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The Captain's Widow: Maria Graham and the Independence of South America*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Anyda Marchant
Anyda Marchant*
Affiliation:
Silver Spring, Maryland
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Extract

On April 28, 1822, His Britannic Majesty's ship Doris, outward bound from Portsmouth, by way of Rio de Janeiro, entered the bay of Valparaíso in Chile with her flag halfmast. Aboard was the body of her captain, Thomas Graham, who had died as the vessel rounded Cape Horn. His widow Maria, looking out at the town that Sunday night, wrote in her journal:

Many days have passed, and I have been unable and unwilling to resume my journal. To-day, the newness of the place, and all the other circumstances of our arrival, have drawn my thoughts to take some interest in the things around me. I can conceive nothing more glorious than the sight of the Andes this morning, on approaching the land at daybreak; starting, as it were, from the ocean itself, their summits of eternal snow shone in all the majesty of light long before the lower earth was illuminated, when suddenly the sun appeared from behind them and they were lost; and we sailed on for hours before we descried the land.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , October 1963 , pp. 127 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1963

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Footnotes

*

This and the following article show an interesting contrast of view of two women from very different backgrounds who visited South America, one at the beginning and one at the end of the nineteenth century.

References

1 Graham, Maria, Journal of a Residence in Chile during the Year 1822 and a Voyage from Chile to Brazil in 1823 (London, 1824), p. 113.Google Scholar

2 Ibid

3 Reproduced as frontispiece to Callcott, Maria Graham, Little Arthur’s History of England (Centenary edition with memoir; London, 1937).Google Scholar

4 Graham, Maria, Journal of a Residence in India (2nd ed.; Edinburgh, 1813).Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 173.

6 Graham, Maria, Three Months Passed in the Mountains East of Rome during the Year 1819 (London, 1820).Google Scholar

7 Graham, Maria, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil and Residence there during part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 (London, 1824), p. 116.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p.127.

9 Ibid., p. 130. See also Valente, Waldemar, Uma Inglesa em Fernambuco nos Começos do Seculo 19 (Recife, 1957).Google Scholar

10 Graham, , Journal … Brazil, p. 154.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 159.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., p. 162.

14 Ibid., p. 170 et seq.

15 Graham, , Journal … Chile, p. 114.Google Scholar

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., p. 115.

18 Ibid., p. 116.

19 Ibid., p. 133.

20 Ibid., p. 139.

21 Ibid., p. 146.

22 Ibid., p. 173.

23 Ibid., p. 177.

24 Ibid., p. 354.

25 Graham, , Journal … Brazil, p. 301.Google Scholar

26 These letters, some in English, some in French, were translated by Americo Jacobina Lacombe and published originally in the Anais de Biblioteca Nacional, vol. LX (1938). They have also appeared in a separate volume: Correspondencia entre Maria Graham e a Imperatriz Dona Leopoldina et cartas anexas (Rio de Janeiro, 1940). The page references in the following notes are to the Anais.

27 Graham, , Journal … Brazil, p. 320.Google Scholar

28 Correspondencia, editor’s note.

29 In 1834 Maria Graham wrote a biographical sketch of Dom Pedro I, which was left in manuscript at her death. It, together with the letters cited above, was acquired by the Biblioteca Nacional and translated into Portuguese by Americo Jacobina Lacombe under the title “Escorço biografico de Dom Pedro I com uma noticia do Brasil e do Rio de Janeiro em seu tempo.” It was included as an appendix to the Correspondencia in the publication in the Anais and in the separate volume. The “Escorço” is the source for the details of Maria Graham’s return to Rio from England and her brief stay as governess in the royal palace. The editor, Rodolfo Garcia, has provided an explanatory introduction.

30 “Escorço,” p. 125.

31 Graham, , Journal … Brazil, p. 161.Google Scholar

32 “Escorço,” p. 148.

33 Correspondencia, p.58.