective exhibited a fidelity to nature attainable only by an experienced artist. The war scenes were painted by Daniel Roberts, R. A. of St James's Theatre, London, and the scenes representing " The death of General Douay" and " The soldier's dream of home," by Mr Mason, R. A. , of the Drury Lane Theatre. These war scenes were taken from the original sketches by Gray, which were exhibited in the War Court of the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. Most of these scones have their merits enhanced by clever dioramic effects, and were the exhibition without anything else to commend it, these should in themselves attract crowded houses. The performances of Signor Luigi Ferrari's trained Brazilian monkeys are most remarkable, and occasioned reiterated laughter. Miss Florence Beresford s vocal efforts served to vary the evening's entertainment, and were most favourably received. The following songs were rendered with much felicity -"The silver shining moon," "Away, trumpets are sounding," " The Vivandiere," " The Rhine Watch," and " The Marseillaise " This afternoon and evening the programme will be repeated.

Source: Advertising (1871, July 8). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8868557



COVER: A satirical Panorama of the Franco-Prussian war. Illustrated by Percy Cruikshank, 1870.

The Franco-Prussian war panorama’s cover, printed in blue and red ink, shows an assembly of kings and leaders gathering to watch a bloody birds’ fight in a pit. The German double-headed eagle, in spiked helmet, is grabbing the head of the French rooster, bearing a Phrygian hat with a tricolour rosette. He has already vanquished the French imperial eagle. King Edward VII tells his neighbour, the American President Ulysses S. Grant: “Two heads are better than one”
Many large-scale painted panoramas of the Franco-Prussian war and the Siege of Paris (hundreds of meters long) were produced and circulated in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, France, Europe and the United States, from 1870 to the 1890s. Cruikshank’s Panorama of the Franco-Prussian war is only 12.5 cm high, though it does measure more than 3 meters and hardly fits on our large items Rare Books Reading room table! It folds down to a concertina book of 13 x 15 cm, a ‘pocket’ format which means it was probably intended for the personal use of a private collector, rather than for public display.

Source: Cambridge University Library

W. H. Thompson's Confederate Mirror

1876: "... an excellent piece of mechanism..."

NEWSPAPER REPORT: TRANSCRIPT

THOMPSON'S DIORAMA OF THE AMERICAN WAR.
Since the great civil war between the Northern and Southern States of America, and which resulted in the abolition of slavery throughout the dominions of the great republic, we have had in Hobart Town several dioramic exhibitions of the leading incidents of the fearful struggle ; but we remember none that was more largely patronised than was that of Thompson's Diorama of the battles which took place in the Southern States, presented last night for the first time at the Town Hall. The hall, in every part, was crowded to excess, and when the curtain unveiled the first picture, a bird's eye view of New Orleans, a favourable impression of the ability of the artist was at once created, only to be enhanced as the more thrilling incidents of the war were unfolded. The scene representing the march of General Stewart's body of irregular cavalry on Richmond to oppose General McLellan's well-known attack upon that city at the head of a Federal detachment, afforded a graphic idea of the smartness of the cavalry, which the lecturer (Mr. Thompson, who, by the way, discharged his duties very efficiently), said had been described by the English press as " the finest body of regular cavalry in the world." Another equally effective picture was that representing the engagement of the 69th New York regiment under General Thomas Francis Meagher, who, after a gallant resistance, retreated before Pittsburg, with a loss of 1,400 out of 1,000 men. The battle between the famous Confederate cruiser the Alabama, and the Hattrass, off Galveston, was more than a picture, it was an excellent piece of mechanism, and the way in which the whole affair was worked proved highly interesting, particularly to the junior portion of the audience'. The funeral procession of the great southern commander General Stonewall Jackson, whose death sealed the fate of the Confederate army, is a very elaborate piece of mechanism, the movements of the soldiery forming the cortege being regulated with wonderful precision, and drawing forth warm expressions of approval. In fact, the whole diorama proved a success; and though the music in some respects was not up to the mark, still, it added much to the enjoyment of the evening. At the close of the diorama Mr. Thompson proceeded to present the prices to the holders of tickets, in accordance with the announcements in the show-bills. These consisted of some really valuable and, at the same time, useful articles, including tea and coffee service (4 pieces), two presentation cups, two sovereigns, large liqueur frames, two cruet stands, a couple of opera glasses, and an infinity of other things which we need not describe. One singular circumstance in connection with the prizes was that the great bulk of them went to the shilling part of the hall, thus doing away with any suspicion of favouritism. The exhibition will be on view again to-night.

Source: The Mercury Tue 26 Sep 1876 Page 2 THOMPSON'S DIORAMA OF THE AMERICAN WAR
Link: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/8948153

1879: Crowded Houses !!!
W. R. Thompson, later known as "Zulu" Thompson, was back at the Hobart Town Hall in February 1879 to present his Confederate Mirror of the American War. Advertisements in the Mercury ran throughout February 1879. The large crowds presented logistical challenges to the organizers, not least to Town Hall keeper Thomas J. Nevin:



Source: THE MERCURY. (1879, February 14). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8973703

1879: Mr. Nevin and the lost portmonnaie
The week ending February 14th, 1879, was an eventful one for Thomas J. Nevin. As Town Hall keeper he was contending with huge crowds attending performances of Thompson's Diorama of the American War. An incident involving the loss of a purse and its restoration to its rightful owners was the result of Thomas Nevin's due diligence.



Source: THE MERCURY. (1879, February 14). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8973703

NEWSPAPER REPORT: TRANSCRIPT

LOST AND FOUND. - A resident of Cambridge and his wife who had come to town for the holidays, visited Mr. Thompson's Diorama at the Town Hall on Wednesday evening, when the good lady had the unpleasantness of dropping in the hall her portmonnaie containing money to the amount of £9 or £10. Next morning the parties applied to Mr. Nevin hall-keeper at the Municipal Buildings about the loss, and search was made through the Assembly Room for the property without avail. Mr. Nevin advised that information should be given to the police, and that the loss should be advertised in the newspapers with the offer of a reward. The parties acted accordingly, and an advertisement was left at The Mercury office promising a reward of two pounds for the restoration of the treasure. Not long afterwards Mr. John Johnston, grocer, residing in Elizabeth-street, called at The Mercury office to know if enquiries had been made for a lost portmonnaie, saying that his little daughter had picked up one the previous night in the Town Hall containing money, and he (Mr. Johnston) had tried all he could to find an owner. He was directed to Mr. Nevin, who accompanied Mr. and Miss Johnston to the house in Liverpool-street where the Cambridge people were temporarily staying, and the lost property was restored to the owners, who were on the point of returning to Cambridge without money. In the exuberance of their joy they wished to give the promised reward of £2, which Mr. Johnston declined to take, but he allowed his daughter to accept ten shillings for the purchase of a memento of the lucky find, and as encouragement to young people to respect the axiom "Honesty is the best policy."

