The Woman Who May Have Helped Start The Civil War

G'Day, Mates and Fellow Georgians!

Today we speak of a lady who had views and thoughts that were not right for the era she lived in, not for a woman at least. She could act, dance, sing and speak for what she believed to be right. You could say, Fanny Kemble was born ahead of her time.
Frances Anne Kemble was born in England in 1809 to a family of actors and performers. In 1832 she moved to America and was admired and adored throughout New England, impartially by a Mr. Pierce Butler. He became infatuated and after a long court ship she agreed to marry him.
Pierce Butler owned a plantation in south Georgia on the Sea Islands with not just ten, not just twenty, but a hundred slaves, making his rice and cotton plantation very wealthy and prosperous. Fanny enjoyed, as any other wife would, the healthy life style they had, until her husband agreed to take her to his fruitful plantation.
By this time in England, slavery has been abolished for about 30 years with Fanny growing up to believe slavery was wrong and that the slaves were people, not property... Unlike her husband.
For the four months that she stayed at the plantation Fanny was sad and in want of helping these people but every request she'd make on the slaves behalf Butler would just shun until he finally asked her to just stop asking.
Fanny wrote to her friend, Elizabeth:
           "My dear Elizabeth,
                   These discussions are terrible. They throw me into perfect agony of distress for the slaves, whose position is utterly hopeless."
Fanny kept a diary throughout her time on the island, writing down the cruelties that were done to the workers, the conditions in which they lived in and the minimal amount of things they were given.
Later, she and Butler divorced, with him gambling away his plantation and her moving back to New England where she published her diary causing a stir about life down in Georgia.
The Civil War had thousands of reasons for beginning, but maybe she had a hand in it too.

Thanks for Reading!

MJ

For More Info:

Fanny Kemble - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Kemble

Fanny Kemble's Diary - Georgia Stories

http://www.gpb.org/georgiastories/videos/fanny_kembles_diary