Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-05-28
COLONY OF ExILES.
They are Americans and Are on British
Island of Honduras.

No more remarkable colony of
American exiles can be found any
where than Toledo settlement in British
Honduras 1t is a bit of Louisiana in
a tropic setting, preserved to show us
what the "Old Creole Days We're like.
There the stately and punctilious life
of the vanished Southern aristocracy is
still found. with its cermoniOus hospi-
tally, it's fine spun sticking for the
point of honor, its pride of ancestry,
and it's patriarchal relations between
master and servant. For thirty-seven
years time has stood still, leaving the
exiles untouched by modern and, pro-
tgressive ideas, and making their home
today the truest picture to be found
anywhere of life and manners in the old
South 'befo' de wah.'
.'he close of the Civil War found
many of the planters of the cotton
states in sore straits. Their slaves had
been set free; their crops and live
stock seized by friend and foe, their
homes burned or despoiled, and their
plantations turned into a battle ground
for contending armies. Reduced from
a ffiuence to poverty is not to be Won
dered that their feelings for the Fed
eral government were far from kindly.
| The specter of 'nigger rule" and the
! excuses of Northern carpet haggers"
| made some of them feel that the Union
was no longer a fit place of residence
for Southern gentlemen. Perhaps also
secret fear that the proclamation of
general amnesty was too good to be
true and that the victorious North
| +,l- Gov tAo ooti Irn
participation in the cause of secession
was present. In any event con-
siderable number of the most prOmi-
nert families OF the South gathered to-
gether such of their portable as had
escaped the general wreck and emf
grated.
| Some of these went to Argentina, set
ting near Buenos Ayres, where the
survivors and their descendants are to-
day objects of charity. Misfortune
| followed them to their new home, and
they are now poorer than the poorest
of the despised white trash" of the
states they abandoned. Others went to
| Canada: considerable number to
Cuba and others to the West Indies; a
few to Mexico and Brazil, and fourteen
families the most prominent We're the
! Biens. PerrottS, PierceS, OetZels,
! Paines. Waterous. Hutchnsons and
Wilson's. All were from the neighbOr-
hood of New Orleans. All belonged to
the old Creole aristocracy-the proud
| est and most exclusive in the land--dat-
ing their titles to their estates back to
the early days of French and Spanish
occupation, and boasting that they had
kept their blood pure through all
changes of government and all vicissi-
tudes of fortune. Each family took
lalong such of its former slaves as pre-
ferred to follow the fortunes of their
old master rather than accept their
freedom and try the uncertain and
hazardous experiment of making their
own way in the world.
The immigrants arrived in Belize in
the summer of 1865 and were cordially
welcomed by the colonial authorities.
The crying need of British Honduras
was for immigration. Gifted with a
soil Of unsurpassed fertility, the colony
languished for want of men to till it.
The colonial council. seconded by the
lgovernor general, therefore FASTENED
to tender to the new arrivals GOO acres
of crown lands. with no other condition
than that they should make their home
there. even exempting it from taxation
for period of ten years.
The new settlement was named
Toledo. Il was established in the vir-
gin forest, six miles beyond the Rit