Collections : [Yale University -Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]

The series primarily consists of four bound volumes containing copies of more than 1000 diplomatic and personal letters written by George F. Usher between June 1859 and November 1867, plus six folders of incoming letters, ephemera, and other documents. The letters, addressed to Usher's superiors in Haiti (including the secretaries of state for foreign relations, finance and commerce, the interior and agriculture, etc.), to his fellow consuls in Boston, and to the collector of revenue in Port-au-Prince and other Haitian government officials and appointees, range from very short notes and official reports to long accounts of his diplomatic work. During the subsequent three years leading up to the American government's recognition of Haiti's new regime, Usher accomplished and recorded a great deal more work, as he continued to do after recognition. Throughout the volumes, Usher responds to specified reports (not all present but condensed in Usher's own outgoing letters) of President Fabre Nicolas Geffrard's various successes, and Haitian citizens' perceptions of them. He also communicates whatever American news—often of Congressional actions—will interest Haiti's foreign office, such as John Brown's activities at Harper's Ferry. Throughout the Civil War, Usher regularly kept his Haitian superiors apprised of its progress, often reporting with expressed pleasure on the various Union advances and defeats suffered by the rebel states. In April 1865, he officially notified Haiti of Lincoln's assassination in a moving letter that specifies the mourning decorations that adorned Haiti's New York consulate and reports his intention to accept the City of New York's request that he represent Haiti when Lincoln's body passes through the city (see also the invitation in folder 9). Through all this, for more than eight years, Usher remained attentive to trade matters ranging from specific cargo shipments to British proposals to include Port-au-Prince on a new steamship route. Usher writes to his correspondents on a wide variety of business issues, ranging from shipments of coffee, sugar, and other Haitian produce, to his operating instructions for letter copy press equipment he has sent to Port-au-Prince (letter dated June 17, 1859). Many letters specify the sailings to and from Haiti of named ships, with details regarding their cargo (generally reports of merchandise and provisions, but also including more exotic items such as "the beautiful horse for his Excellency the President" that Usher shipped on April 7, 1860). Among the recipients of Usher's letters are Demosthenes Bruno, George Racster, and Ernest Roumain, chargés d'affaires in Haiti, as well as B. C. Clark, Haitian consul in Boston, and the Scottish activist and reformer James Redpath.

The series contains a letterpress copybook containing about 229 letters written by George Lawrence Jr., the self-described "colored American" successor to James Redpath as New York City Agent/Commissioner for Haitian Emigration from the United States and Canada, between September 1862 and February 1865. As Lawrence reported in his letter of September 9, 1862, to Mr. C. Audry of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Haitian Emigration Bureau's "object ... is to encourage colored emigration, and the class to whom the invitation of the Haytian Government is specially extended is that of farmers or agricultural laborers." As this fact was known to many of Lawrence's correspondents (through advertisements and public lectures of the sort detailed in Lawrence's letter of October 1, 1862, and others), many of these letters are addressed to African Americans (though recipients' race is seldom expressed). To some of these recipients Lawrence further explains that the Haitian government has undertaken this project "in order to facilitate intercourse between the different sections of her territory and thereby to develope [sic] her resources, stimulate industry and promote the advancement of her people."