Letter to Joseph Banks on Bahamanian Crops
Autograph Letter, Signed, to Joseph Banks Thanking Him for Sending Plant Seeds
Publication: Nassau, New Providence, [Bahamas]: 1803.
Notes: A 1-1/2 page manuscript letter from the planter Nathaniel Hall to Joseph Banks, thanking Banks on behalf of the Bahama Agricultural Society for sending them East India cotton seed (either Gossypium arboreum or G. herbaceum) and Bengal bean (Mucuna pruriens) to the island.
Banks's "Very Valuable present" of cotton seed had just arrived and Hall had displayed it to the Society. Bengal bean seeds had arrived sometime earlier and were already in cultivation. "The Bengal Bean you was [sic, were] so good as to send us in Dec'r. 1801—has proved a Vast acquisition to these Islands—it is amazingly productive and goes by the name of Sir Joseph Bank's (sic) Bean. I sent a few of them to Doct'r. Mitchell at New York who is now propagating them with a prospect of success."
The Bengal Bean seemed to be a promising animal feedstock. However, its stinging hairs and potentially poisonous seeds diminished the prospect somewhat and in many parts of the world it is considered a weed. Joseph Banks's part in propagating it to the Bahamas and the United States seems to be previously unknown. The plant's arrival in the Bahamas is not cited, for example, in John Hammerton's article, "Mucuna pruriens: Weed, Invasive, or Multi-use Crop for the Bahamas" (College of the Bahamas Research Journal, Vol. XII, 2008, pp. 4–15).
Joseph Banks was, of course, a well-known botanist and scientist in the late 18th century. He accompanied James Cook on his first voyage. A few years before this letter was written, Banks helped with a failed effort to establish a botanical garden in the Bahamas. Nathaniel Hall was a planter in Georgia until the Revolutionary War. With other loyalists, he left the colonies and settled in the Bahamas, where he was among the earliest British settlers. As this letter suggests, he maintained contacts in the United States after the war was over.
In all, a significant and apparently previously unknown letter.
One leaf, two pages, roughly 6-3/4 by 12 inches. Most likely, the left side of the original sheet of paper has been removed, probably by a stamp collector, as stampless covers from the Bahamas in this period can be quite valuable.
PROVENANCE: Sotheby & Co., Feb. 12–13, 1968, lot 503; Jay Kislak.
Edition + Condition: Left edge somewhat roughly torn, else a very good letter, neatly written. Old folds from mailing. Addressed to Banks at the lower left corner of the first page; signed "Nath: Hall" on the second.
Item No: #364033
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Status: On Hold