Perilous Voyages: Czech and English Immigrants to Texas in the 1870s
Lawrence H. Konecny and Clinton Machann take readers beyond the bare facts to the human stories of immigration from the point of view of English and Czech immigrants whose tales provide fascinating counterpoints to each other and to the glowing claims about Texas made in William Kingsbury’s pamphlet. Perilous Voyages combines the original text of Kingsbury’s 1877 pamphlet, a private diary kept by an Englishman named William Wright, and oral histories by descendants of Moravian immigrants to...
Search in google:
"These are rich and fertile lands, so cheap that the labouring man may get his board and ten acres for an honest month's work, and the rich man find large profits upon his investments." -from William Kingsbury's 1877 pamphlet promoting Texas In Perilous Voyages, English and Czech immigrants' tales of coming to Texas provide fascinating counterpoints to each other and to the glowing claims about the Lone Star State made by Kingsbury and others. The first part includes a complete reprint of Kingsbury's pamphlet, giving insight into the rhetoric of Texas immigration. In the second part, the experiences of the immigrants themselves are illuminated through Englishman William Wright's private diary. The third section narrates the story of thirty-six men, women, and children who left their Moravian homeland in 1873 to pursue dreams of prosperity and the good life in Texas.
Pt. IW. G. Kingsbury and his pamphlet for the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railroad13A description of south-western and middle Texas (1877)18Pt. IIThe Texas diary of William Wright, February 13-July 1, 187971The diary79Pt. IIIThe wreck of the Missouri and Czech immigration to Texas in 1873103The emigrants109The ship118The last voyage of the Missouri121From shipwreck to storm124End of the journey137Excerpts from Texas co cil stehovani (Texas as a destination for emigration, 1882)145