NEWSPAPER REPORT: TRANSCRIPT

THE WAR MIRROR - The largest audience which has witnessed the American War Mirror since its exhibition at the Town Hall was present last night. The Hall was literally packed, many persons standing on both the back and front seats, while numbers had to be refused admission. The views of war which graphically depict its notable events, assisted by stage effects and suitable music, as usual formed a most useful and impressive synopsis of the bloody internecine struggle. Lieutenant Herman's humorous ventriloquial impersonations furnished an agreeable relief from the darker illustrations of the devastating progress of the war. His Irish character figures carried on the funny dialogue in a very laughable and life-like manner. The distribution of a gift to each visitor took place as usual. A grand Matinee is announced for Saturday, when every child will receive a present.

Source: THE MERCURY. (1879, February 14). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.), p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8973703

Addenda 1: mechanical marvels

1881: Thompson’s Diorama of the Zulu War at Adelaide, South Australia



Source: The Zulu War: Zulu warriors method of advancing to the attack
Link: https://iln.org.uk/iln_years/year/1879.htm

NEWSPAPER REPORT: TRANSCRIPT

Mr W.H. Thompson’s "Colossal Mirror of the Zulu War in South Africa" was shown at Garner’s Theatre (formerly White’s Rooms) in King William Street, Adelaide, in May 1881. The Advertiser reported: ‘The diorama consists of many well-executed pictures representing scenes that occurred during the bloody war in South Africa in 1879, during the course of which the brave Prince Imperial fell victim to the murderous assegais of the Zulu warriors.’ The views were said to faithfully represent the different scenes, and after each view was wound on to the stage it was explained by Mr Thompson. The scenes were said to occupy 30,000 (square) feet of canvas.

One part of the programme was advertised as ‘The mechanical marvel showing 8,000 figures on the march,’ and a quotation from the Sydney Daily Telegraph included in the advertisement said, ‘The mechanical portion of the diorama is constructed with marvellous cunning, and far excels anything of the kind shown in this city.’ The ‘8,000 figures’ were miniature wooden representations of soldiers en route to the battlefield. However, the Advertiser reported a small hitch in the operation of the mechanical marvel. ‘The figures are worked by persons underneath the stage, and owing to some trifling imperfection in the arrangements one or two regiments stuck fast and refused to proceed on the warpath. One troop of marines was especially obstinate and, to the great delight of the "gods," instead of advancing the insubordinate soldiers fell down flat, and only moved on after a little gentle persuasion had been brought to bear on them by a human head and arm that appeared from the depths beneath and administered the necessary progressive push.’

Another problem arose when it was time to distribute the ‘gold watch, silver watch, and 100 other beautiful gifts,’ which were to be given away ‘at the discretion of the proprietor,’ not by lucky numbers marked on a programme, which was the usual practice at most entertainments of that kind. When Mr Thompson began his haphazard distribution of gifts the audience became very noisy and disorderly. ‘Persons located in the back seats of the pit and gallery crushed forward in order to bring themselves into prominence, and so secure one of the gifts. The people in the front seats were considerably inconvenienced, and a by no means creditable scene ensued. The rush from behind, the general disorder, the whooping and catcalls being the reverse of enjoyable to orderly disposed persons.’

Advertisements in the Adelaide papers said the paintings were the work of the eminent London artists Telbin, Walter Hann, Ballard, Rogers, Gordon and Harford, and that the diorama had been seen by over 200,000 persons in the past 6 months. The description of incidents portrayed on the canvas were described in advertisements as thrilling, and contained some stirring patriotic statements...

‘The Battle of Isandula, the last order given was -- Fix bayonets, Men, and die like English Soldiers; and so they did.’
‘The Buffalo River - Saving the Colours. They lost their lives, but they saved the colours.’

Source: https://noye.agsa.sa.gov.au/Lantern/Lan_pano.htm

1898-1906: the moving panorama



Above: Diagram showing a typical arrangement for unrolling the canvas of a moving panorama. Dotted lines show the position of the framework that concealed the mechanism. The picture represents the first scene of the Burke and Wills panorama.

EXCERPT

Although not photographic in nature, the 19th century moving panorama was a form of entertainment that was similar in some respects to the magic lantern show, and in many newspaper reports it is difficult to know whether the reporter was describing a moving panorama painted on a canvas roll or a series of lantern slides projected on a canvas sheet.

The moving panorama, or diorama, consisted of a series of paintings on canvas which were then joined together to form one very long canvas sheet that was wound onto a vertical roller. From this roller the canvas was moved across the stage and wound up on a similar roller on the other side. The canvas could be illuminated from behind, from the front, or by a combination of both, using oil or gas lamps.

Above: Diagram showing a typical arrangement for unrolling the canvas of a moving panorama. Dotted lines show the position of the framework that concealed the mechanism. The picture represents the first scene of the Burke and Wills panorama.

Some panoramas were very large. Charles’s panorama (1871) occupied 10,000 square feet of canvas, and each painting was 17 feet by 8 feet. Mankiewicz’s Pantascope used paintings that were 18 feet wide by 9 feet high, and Riseley and Humphrey’s Mirror of England had 120 paintings that were 25 feet long by 14 feet high, making a canvas that was 3,000 feet long and took two hours to unroll.

Source: The R.J. Noye Collection of Photography 1998
Art Gallery of South Australia
Link: https://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/noye/Lantern/Lan_pano.htm

Addenda 2: diorama of Aboriginal group
The diorama of a Tasmanian Aboriginal group in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery was modelled by E. J. Dicks and presented to the museum by John Arnold in 1930. It was photographed by K. Wilby.

