Travel to Cuba and up the Mississippi River

Abstract

The great New York City fire of December 1835 wiped out the Carneses’ warehouses and their incentive to promote their Chinese goods. Afong Moy’s manager took her on an extensive and strenuous trip to Cuba and up the Mississippi River in 1836, exposing her to many cultures—Spanish, Native American, Creole, and French—as well as the pernicious effects of slavery, Indian removal, and nativism. Her appearance in New Orleans, highlighted in a broadside, presented both the exotic oriental woman and the royal Chinese lady. A poem to “The Chinese Lady—Miss Afong Moy” by antislavery advocate Rev. William Tappan after he saw her in Cincinnati indicated his hope that she might see the Christian “sparkles of the light” and discard her heathen beliefs.