Fales Family letters (Ms. 2008.006)

Although a small collection, the Fales Family letters comprise a remarkably complex portrait of a prominent Bristol, Rhode Island, family during the early days of the republic. The correspondence includes letters from three generations and touches upon such subjects as slavery, politics, religion and commerce. Altogether, they provide glimpses of a family’s attempts to maintain its bonds over distance and time.

Most of the letters were written by Stephen Fales (who came to sign himself "Esteban") from his Cuban plantation to his sister Lydia (Fales) French in Bristol. Many of them concern arrangements he has made for his children’s education—his sons William and Thomas had extended stays with Lydia as boys—and general discussions of finances and health. Although the reader does not directly hear Lydia’s voice, Stephen’s responses to such topics as her money worries (". . . your present embarrassments . . .") suggest the culture of restraint and gentility that governed family relations during the early nineteenth century.

His son Thomas was a droll and affectionate correspondent, often teasing his Aunt Lydia and reporting on family and friends with self-deprecating humor. The bonds he formed during a childhood stay with his Bristol relatives seemed to have deepened over the years, as is evidenced by his acute disappointment at his aunt’s failure to write frequently.

The Stephen Fales family lived in Cuba during the later years of the so-called “sugar revolution”, which saw an explosion in the slave population as the sugar industry grew. The vigorous expansion of slavery in Cuba at a time when the rest of the western world was disavowing it is not discussed by these correspondents but it provides one context for a contemporary appreciation of the collection. The Fales family’s connections to the DeWolfs of Bristol perhaps allowed them to profit from slave labor long after it was abolished in their native state.