In January 1931, E.J. Dicks, a sculptor hailing from Melbourne, was hard at work in a studio in Tasmania’s capital city of Hobart. The task-at-hand for Mr. Dicks was to build representations of (some would say surrogates for) the “Lost Tasmanian Race.” The Hobart Mercury of January 17, 1931, reports that Mr. Dicks [had] already completed the man for the group, and is occupied with the female figure. It is a strange commentary on life to see the modeler at work with his clay, and beside him the skeleton of the last of the true Tasmanian aborigines, Truganini, while at odd intervals skulls peep out here and there, all contributing a moiety of past life to give reality to a present figment. (The Hobart Mercury, January 17, 1931: 6) Made possible by a gift of £500, the largest given to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (hereafter referred to as TMAG) to that point, the group exhibit1 sought to give Hobartians a glimpse into the “life and habits of a vanished people” (ibid.). Void of clothing and with jet-black skin, these three figures, designed to represent a natural familial unit, were a visual depiction of a people who had come to represent the lowest and most primitive culture2 ever documented (see fig. 1). In this working paper I argue that the 1931 group exhibit at TMAG sought to enact, consecrate, and consolidate one form of Tasmanian Aboriginality by literally building surrogate representations of the “Lost Tasmanian Race” (who one author poetically, and androcentrically, describes as the “Men Who Vanished” [Dunbabin 1935]).

Source: Building Bodies in the Australian Periphery: The Enactment of Aboriginality in Tasmania
Christopher Berk, University of Michigan 2012
UM Working Papers in Museum Studies, Number 9 (2012)
Link: https://ummsp.rackham.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Berk_Final.pdf

1930: the TMAG diorama



Photograph - Postcard - Diorama of Tasmanian Aboriginals on the bank of the River Derwent modelled by E J Dicks.
Item Number: LPIC147/1/5
Start Date:01 Jan 1930
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania



Description: Photograph - Hobart Museum, "Mother and child", from Diorama
Item Number:AB713/1/1763
Start Date:01 Jan 1953
End Date:31 Dec 1953
Source: Archives Office of Tasmania
Link: https://stors.tas.gov.au/AB713-1-1763

1976: the Powerhouse Medallion of Diorama



Source: Powerhouse Museum, Sydney NSW
https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/422272

The Truganini medallion was commissioned by the Tasmanian Numismatic Society in 1976, and was struck by Pobjoy Mint Ltd., U.K. in both bronze (225 examples) and sterling silver (100 examples). A commemorative brochure states that it was "the [society's] most ambitious undertaking to date and the third issue struck for the Tasmanian Numismatic Society. A high medallic relief and polished field have been employed for the first time." The depiction of Truganini on the obverse was taken from a line engraving, copied from a photograph by C.A. Woolley in 1866. The camp scene on the reverse was taken from a diorama of a Tasmanian Aboriginal group in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, photographed by K. Wilby; the diorama itself was modelled by E.J. Dicks and presented to the museum by John Arnold in 1930.

Source: Powerhouse Museum, Sydney NSW
https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/422272

Addenda 3: External References

ART WORKS
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG)
19th century colonial watercolours and drawings collection
https://www.tmag.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/124313/PRINT_Panoramic_views_room_brochure.pdf

Commemorative Medallions
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney NSW
https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/422272

BOOKS
Colligan, Mimi (2002) Canvas documentaries : panoramic entertainments in nineteenth-century Australia and New Zealand . Carlton South, Vic. : Melbourne University Press.
Panoramas, pages 73-74-75.

ARTICLES
"Building Bodies in the Australian Periphery: The Enactment of Aboriginality in Tasmania"
Christopher Berk, University of Michigan 2012
UM Working Papers in Museum Studies, Number 9 (2012)
https://ummsp.rackham.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Berk_Final.pdf

ONLINE
The R.J. Noye Collection of Photography 1998
Art Gallery of South Australia
https://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/noye/Lantern/Lan_pano.htm

Archives Office of Tasmania
Diorama of Tasmanian Aboriginals on the bank of the River Derwent modelled by E J Dicks.
Photograph and postcard
https://stors.tas.gov.au/AB713-1-1763

Timespanner (NZ)
https://timespanner.blogspot.com/2011/02/william-henry-zulu-thompson-1841-1887.html



Source: Brown University’s John Hay Library received an enormous gift: a 273-foot-long 19th century panoramic painting depicting the dashing exploits of Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Brown's University staff and an outside contractor photograph the painting 6 feet at a time.
Link: https://aesthetic.gregcookland.com/2007/12/garibaldi-panorama-at-brown.html

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"HOPE": John Nevin's poem on slavery 1863 and the U.S. Proclamation of Emancipation

Family of John NEVIN at Grey Abbey, Ireland 1820s-1850s
Original poetry by John NEVIN written in Tasmania 1860s-1880s
The U.S. Emancipation Proclamation 1863-1866

John Nevin, parish clerk

"Yes, my brother, many did say you made a foolish step but they do not say so now."

Letter from Nevin family, Grey Abbey, Ireland, to John Nevin, Hobart, Tasmania, May 1855.

John Nevin (1808-1887) was born at Grey Abbey, County Down, Ireland to Rebecca (1778-1869) and William Nevin (1770-1824). They lived on the Montgomery estate and were buried in the Greyabbey Church of Ireland graveyard.  William Nevin was the parish clerk for 44 years. Had John Nevin stayed in Ireland, he would have inherited the office of parish clerk from his father. Instead, on arrival at Hobart, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in July 1852 with his wife Mary Ann (Dickson) Nevin and their four children under 12 years old - Thomas James, Rebecca Jane, Mary Anne and William John - he settled his family on land administered by the Trustees of the Wesleyan Church at Kangaroo Valley (now Lenah Valley) near Hobart. The house he built there for his family was celebrated in his poem "My Cottage in the Wilderness" (1868). The one acre site included a small Wesleyan Chapel and schoolhouse.

John Nevin continued the traditions of parish clerk in Tasmania by administering pastoral care as a teacher of  literacy to adult males, and penning verse and epitaphs for the deceased. He wrote at least three laments, and probably more, which he published in the Tasmanian press as "Original Poetry" or as pamphlets.

