A Former Slave Writes His Master (1 Viewer)

[jazzeum]

This letter by former slave Jourdon Anderson has been around for a long time and offers a humorous but pointed look at the worlds of slavery and freedom. It first appeared in several newspapers in the summer of 1865.

***

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy, —the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson),—and the children—Milly, Jane and Grundy—go to school and are learning well; the teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday- School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost- Marshal- General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve, and die if it comes to that, than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood, the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

P.S. —Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

 

[jazzeum]

Recently, an English newspaper, the Daily Mail, published an article about the letter, with many interesting details and background about the letter, the writer and its recipient, his former master. See Freed Slave Who Penned Scarcastic Letter to Old Master.

 

[MCKENNA77]

Dude:

Thanks for posting that. It's awesome.

 

[Rob]

Wonderful stuff Brad, thanks for posting.

Rob

 

[Partner]

Brad , I just finished reading "The Bloody Shirt " by Stephen Budiansky.

Jourdon is lucky he never took up the offer to return (as if he ever considered it !!!)

Guess he never got a rely from Anderson ?

This is a great piece of irony and / or sarcasm (I loved it )
Regards
Kirk

 

[jazzeum]

Chris, Rob and Kirk,

I agree this is a great article that I picked up from the Crossroads blog.

Haven't read the Bloody Shirt but the bloody shirt was a favorite thing to wave in post Civil War America. Many don't realize what a battleground the South was after the Civil War.

Brad

 

[Larry Allen]

Brad , I just finished reading "The Bloody Shirt " by Stephen Budiansky.

Jourdon is lucky he never took up the offer to return (as if he ever considered it !!!)

Guess he never got a rely from Anderson ?

This is a great piece of irony and / or sarcasm (I loved it )
Regards
Kirk

Yes, an excellent book, but a real "HARD" read, from the emotional standpoint. I think I read it about 2 - 2 1/2 years ago and I still remember it.

Although the book describes a time 150 years ago, it is still remarkable that those events took place in this country. Yes it is a History Book, but it flows like a well written novel. I would suggest the book to anyone who wants to know more history past Appomattox Court House.

Larry

 

[Poppo]

This letter by former slave Jourdon Anderson has been around for a long time and offers a humorous but pointed look at the worlds of slavery and freedom. It first appeared in several newspapers in the summer of 1865.

***

Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy, —the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson),—and the children—Milly, Jane and Grundy—go to school and are learning well; the teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday- School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost- Marshal- General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve, and die if it comes to that, than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood, the great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

P.S. —Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson

Interesting, but not so representative of the historic context of slavery in my opinion....
In general, the condition of the slaves was not worst than let' s say the one of a" free peasant" in France or Italy, but better....Slaves were not usually bad treated ( also because they valued a lot of money). They received enough food,a house with Kitchen, sometimes some money and often lived and worked with their masters especially in small plantations. Most of them loved their master and family...Often their children grew up with the children of the whites. If you watch " Gone with the wind" it shows a realistic atmosphere of the south ( At the time of the film, "politically correctness" still didn' t exisit). Many masters, especially by the southern aristocracy freed all their slaves ( Ex Gen. Lee, President Jefferson Davies..). The proof of what I am sayig is that during the civil war all the southern men were soldiers and in southern families were just women and children.....If the slaves were so bad treated they would have made a rebellion and civil war would have finished suddently and not lasts 5 years. Southerns just heritated their situation from previous generations and tryied to solve in a reasonable way this question ( they felt that slavery had become an unacceptable and unhuman situation). And we can also say that apart from restricted circles of" abolitionnists" often radical and ideologistic people, the north didn' t care at all of the slavery question... And after the war the migrant ex slaves experimented racism and segregation " de facto" in the northern ghettos were they were used as cheap workers. Many ex slaves even preyed their ex masters to take them back with them..

 

[jazzeum]

You are seriously misinformed about how slaves felt about their masters or how masters treated their slaves. The happy slave is an image that apologists for post reconstruction society would have fostered in the 19th Century to rationalize John Crow. However, it is surprising to read it in this day and age.

There were, in fact, many rebellions, all of which were brutally supressed.

To make a comparison to the French peasantry is perhaps somewhat misplaced as there is no comparison to be made. A better comparison would be to the West Indies or Brasil.

I recommend you do some reading on the topic. You might want to start with David Brion Davis, an acknowledged expert on slavery.

 

[Poppo]

You are seriously misinformed about how slaves felt about their masters or how masters treated their slaves. The happy slave is an image that apologists for post reconstruction society would have fostered in the 19th Century to rationalize John Crow. However, it is surprising to read it in this day and age.

There were, in fact, many rebellions, all of which were brutally supressed.

To make a comparison to the French peasantry is perhaps somewhat misplaced as there is no comparison to be made. A better comparison would be to the West Indies or Brasil.

I recommend you do some reading on the topic. You might want to start with David Brion Davis, an acknowledged expert on slavery.

I read one of the best searcher in civil war history: Prof. Raimondo Luraghi

 

[Poppo]

You are seriously misinformed about how slaves felt about their masters or how masters treated their slaves. The happy slave is an image that apologists for post reconstruction society would have fostered in the 19th Century to rationalize John Crow. However, it is surprising to read it in this day and age.

There were, in fact, many rebellions, all of which were brutally supressed.

To make a comparison to the French peasantry is perhaps somewhat misplaced as there is no comparison to be made. A better comparison would be to the West Indies or Brasil.

I recommend you do some reading on the topic. You might want to start with David Brion Davis, an acknowledged expert on slavery.

You can be an adept of the "politically correctness", it is your right, but better to find historical truth.....And don't forget that the african slaves were brought by the northern ships , and sold by the "puritan" northern merchants as the south had no navy at all....And I didn' t say that the slave was happy, but that the abusing on them was not a rule.It is amazing how still today in the US there is an attack against the " southern sinners" and it is surprising that the "politically correctness" has succedeed to hide a serious historic research...

 

[jazzeum]

No one says that the North didn't partake in the economic system that used slaves. After all the financing of growing cotton and cotton exports came from the North, particularly Wall Street, so much so that when secession was being considered, New York City, since it was so intricately tied up with the Southern agricultural economy, considered secession. Slavery was American, not just Northern, not just Southern.

I would like to know your citation for their abusing them for violence, whipping and raping were quite common features. To think it of something that rarely happened is just not the case. If a slave got out of line, he was whipped. The violence that was committed on the black family, from physical violence to the violence of breaking up the family, was appalling. To try even to rationalize it is absurd.

As far as Luraghi goes, he has some written some books on the Confederate Navy but his book The Rise and Fall of the Plantation South is basically an apology. If you want to read some well balanced books on the South, I recommend reading William Freehling's two volume book The Road to Disunion. For historical background on the leadup to the Civil War there is no finer book than David Potter's The Impending Crisis.