The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 39, July 1935 - April, 1936 Page: 309
346 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Confederate Exoldus to Latin America
THE CONFEDERATE EXODUS TO LATIN AMERICA
III
LAWRENCE F. HILL
Professor of History in The Ohio State University
CONFEDERATES IN MIDDLE AMERICA
As in South America, the Confederates who went into Middle
America tried home building in widely-separated areas. They
tried Honduras, British Honduras, and Mexico, if not other
countries.
Little space is required to tell all that is known about those
who ventured into Honduras. By the summer of 1867 Colonel
Watkins and Major Goldsmith of Georgia and Major Malcolm of
Kentucky had obtained grants aggregating more than 150,000
acres in the vicinity of San Pedro, situated about fifty miles in-
terior from the port on the Bay of Honduras named Omoa, and
had induced about sixty followers-apparently all Georgians-to
settle in the beautiful valley with them. Other immigrants, it
seems from both Georgia and Alabama, augmented the pioneers
until within a few months the number reached the two hundred
mark. The San Pedro settlers introduced the first mills and farm-
ing implements known to the country.
But the San Pedro colony did not thrive. Whether due to the
superior attractions offered by British Honduras, to the hostility
of native, insect, and disease, or to internal dissension, only a
few of the southerners remained longer than a year. Most of the
disillusioned returned to their old homes in the United States;
Major Malcolm, who became the chief director, seems to have
fled to Nicaragua between suns.'
Southern interest in British Honduras extends back into the
ante-bellum period; and this concern, as we have already noted,
was only a manifestation of a general interest in the tropics.
British Honduras became a sort of Utopia to southerners as a
result of skilled advertising in certain parts of southern United
1The Daily Picayune, June 14, 1867, and the Mobile Daily Advertiser
and Register, October 23, 1867, and June 8, 1868.309
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 39, July 1935 - April, 1936, periodical, 1936; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101095/m1/335/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.