In these he lamented: -

• the death of his comrade-in-arms in the Royal Scots, James William Chisholm (1863)
• the death of his own daughter Rebecca Jane Nevin (1866), and
• the death of his fellow Wesleyan, lay preacher William Genge (1881).

Along with Inch Abbey, Greyabbey is the best example of Anglo-Norman Cistercian architecture in Ulster and was the daughter house of Holm Cultram (Cumbria). It was founded in 1193 by Affreca, wife of John de Courcy, the Anglo-Norman invader of East Ulster. Poor and decayed in the late Middle Ages, the abbey was dissolved in 1541 but in the early 17th century was granted to Sir Hugh Montgomery and the nave was refurbished for parish worship until the late 18th century. The remains, in the beautiful parkland setting of the nearby grand house of Rosemount, consist of the church with cloister and surrounding buildings to the south.

Source: Official tourism website for Northern Ireland
Link: https://discovernorthernireland.com/things-to-do/grey-abbey-p675361

John Nevin and war
This medal commemorating the fall of Sebastopol, 1855 was passed down from John Nevin to Thomas and Elizabeth Rachel Nevin, and is currently held by descent in the © KLW NFC Private Collection.





Photos © KLW NFC 2009 ARR.
Medallion and photos © KLW NFC Imprint & Private Collection 2009 ARR.

The same medallion is held in the following national collections:

Royal Museums Greenwich, London, (UK)
Link: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-40318
Description:

Medal commemorating the fall of Sebastopol, 1855
Medal commemorating the fall of Sebastopol, 1855. Obverse: Naval trophy of flags of the victors, behind this are the scales of justice, laurel wreath and rays; in front a plaque of a ship sinking in front of a town. In exergue: a snake cut in two among grasses. Legend: 'FALL OF SEBASTOPOL SEP 18th 1855'. Exergue. 'SINOPE HANGO'. Reverse: Laurel wreath surround, bound with a ribbon bearing the name of the allies - 'ENGLAND' 'SARDINIA' 'FRANCE' 'TURKEY'. Inscription: 'THE ALLIES GIVE PEACE TO EUROPE MARCH 30TH 1856.'

National Army Museum, London (UK)
Link: https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1963-07-37-1
Description:

Medal commemorating the Fall of Sebastopol and the Treaty of Paris, 1856
This commemorative medal, made of white metal, bears on the obverse the inscription: 'The Allies give peace to Europe March 30th 1856', within a circular laurel wreath bearing the names of the allied countries, England, Sardinia, Turkey and France. The reverse depicts a view of Sevastopol, superimposed upon a trophy of flags, above which is a pair of scales. Below is depicted a snake cut in two, with the words: 'Sinope' and 'Hango', which allude to naval engagements during the Crimean War (1854-1856).

Sinope was a sea port in northern Turkey and on 30 November 1853 a fleet of Russian battleships annihilated a force of Ottoman Empire frigates there. It is often considered to be the last great battle of the epoch of sailing and the first battle of the Crimean War. At Hango on 5 June 1855, a boat conveying ashore the crews of captured Finnish ships was fired on by the Russians with nearly every man being killed.

NAM Accession Number
NAM. 1963-07-37-1
Acknowledgement
Donated by Major F G B Wetherall.

SERVICE in the WEST INDIES, 1820s-30s
John Nevin witnessed slavery at close quarters in the 1820s during his service with the Royal Scots in the West Indies as the campaign for the abolition of slavery led by William Wilberforce gathered momentum in England. John Nevin began service on 7 October 1825, and embarked at Newry in Ireland in October 1826, disembarking at Barbados and proceeding to St. Lucia. By 1832, he had served on Barbados, Trinidad, and St. Lucia. His service in Canada - see this article - was rewarded with a Good Conduct Badge, conferred on 28th February 1837.



Source:https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C8708867



NOTES from original documents:

Served West Indies from Regiment 1st Foot Private 7 Oct 1825 to 6 Oct 1826 underage
ditto 7 Oct 1826 to 31 May 1841 Amount of service 14 years 237 days

Served West Indies from 30 Nov 1827 to 18 Jan 1836
In Canada from 16 June 1838 to discharge at Chatham ex Horse Guards on medical grounds 1841

Service Record for John Nevin for the years 1825-1841 (12 images, served in First, or Royal Regiment of Foot.
Source: Find My Past for UK Archives

IRELAND and the CRIMEA, 1855
From the perspective of John Nevin's family in Ireland, they were ever thankful that their only brother with service in battle at the Canadian Rebellion of 1839, had returned home to Ireland and migrated to the Antipodes rather than serve in war again. One of his four sisters still living at Grey Abbey informed him in a letter dated May 1855, of the consequences of war in the Crimea causing soldiers' wives, widows and children of the parish to go hungry and without warm clothing. Her contribution was knitting two comforters:

May God increase your store and do not be extravagant only think what our poor soldiers are suffering at the Crimea before Sebastopol cold hunger and nakedness the people here with Mr Montgomery at there back begging for the widows and orphans not a house Escaping there ... no matter how poor it is ... something was expected and something was given Ladys and Gentlemen Children and Servants all that could knit any get all knitting anything and .... thing they thought useful I knit 2 comforters so some unknown shall wear my work I got in one of your letters 2 beautiful sprigs of some kind of heath thank you kindly for it but how sorry I am that I cannot write a better Letter to you I am very willing but fault is in my head not in my heart now without I get poor mother to say me one word she just begins to weep when I ask her ...

This letter addressed to John NEVIN (1808-1887) is held in a Tasmanian Archives research file in his son's name at the Archives Office of Tasmania.
Name: Nevin, Thomas
Record Type: Tasmanian Archives research file
Record ID: NAME_INDEXES:1807228
https://stors.tas.gov.au/NI/1807228

Across the top of the letter she wrote - "3 years without my Brother" - in pencil, underlined. Two siblings from this family of seven children born to Rebecca and William Nevin migrated to Tasmania: their only brother John Nevin as a pensioner guard on the Fairlie (1852), and their married sister Eliza (Nevin) Hurst, known to the family as "Betty" on board the Flora McDonald (1855), together with their respective children. As Eliza Hurst was a widow before leaving for Tasmania, it appears from this letter that she was living with John Nevin and his family soon after her arrival with her son and servant at the house he built at Kangaroo Valley (now Lenah Valley, Hobart) in 1854 on property administered by the Trustees of the Wesleyan Church.

