Charles Swett (1828-1910) was a prosperous Vicksburg merchant and small plantation owner who was reluctantly drawn into secession but then rallied behind the Confederate cause, serving with distinction in the Confederate Army. After the war some of Swett's peers from Mississippi and other southern states invited him to explore the possibility of settling in British Honduras or the Republic of Honduras.

"Confederates in the Tropics" uses Swett's 1868 travelogue to explore the motives of would-be Confederate migrants' fleeing defeat and Reconstruction in the United States South. The authors make a comparative analysis of Confederate communities in Latin America, and use Charles Swett's life to illustrate the travails and hopes of the period for both blacks and whites.

Swett's diary is presented here in its entirety in a clear, accessible format, edited for contemporary readers. Swett's style, except for his passionate prefatory remarks, is a remarkably unsentimental, even scientific look at Belize and Honduras, more akin to a field report than a romantic travel account. In a final section, the authors suggest why the expatriate communities of white Southerners nearly always failed, and follow up on Swett's life in Mississippi in a way that sheds light on why disgruntled Confederates decided to remain in or eventually to return to the U.S. South.

This book provides a historical background to recent Central American social unrest, repression, and revolution to help readers engage in current arguments, claims, and debates in a critically and historically informed manner.

Central America sprang into the consciousness of the U.S. public in the late 1970s, propelled by the Nicaraguan revolution and the brutal civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador. The continuing debates over the nature of the conflicts and the role of U.S. policy have too seldom acknowledged the historical depths of the crises' roots, and the size of the Central American nations has often led U.S. participants in the debate to underestimate the dynamism, complexity, and heterogeneity of the social structures that underlie the political struggles.This book presents a historical and analytical interpretation of recent Central American crises. Using a consistent comparative framework, Dr. Weaver sorts out the relations among economic growth, social organization, and political structure and offers explanations for the historically divergent developments among the five Central American nations. By setting those events in a broader Latin American context and illuminating the relationships between domestic and international influences, Dr. Weaver shows how rapid changes in the social organization of economic production in some periods affected social structures and configurations of political power, while at other times political conflicts conditioned and shaped subsequent patterns of economic expansion.

Charles Swett (1828-1910) was a prosperous Vicksburg merchant and small plantation owner who was reluctantly drawn into secession but then rallied behind the Confederate cause, serving with distinction in the Confederate Army. After the war some of Swett's peers from Mississippi and other southern states invited him to explore the possibility of settling in British Honduras or the Republic of Honduras.

"Confederates in the Tropics" uses Swett's 1868 travelogue to explore the motives of would-be Confederate migrants' fleeing defeat and Reconstruction in the United States South. The authors make a comparative analysis of Confederate communities in Latin America and use Charles Swett's life to illustrate the travails and hopes of the period for both blacks and whites.

Swett's diary is presented here in its entirety in a clear, accessible format, edited for contemporary readers. Swett's style, except for his passionate prefatory remarks, is a remarkably unsentimental, even scientific look at Belize and Honduras, more akin to a field report than a romantic travel account. In a final section, the authors suggest why the expatriate communities of white southerners nearly always failed, and follow up on Swett's life in Mississippi in a way that sheds light on why disgruntled Confederates decided to remain in or eventually to return to the U.S. South.