Edward Bliss Emerson's Triangular Journal: Danish West Indies, Puerto Rico, and New England, 1831–32

The journal kept by Edward B. Emerson during his visit to St. Croix, St. Thomas and Puerto Rico, 1831-1832, is held in the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association deposit, Houghton Library, Harvard University [Ms Am 1280.235 (349)].  Emerson’s reflections on life in St. Croix remain unquoted, and although brief excerpts from the Puerto Rico portion of the journal appeared in print in 1959 and 1991, his more extensive text supplements the contemporary publications, which only praised the colonial administration. A third, and equally important location, is the implicit base for his perspective – New England in the period of Jacksonian populist democracy.

The diary presents terse reminders of daily activities, mixed with extensive descriptions of landscape, exotic civic and religious observances, business and social customs, fruits, music and sports, with personal meditations on Edward’s readings, his search for health, and his adaptation to a new life away from his family, with little prospect of wealth or longevity. His letters include periodic reckonings of the benefits and disadvantages that he sees to life in Puerto Rico.  This diverse eyewitness account represents an important resource for researchers of Caribbean society and culture.