John Nevin's poem "Hope" 1863
John Nevin published his poem in five stanzas on the injustice of slavery, titled "Hope" in the Weekly Times, Hobart, Tasmania, 12th September 1863, a few months after Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, issued 1st January 1863:



Source: Original Poetry, John Nevin, Kangaroo Valley. HOPE. (1863, September 12). The Weekly Times, p. 3.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article233621295

TRANSCRIPT

Original Poetry

HOPE.

Hope, bright ray of heavenly birth,
To toiling mortals given,
To cheer the fainting sons of Earth,
And upwards point to heaven :
It soothes, it checks the rising sigh ;
No creature shares beside,
To man alone the boon is nigh ;
To friends is still denied.

Go ask the fettered galley-slave,
What cheers his manly mind.
To tug and toil through wind and wave,
Yet seems to be resign'd :
He'll tell thee there is still a ray
Of sacred hope, impress'd
(As on he drags from day to day)
Within that aching breast.

Ask him who ploughs the treacherous main,
When wave on wave is hurl'd,
And nought but fearful terrors reign
Upon the watery world;
What nerves his arm amid the gale,
Tho' death his in the blast;
He'll tell thee, he yet hopes to hail
His native home at last.

But what must cheer the Infidel ?
Oh ! where is then his hope ?
Go ask him, but he cannot tell,
What bears his spirits up.
When the pale horse to him appears,
With ghastly rider on ;
To him the awful summons bears,
His earthly race is run.

Then ask the christian where is his ;
He'll point thee to the skies ;
He looks by faith to future bliss,
To which he hopes to rise.
Hope brightens as he nears the tomb,
It whispers soft and sweet;
He looks and longs to be at home,
Where parted friends he'll meet.

J. NEVIN.
Kangaroo Valley.

Source: HOPE. (1863, September 12). The Weekly Times (Hobart Town, Tas. : 1863), p. 3.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article233621295

The Text:
This poem is written in five stanzas. Each stanza has two quatrains, the first separated by a colon, or semi-colon or full-stop from the second. The last word of each line within each quatrain alternates the sounds in the rhyming pattern ABAB; CDCD, eg. in the second stanza, A (slave) B (mind) A (wave) B (resign'd); C (ray) D (impress'd) C (day) D (breast).

John Nevin chose lexis with simple one and two syllable words to compose a rhythm - e.g. da DE da DE da DE da DE (trochaic tetrameter) - that stresses the second syllable in every two syllables per foot, with eight syllables per metre in the first line of the quatrain, and six in the second line of the quatrain - e.g. in the last stanza. The few exceptions are three syllables in the words "heavenly", "treacherous" and "Infidel". His choice of words at the end of line that rhyme - ABAB; CDCD in each stanza - for the most part are clean. Some are "imperfect" or assonant and do not quite rhyme - e.g. "tomb" and "home" in the last stanza, but those differences may not necessarily matter in the dialect spoken by the reader.

The Tenor:
John Nevin was an Irish Wesleyan, a teacher and above all, an optimist. The first stanza of his poem reflects contemporary beliefs in a hierarchy of life on earth, where human beings ranked superior to animals in all capacities of feeling and thought. His assertion and assumption is that "hope" is known only by humans - by "man", not by "creatures." The "friends denied" - who are denied this capacity for hope in the last line of the first stanza must therefore refer to animals - perhaps literally, perhaps not.

The second and third stanzas are devoted to the fear, hardship and injustice of the galley slave far from his native home. His faith is "sacred hope", equal to the "christians" of the last stanza, and ranked above the disbelievers who are without hope in the third stanza. John Nevin poses this as a proposition that is both unreal and yet certain, resolved through the potential of "Hope". These modalities of  the subjunctive mood - as in "if you were to ask him this you will hear him tell you that x=y"  - signal obligation, prediction, probablity, certainty, and potentiality which he deploys repetitively:  the imperative - he tells his addressee "Go ask" each of the three participants - the slave,  the Infidel, and the christian - and the prediction - "he'll tell thee/point thee" - to the answer, "Hope" made concrete through personification: it  "whispers soft and sweet". 

The "Infidel" of the fourth stanza - the metonymic entity signalled by the capital "I" though otherwise not defined by whatever failings John Nevin has in mind - will experience death without hope for future revelation, best understood by his readers through the only metaphor in this poem - the pale horse ridden by the figure of death of apocalypse literature.

The final stanza strongly affirms the christian (not capitalised) belief in an after-life as the home where departed friends await, a state of "future bliss". The christian message is all about optimism: finding and keeping faith in a better future improves one's health, it uplifts one's mood.

The Context:
John Nevin was still a teenager when he was attested into the Royal Scots First of Foot Regiment at Newtonards, the city depot close to his birth place at Grey Abbey, County Down, Ireland. His deployment was to the British West Indies from 1826 to 1835 during the campaign for the abolition of slavery led by William Wilberforce in England. With comrade-in-arms, James William Chisholm, Armorer in the Royal Regiment, he served in the West Indies and at the Canadian Rebellion of 1839. The Slavery Abolition Act came into law on 1st August 1834 when slavery was ostensibly abolished throughout British possessions abroad.

Published in August 1863 just a month prior his poem "Hope", these lines from John Nevin's poem titled "WRITTEN on the much-lamented death of the late JAMES WILLIAM CHISHOLM, of Hobart Town, a native of Edinburgh, aged 61 years" (Weekly Times, 29 August, 1863, p.6), refer to Chisholm's return to the West Indies where by then, there was the  "emancipated slave,"  a sharply contradictory oxymoron. 

Again he cross’d the Atlantic’s wave,
To sultry Indies’ feverish soil.
Where the emancipated slave
Beneath the lash no longer toil.

Read more about this poem by John Nevin in this article here.



