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040 _aUtSlPG
041 7 _aen
_2iso639-1
050 4 _aF1601
100 1 _aPinckard, George,
_d1768-1835
245 1 0 _aNotes on the West Indies, vol. 2 of 2
250 _aSecond edition
264 1 _aSalt Lake City, UT :
_bProject Gutenberg,
_c2025
300 _a1 online resource :
_bmultiple file formats
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
500 _aRelease date is 2025-11-24
508 _aRichard Tonsing, MWS, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
520 _a"Notes on the West Indies, vol. 2 of 2" by George Pinckard is a travelogue and epistolary account written in the early 19th century. It follows a British army physician through the Guianas and the Caribbean, blending vivid travel observation with medical reporting on yellow fever, and frank commentary on colonial society, slavery, and Indigenous life. The opening of the volume lays out a string of letters from the colonies of Berbice, Demerara, and Mahaica, moving from camp news and curiosities (an enormous snake, debates about “mermaids”) to planter hospitality and social absurdities. Pinckard contrasts army practice with local Dutch medicine over the treatment of “yellow fever,” recounts a Dutch military punishment and an electric eel demonstration, and sketches encounters with Indigenous visitors and a tiny “lion-monkey.” A stark scene of color prejudice appears when a mulatto woman refuses to touch a black infant. The narrative then shifts to a surge of fever cases, the author’s exhausting hospital duties, scant provisions, and his role officiating funerals, including the quiet, rapid death of a fellow officer. A harrowing centerpiece describes the murder of an enslaved man and the brutal flogging of his wife on the Lancaster estate, the enslaved community’s defiant funeral rites, and a callous attorney’s defense of such cruelty, followed by the woman’s neglected, maggot-infested wounds. Pinckard notes folk beliefs about tides and fever, a failed attempt at prophylaxis among soldiers, and small consolations like fresh meat from nearby estates. This opening ends with a visit to the eccentric planter Bercheych at a remote cotton property—his spare palm-built cottage, tamed birds and fish, abstention from spirits and tobacco, and a female-run household—offering a striking counterpoint to the surrounding hardship. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534 _pOriginally published:
_cLondon: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1816
653 _aWest Indies -- Description and travel
653 _aSlavery -- West Indies
653 _aBarbados -- Description and travel
653 _aGuyana -- Description and travel
653 _aPinckard, George, 1768-1835
653 _aEnglish West Indian Expedition, 1795-1796
653 _aYellow fever -- Guyana
653 _aIndians of South America -- Guyana
856 4 _uhttps://archive.org/details/notesonwestindie01pinc https://archive.org/details/notesonwestindie02pinc
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77323
999 _c118043
_d118043