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| Rebecca Chase Kinsman, c. 1840s Charles Osgood Courtesy, Peabody Essex Museum |
Excerpt:
In Our Own Words: New England Diaries, 1600 to the Present, Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife Annual Proceedings, (Boston: Boston University, 2009): 102-113
How
plainly I can see those dear County Street parlors as thee describes them, and
oh! How inexpressible are my longings to look in upon them and their dear
inmates . . . the ties that bind us to home, are very strong and not easily
severed.
— Rebecca to “My best
beloved Friend,” Macao, Thursday, 7 March 1844
In July 1843, Rebecca
Chase Kinsman (1810–1882) departed her home port of Salem, Massachusetts
for Macao and Canton, China, with her husband, Nathaniel Kinsman (1798–1847),
and two of their three children, Nattie and Ecca. Nathaniel was taking up
a position in Canton with the trading house of Wetmore and Company, and the
couple had made the decision—unusual in antebellum America—to travel together
to what was then an exotic and strange world. Indeed, the diaries and
letters shared between the couple offer a rare glimpse into an early American
household that challenges conventional interpretations.
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| The pillared verandah where the Kinsmans spent many hours during their time in China Courtesy, Martyn Gregory |
The written record for
the Kinsman family is particularly strong. Not only have a decade of
letters between husband and wife and their respective families survived, but
also household receipts, diaries, and Nathaniel’s ship logs are among the rich
collection housed at the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, the
Schlesinger Library, the Smith College Library and in private hands. However,
in order to place the family’s personal and professional lives in a larger
antebellum New England context, this article will focus on Rebecca’s diary
entries, in contrast to her letters, providing a special opportunity to
investigate the issue of the domestic lives of early American women travelers and expatriates.
Rebecca used her diary in
a number of ways and was clearly cognizant that her travel to China marked an
important episode in her life: indeed, after her return to the United States,
it is exceedingly difficult to unearth any subsequent information about
her. She used her diary to record her experiences in Macao, Canton and
Manila, and on her voyages to and from China; as a day book tracking household
expenses; as a place to record her detailed observations and her daily
frustrations with not only the management of a household staff whose language
she did not understand, but also a medium to vent the longing for her “dear
absent hubby;” a place where she recorded what she was currently reading, what
letters and packages have been received (or not) from home and her thoughts on
the local denizens: dress, habits and so on, as well as her reactions to
sermons and visits, social events, and walks. When compared to her
letters home (detailed and chatty, but also reflecting homesickness and concern
over the current divisive nature of Quaker meeting, local politics, and health
of absent friends) or her letters to Nathaniel (she was more open in these
regarding daily struggles and concerns for his health and well-being of their
children), her diary operates in a middle arena. It is sporadic
commentary which “spikes” for important events and trails off when life is
“routine” in Macao or Canton.
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| Chinese dignitary & attendants From c. 1840s view Collection of author |
The letters and diaries
shared between Rebecca and Nathaniel offer a rare glimpse into an early
American household that challenges conventional interpretations. They
reveal Nathaniel as a sensitive, romantic figure, who was ill at ease in the
public sphere of business and who sought solace in the private sphere of
family, while Rebecca, on the other hand, was the stronger partner, supervising
a household of Chinese servants, arranging travel, and even organizing a
reception for visiting Plenipotentiary Caleb Cushing in 1844 for the signing of
the first trade treaty between China and America.
This article is part of a
larger study of the Kinsman family in China, situated within two strains of
recent historiography—family history and travel narratives. A number of
studies have examined marriage in the new nation, most recently Anya Jabour’s
Marriage in the Early Republic: Elizabeth and William Wirt and the
Companionate Ideal (1998) and Timothy Kenslea’s The Sedgwicks in Love:
Courtship, Engagement, and Marriage in the Early Republic (2005).
Over the last decade historians have focused on travel narratives of both men
and women. However, this exploration into the lives of the Kinsmans
provides an unparalleled opportunity to marry both themes—investigating travel
narratives and domestic life simultaneously and placing them within the context
of an antebellum New England family and their experiences abroad.
Kimberly Alexander, Ph.D.
History Department
University of New Hampshire
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