Thomas J. Nevin's portraits of his parents Mary Ann (Dickson) Nevin and John Nevin ca. 1872
Copyright ⓒ KLW NFC Imprint & Private Collection 2007

Manstealing: slavery in the Tasmanian press 1863
Lengthy articles on slavery appeared regularly in the Tasmanian press during 1863. This report on the cajoling, capture and killing of men from the South Pacific Islands of Tahiti, Rapa (French Polynesia), Raratonga and Mangaia (Cook Islands) would pose concern for whaling interests working out of Hobart's harbour. Mrs Phyllis Seal, for example, proprietess of the brig Grecian which was a former slaver and six-gun man-of-war that joined a whaling expedition in 1861, had to deal with the mutiny inspired by its captain Thomas John McGrath. A short time out near the Chatham Islands, he proposed to the crew -

... that they should take the vessel and keep her for themselves, and go on a slaving expedition amongst the South Sea Islands, as he said, that would pay them much better than whaling, and they could dispose of the living freight on the Brazilian coast....

See Addenda 3 below for the full report:(Mercury 3 December 1863, page 2).



Shipping pioneer Phyllis Seal, (1807-1877) wife of Charles Seal, who managed the operations of their fleet of whaling ships and oil sales on his sudden death in 1852.

Maritime Museum of Tasmania (b & w copy, tinted)
Photographer: Thomas Nevin, of the firm Nevin & Smith, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart Tasmania, 1866

This photograph of a bemused Phyllis Seal wearing a fabulous taffeta dress threaded in silver was taken by Thomas J. Nevin at his studio, 140 Elizabeth St. Hobart while in partnership with photographer Robert Smith (1866-1868) operating as the firm Nevin & Smith.

Taking islanders into slavery to work on plantations was called "blackbirding" in Australia. The first article (below) published in April 1863 reported atrocities committed on the islanders from Rapa and how they turned the tables on their captors to seize the brig Cora, taking it back to Papeete:



Extract - TAHITI. (1863, April 23). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 3.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8817170

TRANSCRIPT

TAHITI
PIRACY AND MANSTEALING: FRIGHTFUL ATROCITIES
(From the Messager de Tahiti, Feb. 28.)
It would appear upon it that an expedition for manstealing has lately been fitted out from the port of Callao, Peru, ostensibly for the purpose of colonization, virtually for the purposes of slavery. Of this fleet, one brig and one schooner are now in Papeiti Harbour, one captured by the French steamer Latouche Treville, and the other by the natives of Rapa; and a barque which innocently walked into the net by coming in for water. So much of these reports,&c, as are necessary to give some idea of the atrocities that have been enacted are here translated.
The Imperial Commissioner commanding in Society Islands and their dependencies, considers that the greater publicity ought to be given to the intelligence that comes to him from all quarters relative to certain hitherto unheard-of events for which no parallel has been found since the repression and dispersion of the Mediterranean corsaires. It is in consequence of the orders of the commissioner that the following documents are published:
[The documents which follow contain the reports of statements and depositions made by various persons persons of a most extraordinary character for which we cannot find space in our present issue. The nature of the infamous transactions now revealed will be learnt from the subjoined brief official report.]
Report on an enquiry made before the Court of the Procureur Imperial of the Tribunals of the Protectorate of the Society Islands, on the subject of the motives that induced the natives of the Isle of Rapa to seize the Peruvian brig Cora, and conduct her to Papeete.
Papeite, Feb. 21.
" To the Chief of the Judicial Service,
"Sirs - I have concluded the enquiry relative to the Peruvian brig Cora, and I have the honor to report as follows. This enquiry has led to the discovery of the following facts. The Cora sailed from Callao on the 4th December, 1862, with the object of recruiting colonists in Oceanica. Arrived at Easter Island on December 19th. She there met seven other ships of the same nation, all bound upon the same cruise. The captains of these vessels fearing that they would not be able to obtain a sufficient number of natives by persuasion, determined to carry them off by three and on the 23rd December a band of twentyfour of those ruffians, amongst whom were seven or eight men of the Cora, landed armed, under the command of the captain of the Rosa Carmen. The greater part of them concealed themselves in the vicinity, whilst several of those left behind endeavored to attract the natives by showing them articles calculated to excite their cupidity. When the natives had assembled to the number of about 500, the chief of the pirates gave the concerted signal, which was a pistol-shot. To this signal the men replied by a general discharge, and about ten Indians fell, never to rise again. The others, frightened, tried to fly in every direction, some throwing themselves into the sea, others scaling the rocks ; but about 200 were seized, and carefully secured. One witness assured the Court that the Captain of the Cora, Aquire, having discovered two Indians endeavoring to conceal themselves in a crevice of the rocks, and not being able to induce them to come out to him, had the atrocious cruelty to deliberately kill them both. The two hundred Indians carried off were shared between the different vessels, which set sail a few days afterwards. Whilst other atrocities that this inquiry has brought to light were being committed on board the other vessels, the Cora repaired to Rapa, in the hope of committing new acts of plunder and piracy. But the natives of this island took possession in time of the ship and crew, and forwarded them under careful watch to Tahiti. Thus French justice has put her hand upon a band of malefactors of the worst kind, who have violated every right of humanity and nationality, and who cannot fail to meet the just chastisement of their misdeeds.
SAVIGERIE

The above account was published in the Mercury on 23 April 1863. Four months later, this response (below) concerning the Peruvian slavers came from a missionary stationed at Mangaia (Mercury,17 August 1863, page 3).



TRANSCRIPT

PERUVIAN SLAVERS.
Some additional news of the Peruvian pirates is furnished by a letter from one of the missionaries at Mangaia, to his brother, Mr. Gill, of Malmesbury, Victoria. The Rev. Mr. Gill thus describes what took place on his return to Mangaia, after a short absence :-
"We were greatly distressed at finding that the King's favorite son and intended successor and four others, had been stolen away into slavery of the worst kind. Three Callao [Peru] slavers have been here this year, but two of them got nobody here.  But we know that other islands have been depopulated. From the Penrhyn [Cook Islands] upwards of 250 have been carried off and sold in Peru at £20 per head, and yet, as far as I know, no British man-of-war is cruising after these nefarious wretches. Five native evangelists have been trapped, and have doubtless been sold into slavery. Two of the five teachers are natives of Mangaia, and have been laboring with success on a neighboring island for several years. The other three are natives of Raratonga. My blood boils when I think of these things. Within twenty yards of the room where I write lives a pious woman, the mother of a large family. Alas ! for her husband; for he was one of the five stolen away. ' I trust that the British Government will insist upon the restoration of the captives to their respective homes. As we voyaged in the John Williams [missionary ship wrecked Cook Islands May 1864] we traced out upwards of 500 who have been thus carried away into, hopeless captivity. How many hundreds more have been taken away from other islands, it is of course hard to conjecture. And is all this to be allowed by England? I have written to England on the subject, also to H.B.M.'s Consul at Tahiti."

