Post-Emancipation Caribbean Travel Narrative

McQuade, James

The Cruise of the Montauk to Bermuda, The West Indies and Florida [West Indies, Slavery, Cuba]

New York: Thomas R. Knox & CO., 1885.

A Revealing American Account of the Post-Emancipation Caribbean — With Early U.S. Descriptions of Cuba and Havana

This candid and often satirical American perspective on the Caribbean produced during the critical transitional decades following emancipation.
McQuade’s 1884 chronicle of the yacht Montauk provides unusually direct testimony on the labor systems, social hierarchies, and lingering cultural legacies of slavery across Bermuda, Jamaica, and particularly Cuba. Blending ethnographic curiosity with the performance culture of elite travelers—including original sheet music and verses—this work stands as a vital primary source for the study of 19th-century West Indies economics and the American "Gilded Age" gaze upon the post-slavery Atlantic.

KEY FEATURES
+++ Visuals: Illustrated with a frontispiece and fifteen full-page plates; includes printed sheet music and original satirical verses.
+++ Binding: Publisher’s dark brown cloth; spine and front board elaborately stamped in gilt and black decorative Victorian motifs.
+++ Content: Detailed accounts of Havana, St. Kitts, Martinique, Trinidad, Curaçao, and Florida; significant commentary on policing and race relations.
+++ Imprint: New York: Thomas R. Knox & Co., 1885.
+++ Specs: 8vo; 8.5 inches tall; xv, [i], 441 pp.

CONDITION: The bindings are tight and square, providing a sturdy reading and display copy. The internal text is clean with light, even toning consistent with 1880s paper. The endpapers have been professionally renewed. The exterior shows moderate shelf wear, including rubbing to the corners and fraying at the spine tips, though the gilt remains legible and the decorative stamping is well-defined.

SCHOLARLY FEATURES
+++ Sociological Value: McQuade’s observations on the 'remnants of enslavement' in Cuba offer a rare firsthand American look at the island just prior to the final abolition of slavery there in 1886.
+++ Maritime Social Life: Documents the "performance culture" of affluent American yachting, preserving the songs and sketches that defined shipboard life.
+++ Regional Infrastructure: Provides early descriptions of public works, street life, and policing in Havana and Kingston during the late 19th-century colonial administration.
+++ The Cuba Factor: Very few 1880s American books go into this much detail about Havana's social hierarchy.
+++ Social Record: The inclusion of shipboard songs gives you the soundtrack to Gilded Age travel.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE —
James McQuade was a perceptive, if often ironic, observer of the "New World" order. Writing at a time when the United States was increasing its economic footprint in the Caribbean, his narrative captures the tension between the romanticized "pleasure cruise" and the stark reality of the post-emancipation economies he encountered.

His detailed sections on Cuba are of particular importance to historians. At the time of his visit, Cuba was one of the last bastions of slavery in the hemisphere; McQuade’s notes on the lingering presence of the institution in public and private spheres provide a 'timestamp' of a society on the brink of total structural change.

This isn't your average Victorian travelogue. McQuade has an edge to his writing—he’s looking past the palm trees to see how these islands actually function after slavery. The sections on Havana are particularly gripping because they catch the city in that weird, lingering shadow of the old Spanish slave system. It’s a must-have for anyone building a collection on the Black Atlantic or Caribbean economics.

SUBJECTS: West Indies Travel, Slavery & Emancipation, Cuban History, 19th-Century Yachting, Havana, Social Documentation, American Travel Writing, Travel Narrative, Caribbean History, Americana.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE: Toy 1057; Morris & Howland 92; Servies 8095.

Item #21327

Price: $150.00