Charles Mackenzie (diplomat) explained

Charles Kenneth Mackenzie (1788–1862) was a Scottish diplomat, writer and journalist.

Life

He was the eldest son of Kenneth Francis Mackenzie,^[1] who had plantation interests in the West Indies, and at the time of Fedon's Rebellion acted as president of the council in Grenada;^[2] there are sources stating that Charles Mackenzie would have been classified as a Negro in the USA.^[3] Colin Mackenzie was his brother.

He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he befriended James Cowles Prichard,^[1] and served in the Peninsular War. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1815.^[4] He then edited a conservative evening paper, Albion.^[1]

Subsequently, he was a diplomat in Mexico, Haiti and Cuba;^[4] in Haiti at least he did intelligence work.^[5] Returning to England, he wrote for The Metropolitan Magazine, under the editorship of Cyrus Redding.^[1]

During the latter part of his life he lived mostly in the United States, where he died on 6 July 1862 at a fire at the Rainbow Hotel on Beekman Street^[6] in New York City.^[4]

Mackenzie collected plants for August Grisebach and William Jackson Hooker.^[4]

Works

Mackenzie published Notes on Haiti in two volumes (1830), based on his period 1826–7 as British consul there, and including both economic statistics and social observations.^[7] Parts were republished shortly by John Brown Russwurm, to publicise the Haitian Revolution.^[8]

• Mackenzie, Charles. Notes on Haïti, made during a residence in that Republic, Vol. 1, London, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830. Manioc
• Mackenzie, Charles. Notes on Haïti, made during a residence in that Republic, Vol. 2, London, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830. Manioc

Mackenzie wrote also for the Edinburgh Review, Quarterly Review, and Encyclopædia Britannica.^[9]

Notes and References

1. Book: Cyrus Redding. Cyrus Redding. Yesterday and To-day. 30 April 2012. 1863. T. C. Newby. 173–7.
2. Book: Douglas Hamilton. Scotland, the Caribbean And the Atlantic World, 1750-1820. 2005. Manchester University Press. 978-0-7190-7182-9. 164.
3. Book: Gerald Horne. Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation. December 2011. NYU Press. 978-0-8147-9050-2. 88.
4. http://plants.jstor.org/person/bm000023679 JSTOR Plant Science, MacKenzie, Charles Kenneth (1788-1862)
5. Book: Gerald M. Sider. Gavin A. Smith. Between History and Histories: The Making of Silences and Commemorations. 1997. University of Toronto Press. 978-0-8020-7883-4. 49.
6. Book: Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year: 1862. 1863. D. Appleton & Company. New York. 669.
7. Book: Leslie Bethell. The Cambridge History of Latin America. 1995. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-39525-0. 236.
8. Book: Winston James. John Brown Russwurm. The Struggles of John Brown Russwurm: The Life and Writings of a Pan-Africanist Pioneer, 1799-1851. 2010. NYU Press. 978-0-8147-4289-1. 64.
9. [Joseph Irving]