PERUVIAN SLAVERS. (1863, August 17). The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), p. 3.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8819995

The U.S. Emancipation Proclamation 1863-1866

Thomas Nast’s "(?) Slavery is Dead (?)" appeared in the January 12, 1867, edition of Harper’s Weekly. Created five years after the Emancipation Proclamation, a year and two months after the ratification of the 13th Amendment and nine months after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the image depicts the failure of each to fully protect African Americans. Two images, one depicting an African American being sold into slavery as punishment for a crime and a second depicting an African American being whipped as a punishment for a crime, draw attention to the ability of state governments to work around those three legal acts.

TRANSCRIPTION:
https://iowaculture.gov/sites/default/files/history-education-pss-reconstruction-slaverydead-transcription.pdf



Title: (?) Slavery is dead (?) / Th Nast.
Creator(s): Nast, Thomas, 1840-1902, artist
Date Created/Published: 1867.
Medium: 1 print : wood engraving ; page 40 x 27 cm.
Summary: Two illustrations showing: enslaved man being sold as punishment for crime, before Emancipation Proclamation; and an African-American man being whipped as punishment for crime in 1866.
Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-71960 (digital file from original) LC-USZ62-108003 (b&w film copy neg.)
Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.
Call Number: Illus. in AP2.H32 Case Y [P&P]
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Notes: Illus. in: Harper's weekly, 1867 Jan. 12, p. 24.



Title: Emancipation Proclamation / del., lith. and print. by L. Lipman, Milwaukee, Wis.
Creator(s): Lipman, L. (Louis),
Date Created/Published: Madison, Wis. : Published & sold by Martin & Judson, c1864 Feb. 26.
Medium: 1 print : lithograph, color ; sheet 88.7 x 53.2 cm.
Summary: Print shows at center the text of the Emancipation Proclamation with vignettes surrounding it; on the left are scenes related to slavery and on the right are scenes showing the benefits attained through freedom; also shows Justice and Columbia at the top center beneath a bald eagle and a portrait of Abraham Lincoln at bottom center above a scene of former slaves giving thanks.
Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-pga-02040 (digital file from original print)
Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.
Call Number: PGA - Lipman (L.)--Emancipation Proclamation (D size) [P&P]
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003671404/

TRANSCRIPT of the Proclamation
Source: The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation/transcript.html

January 1, 1863

A Transcription
By the President of the United States of America:

A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

Description: President Barack Obama views the Emancipation Proclamation with a small group of African American seniors, their grandchildren and some children from the Washington, D.C. area, in the Oval Office, Jan. 18, 2010. This copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, which is on loan from the Smithsonian Museum of American History, was hung on the wall of the Oval Office today and will be exhibited for six months, before being moved to the Lincoln Bedroom where the original Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863.
Date 18 January 2010
Source The Official White House Photostream [1]
Author White House (Pete Souza) / Maison Blanche (Pete Souza)
Source:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Barack_Obama_views_the_Emancipation_Proclamation_in_the_Oval_Office_2010-01-18.jpg

ADDENDA

1. The slave ship Cora
THE SLAVE-TRADE; The Bark Cora, of New-York, Captured on the African Coast. SEVEN HUNDRED AFRICANS ON BOARD, History of the Vessel and Her Movements List of Her Cargo. New York Times, 8 December, 1860
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/1860/12/08/archives/the-slavetrade-the-bark-cora-of-newyork-captured-on-the-african.html

Within the last six weeks 2,221 recaptured Africans have been sent to Monrovia, having been captured on board the following vessels by our present African squadron, viz.: The ship Erie, of New-York, captured by the steamer Mohican, Commander S.W. GODON, on the 8th of August, with 997 slaves on board. The brig Storm King also captured on the 8th of August, by the steamer San Jacinto, Capt. T.A. DORNING, and having on board 619 slaves; and the bark Cora, captured by the flagship Consultation, Capt. JOHN S. NICHOLAS, in the vicinity of Manque Grande, with 705. The last-named was amply fitted out for a long voyage, and in her cabin was found every luxury suitable for a tropical climate, consisting of the choicest wines, preserved meats, fruits. &c., &c. Previous to taking her departure for Monrovia, a boatload of these stores was transferred to the Constellation, for the use of the 'ward-room officers,' which is in direct violation of an article of an act for the better government of the Navy. For an offence somewhat similar, five of the crew of the Constellation were tried by a summary court-martial in December, 1859, and their pay taken from them and otherwise punished.

The bark Cora, as already stated, hailed from New-York. She was a fine vessel, of 431 tons register, built in Baltimore in 1851, from which port she was engaged in the South American trade. She was afterwards purchased by E.D. MORGAN & Co., who finally sold her to JOHN LATHAM for $14,000, and on the 4th of May, 1860, a register was issued to him from the New-York Custom house as master and owner. The Cora was immediately taken to Pier No. 52 East River, where important changes were made in her rig, with the evident design of increasing her spead as a sailer. Her hold was stowed with a large number of casks, which were filled with fresh water; and provisions, lumber and other articles in large quantities, such as usually constitute a slaver's cargo, were put on board. These suspicious circumstances were reported to Mr. ROOSAVELT, the United States District-Attorney, and on the 19th of May she was arrested and examined upon a charge of being about to engage in the slave-trade. The proceedings were in the United States District Court, by which appraisers were appointed, who estimated, the value of the vessel at $9,000, and the cargo at $13,128 23 -- total, $22,128 23, and she was accordingly bonded for that amount, ROBERT GRIFFITH and CHARLES NEWMANN becoming joint sureties for the vessel.

