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Varina Banks Howell Davis (May 7, 1826 – October 16, 1906) was the second wife of the politician Jefferson Davis, who became president of the Confederate States of America in 1861. She served as the First Lady of the new nation at the capital in Richmond, Virginia, although she was ambivalent about the war. Well educated in Philadelphia, with family in both the North and South, she had unconventional views for her public role. She supported slavery and states' rights. Howell Davis became a writer after the American Civil War, completing her husband's memoir. She was recruited by Kate Davis Pulitzer to write articles and eventually a regular column for her husband Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, the ''New York World''. In 1891 after her husband's death, Howell Davis moved to New York City to live full-time there with her daughter Winnie. She acted to reconcile prominent figures of the North and South in the late nineteenth century. ==Early life and education== Varina Banks Howell was born in 1826 at Natchez, Mississippi, the daughter of William Burr Howell and Margaret Louisa Kempe. Her father was from a distinguished family in New Jersey: his father Richard Howell served several terms as Governor of New Jersey and died when William was a boy. William inherited little money and used family connections to become a clerk in the Bank of the United States. William Howell relocated to Mississippi, when new cotton plantations were being rapidly developed. There he met and married Margaret Louisa Kempe (1806–1867), born in Prince William County, Virginia. Her wealthy planter family had moved to Mississippi before 1816.〔"Marriage of William B. Howell to Margaret L. Kempe, 17 July 1823, Adams County, Mississippi", Ancestry.com. ''Mississippi Marriages to 1825'' (on-line ). Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1997.〕 She was the daughter of Colonel Joseph Kempe (sometimes spelled Kemp), a Scots-Irish immigrant from northern Ireland who became a planter and major landowner, and Margaret Graham, born in Prince William County. Margaret Graham was considered illegitimate as her parents, George Graham, a Scots immigrant, and Susanna McAllister (1783–1816) of Virginia, never officially married.〔Cashin 2006, p. 15.〕〔Note: According to the 1810 census for Prince William County, George Graham owned 24 slaves, more than many of his neighbors. He had one child under 16 still at home, and was living with a woman over 25. Many of his neighbors had Scottish surnames. Federal Census: Year: 1810; Census Place: Prince William, Virginia; Roll: 70; Page: 278; Image: 0181430; Family History Library Film: 00528.〕 After moving his family from Virginia to Mississippi, Joseph Kempe also bought land in Louisiana. When his daughter married Howell, he gave her a dowry of 60 slaves and of land.〔Cashin 2006, p. 16.〕 William Howell worked as a planter, merchant, politician, postmaster, cotton broker, banker, and military commissary manager, but never secured long-term financial success. He lost the majority of Margaret's sizable dowry and inheritance through bad investments and their expensive lifestyle. They suffered intermittent serious financial problems throughout their lives. Varina was born in Natchez as the second Howell child of eleven, seven of whom survived to adulthood. She was later described as tall and thin, with an olive complexion attributed to Welsh ancestors.〔Wyatt-Brown 1994, p. 17.〕 (Later when she was living in Richmond as the unpopular First Lady of the Confederacy, critics described her as looking like a mulatto or Indian squaw.)〔 When Varina was thirteen, her father declared bankruptcy. The Howell family home, furnishings and slaves were seized by creditors to be sold at public auction.〔(FRANCES CLARKE, "Review of Cashin, ''First Lady of the Confederacy''" ), Harvard University Press, 2006, in ''Australasian Journal of American Studies'', Vol. 27, No. 2 (December 2008), pp. 145–147. Retrieved 2012-06-01.〕 Her mother's Kempe relatives intervened to redeem the family's property. It was one of several sharp changes in fortune that Varina would encounter in her life. She grew to adulthood in a house called The Briars, when Natchez was a thriving city, but she learned that her family was dependent on the wealthy Kempe relatives of her mother's family to avoid poverty. Varina Howell was sent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for her education, where she studied at Madame Deborah Grelaud's French School, a prestigious academy for young ladies.〔Wyatt-Brown 1994, p. 124.〕 Grelaud, a Protestant Huguenot, was a refugee from the French Revolution and had founded her school in the 1790s.〔 One of Varina's classmates was Sarah Anne Ellis, the daughter of extremely wealthy Mississippi planters. (After the Civil War, Sara Ellis Dorsey, by then a wealthy widow, helped financially support the Davis couple.) While at school in Philadelphia, Varina got to know many of her northern Howell relatives; she carried on a lifelong correspondence with some, and called herself a "half-breed" for her connections in both regions.〔Cashin 2006, p. 11.〕 After a year, she returned to Natchez, where she was privately tutored by Judge George Winchester, a Harvard graduate and family friend. She was intelligent and better educated than many of her peers, which led to tensions with Southern expectations for women.〔 In her later years, Varina Howell Davis referred fondly to Madame Grelaud and Judge Winchester; she sacrificed to provide the highest quality of education for her two daughters in their turn. In 1843, at age 17, Howell was invited to spend the Christmas season at Hurricane Plantation, the property of family friend Joseph Davis. Her parents had named their oldest child after him. Located at Davis Bend, Mississippi, Hurricane was 20 miles south of Vicksburg, and Davis was planning a gala housewarming with many guests and entertainers to inaugurate his lavish new mansion on the cotton plantation. (Varina described the house in detail in her memoirs.) During her stay, she met her host's brother Jefferson Davis. Twenty-three years younger than Joseph, Davis was a West Point graduate and former Army officer, then working as a planter managing his own cotton plantation of Brierfield near that of his brother. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Varina Davis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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