Nicholas Herbemont to Thomas Jefferson, 18 October 1822
From Nicholas Herbemont
Columbia S. Carolina Oct. 18th 1822
Respected Sir,
I take the liberty of Sending you a Small tract which I have just published. Its object is to induce the increase of the white population in the Southern States; but particularly in S. Carolina. The means proposed are the cultivation of the Olive, Grapevine, Sheep & Silk worms. I Should not have troubled you with it, but for this, that I know this Subject far from indifferent to you, & that any thing by which the prosperity of our country is promoted, is Sure to meet with your warmest approbation. These are Subjects which you have yourself recommanded, & no doubt, at this juncture, your expressed approbation would promote the execution of the plan. These are the apologies I have to offer for this intrusion. I rejoice also in having this opportunity of assuring you of my most Sincere respect, & that I am truly, Sir, Your obedt Servt
| N. Herbemont Prest of the board of public works of South Carolina |
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 31 Oct. 1822 and so recorded in SJL. RC (ViU: TJP); address cover only; with Dft of TJ to John L. Thomas, 9 Jan. 1825, on verso; addressed: “Thomas Jefferson Esqre Monticello Albemarle County Virginia”; stamped; postmarked. Enclosure: [Herbemont], Observations Suggested by the Late Occurrences in Charleston (Columbia, 1822; repr. in David S. Shields, ed., Pioneering American Wine: Writings of Nicholas Herbemont, Master Viticulturist [2009], 251–60), observing, in response to the recent suppression of a purported slave insurrection in Charleston allegedly led by the free black man Denmark Vesey, that the enslaved population in South Carolina is an “obstacle to improvements and to the increase of the white population” (p. 5); describing the condition of slaves as “very greatly and progressively ameliorated since the revolutionary war” (p. 5); asserting that the state legislature ought to require any slaves acquiring freedom to leave South Carolina so as to limit the “mixing with our slaves” that renders them “dangerous by their counsels and the example of the idle or dissolute lives which many of them lead” (p. 7); encouraging the production of olive oil, wool, silk, and wine as the best way to attract European settlers; and emphasizing “the great security we should enjoy as the natural consequence of so great an increase of our white population, and the great facility which this state of things would give us to abolish slavery, if ever it should be thought advisable to do so” (p. 16).
Nicholas Herbemont (1771–1838), educator, public official, and viticulturist, was born in the Champagne region of France. He came to the United States around 1790, working first as a private tutor in Amelia County, then teaching French at the Pittsburgh Academy (later the University of Pittsburgh) in 1795, settling by 1801 in Charleston, South Carolina, and becoming a naturalized citizen in 1803. Herbemont established a French-language school in Charleston, which he operated until at least 1805, and from 1807 to 1818 he was a French tutor at South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina). In 1804 he applied unsuccessfully to TJ for an appointment as a surveyor in the Louisiana Territory, and in 1821 he was appointed president of South Carolina’s board of public works. The South Carolina Agricultural Society, which Herbemont had helped to found, awarded him a gold medal in 1828 for his work promoting viticulture in the state. Among his publications were an English translation of Louis Dubroca’s 1802 biography of Toussaint L’Overture and A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and on Wine Making in the United States (1833). Herbemont owned twelve slaves in 1810 and nineteen a decade later. At his death in Columbia, South Carolina, his personal property was appraised at $4,015.93 (Shields, Pioneering American Wine, esp. 261; Jonchery-Sur-Vesle Baptêmes Mariages Sépultres, 1750–92 [FrlM]; , 43:129, 685; Agnes Lynch Starrett, Through One Hundred and Fifty Years: The University of Pittsburgh [1937], 30; Charleston City-Gazette and Daily Advertiser, 2 Oct. 1801; Charleston City Gazette, 25 Jan. 1805; DNA: RG 21, RACSC, 28 Oct. 1803; Maximilian LaBorde, History of the South Carolina College [1874], 528; American Farmer, 8 Oct. 1819; Camden [S.C.] Gazette and Mercantile Advertiser, 27 Dec. 1821; DNA: RG 29, CS, S.C., Richland Co., 1810, 1820; Richland Co. Wills and Probate Records; Southern Agriculturist 11 [1838]: 448).
Index Entries
- grapes; grown in S.C. search
- Herbemont, Nicholas; and agriculture search
- Herbemont, Nicholas; identified search
- Herbemont, Nicholas; letter from search
- Herbemont, Nicholas; Observations Suggested by the Late Occurrences in Charleston search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Books & Library; works sent to search
- Observations Suggested by the Late Occurrences in Charleston (N. Herbemont) search
- oil; olive search
- olives; cultivation of search
- olives; oil search
- sheep; raised in S.C. search
- silk manufacturing; in U.S. search
- slavery; abolition of search
- slavery; dangers of search
- slavery; effects on society of search
- South Carolina; grapes grown in search
- South Carolina; olive trees grown in search
- South Carolina; plan to increase white population of search
- South Carolina; sheep raising in search
- South Carolina; silk manufacturing in search
- South Carolina; slave insurrection in search
- whites; plan to increase population of search
- wine; production of search
- wool; production of search