On the 27th of May the Cora was recleared at the Custom-house and proceeded on her "trading voyage." The next intelligence we have of the Cora she is overhauled by the United States ship Constellation, on the 25th of September, when eighty miles off the Congo River, having 705 Africans on board, a person giving his name as LORETTO RINTZ, but who is really supposed to be the identical JOHN LATHAM, being in command. The officers who captured the Cora represent her as a very fast sailer, which scarcely any vessel except the Constellation could have outsailed.

Wilburn Hall's long autobiographical piece, "Capture of the Slave-ship Cora" which appeared in the periodical Century, Vol. 48, 1894, pp 115-129, is a comprehensive account of the chase by the US ship Constellation, engravings included. Available for download at Victorian Voices.



The sloop Constellation capturing the slaver bark Cora in 1860. Artwork by Arthur L. Disney, Sr.
Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection.   NHHC Photograph Collection, NH 55353-KN (Color).
National Museum of the US Navy
Link: https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/prior-exhibits/2020/anti-slave-trade-patrols.html

2. Penrhyn and the Callao slavers

In the early 1860s, Penrhyn was almost completely depopulated by Peruvian blackbirding expeditions. In 1862 the ship Adelante took hundreds of Tongarevans aboard, ostensibly to transport them to a nearby island as agricultural workers.[6] The Tongarevans went willingly: coconut blight had led to famine, while the local missionaries saw work overseas as a way of bring money to the atoll to pay for larger churches. Once on board, they were shackled in the hold and guarded day and night.[7] 253 survived the voyage to reach Callao in Peru, where they were sold for between $100 and $200 each.[8] Further slaving expeditions followed, and in total 472 Tongarevans were sold in Peru.

Source: Wikipedia
Penrhyn atoll,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrhyn_atoll

3. The "Grecian" and Mrs Seal

A SLAVER IN THE SOUTH SEAS. About two years ago, the brig Grecian, of about 210 tons burthen, commanded by Thos John M'Grath, sailed from Hobart Town on a whaling expedition. The vessel had a crew of 21 sailors on board, and everything in capital order for a successful voyage When the brig was out about a week she called at Botany Bay for a "lady friend" of the captain's and then commenced her cruise, which lasted about fifteen months. During this period about six and a-half tons of oil were collected. The vessel then put into Wellington, the oil was sold, and the crew partly changed for a set of Maories, Portugese, and Swedish seamen.
She was then fitted out in a very suspicious manner, but no notice was taken of the circumstance by the authorities, as they considered that the captain was well known as an experienced whaler. The vessel being originally a six gun man-of-war brig, very little was required to make her a very dangerous craft, and after a few weeks had elapsed she sailed away from the coast of New Zealand, and made for the Chatham Isles, which she reached in February last. A man named John Turner joined the brig at this place and signed articles for about four months, with the understanding that the captain should land him at New Zealand or in the Australian colonies. The vessel then sailed, and shortly after being out of sight of land, M'Grath called up the crew and proposed that they should take the vessel and keep her for themselves, and go on a slaving expedition amongst the South Sea Islands, as he said, that would pay them much better than whaling, and they could dispose of the living freight on the Brazilian coast. Turner and eight others refused to join in this barbarous enterprise and demanded as their right that they should be landed at some port where a British Consul officiated.
M'Grath then sailed for Nieu or Savage Island lying to the eastward of the Tongan Group. Here he landed Turner and his seven companions. They had only set foot on the desolate shore when a white missionary informed them that the natives would only allow them five minutes to get away from the island, or they would forfeit their lives. The second mate of the brig, named Travis, who had charge of the boat, brought the unfortunate men back to the vessel, and was heartily abused by M'Grath, who told him that he ought to have left the men on the rocks, without paying any attention to what the natives had said. Turner then again, on behalf of himself and his companions asked M'Grath to land then at any port where there was a British consul.
The brig now made for Samoa, or the Navigators' Island and touched at one of the group called Tutuilla, where the natives were killing and eating each other daily. Turner, together with his men, were landed on the north-east side of this savage coast, where they remainedd seventeen days, and had to give the natives all they possessed in money and clothes amounting to about fourteen dollars, for which consideration they were taken to the other side of the Island, where the British consular agent, Mr.Unkin, resided.
This gentleman treated them very kindly, but could do next to nothing for them as he had only at his command an open boat, in which they started for Upola (another of the Navigator group), a distance of seventy miles, which place they succeeded in reaching in two days without food or water, - having nothing to keep them alive but a few cocoa nuts. This was about the middle of last June. On arriving at Upolu, Mr. McFarlane the British consul, took: them under his protection. While they were there, a man named Bryan, who was a seaman on board of the "Grecian," arrived from the Fijis in a ship belonging to an oil merchant named Hanslem, residing at Upolu. This person had formerly been in the 65th Regiment, and had joined the brig at Wellington, New Zealand. Bryan stated that after Turner and his party had left the ship, the brig went to the Friendly Islands and put into Tongataboo. After offering to trade with the natives - one hundred and thirty of whom, including women and children, came on board to dine at McGrath's invitation, the hatches were then battened down, and the Grecian" was got under weigh. But Bryan refused to stop on board any longer and he was allowed to go ashore at Ovalo, one of the Fiji Islands, distant about three hundred miles from Tongataboo.
The brig then sailed for Lima, Peru, in order that M'Grath might dispose of his human cargo. Bryan obtained a passage to Upolu in the vessel before mentioned. Five of Turner's party then left Upolu, on a cruise in an American whaling ship, called the Desdemona, and the remainder waited until they were sent up to Sydney, where they arrived about six weeks ago. From Sydney they made their way to Hobart Town, where they had an interview with Mrs Seal, the proprietress of the Grecian; but this lady said she could do nothing for the unfortunate man, and it would be too expensive to send a vessel after M'Grath, which she could otherwise do, as his articles had expired last May. Turner then got a situation as cook and steward on board of the Urania, now lying at the Australian wharf, which trades between this port and Hobart Town.

Herald, Nov 28th.

Source: A SLAVER IN THE SOUTH SEAS. (1863, December 3). The Mercury (Hobart) p. 2.
Link: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8822887

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