To My Old Master

Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:51 pm » by **Demobe**

In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdan — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated).

Rather than quote the numerous highlights in this letter, I'll simply leave you to enjoy it. Do make sure you read to the end.

(Source: The Freedmen's Book; Image: A group of escaped slaves in Virginia in 1862, courtesy of the LAugust 7, 1865

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

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that 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 Colonel 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 that 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 twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks 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 Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys 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 were 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 have 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's 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 poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come 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.

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.

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/to ... aster.html

Dayton, Ohio,

Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:10 am » by **Troll2rocks**

Bravo

What a seriously hideous part of history, a disgusting and shameful piece of human history indeed.

This letter could also be the plot for the upcoming Quentin Tarantino DJANGO UNCHAINED. Which will chronicle the American deep south's exploitative history, like it has never been seen on screen before.

It makes me truly sad, and very very angry at the ignorance in this world.

Thanks for posting this. :cheers:

Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:15 am » by **Lemsip**

wow what brilliant a letter mr jourden anderson

Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:19 am » by **E6722maj**

sweet

.

Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:35 am » by **Edgarrothstein**

If i was the good Colonel, i'd shoot myself after reading this letter...

Thu Feb 02, 2012 1:20 am » by **Demobe**

T2R Thanks Man :cheers:

Tarantino Movie Coooooool :mrcool:

edgar lol

Guys Cheers :cheers:

Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:08 am » by **The57ironman**

Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:32 am » by **Basecampchris**

A powerful letter. I am gonna have to research this story. I would love to know if he ever got a reply.

I have no idea if I would have found the right words, this guy most obviously did. I read very little sarcasm in this letter, little real bitterness, its almost, one side of an exchange between old friends. Wow. To be in that much control of your emotions, I am simply envious. I would have used a cutting tone, I would have been abusive.

In Kuwait, today, there are thousands of "workers" from the Indian subcontinent. Kuwait has a brutal dry heat, brutal. I used to drive to work in the morning at 5 am, 40+ degrees C and just getting hotter. I passed groups of brown men picking up the McDonalds wrappers the Kuwaitis threw from cars. They do that a lot, the place is flithy. The brown men could be seen on the roads way out in the desert doing the same thing. They are paid around $100 a month, they pay the company $30 for accomadation and more money for food. They live in conex's, in the middle of the desert. Passports removed from them, they cannot leave.

One year a story ran in the paper's (until it was censored) about a Kuwaiti company who had not paid these men in over a year. Slavery still exists. What I just described is the tip of a Middle Eastern iceberg of human abuse. Slavery still exists. I have seen these men and women abused and there was not a damned thing I could do about it. Kuwait is not a place to mess with the law. I spent three days as a guest of the police and the legal system there. Trust me, they were not three nice days. I was lucky, I am white.They put me in a cell on my own and were careful not to be too extreme with me, but I heard what went on in the brown mens cage. Slavery exists.

This mans letter is powerful. I would not have been so gracious or curtious. I would have been angry and bitter. This man is a better man than me.

GREAT post!

Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:52 am » by **Pablocante**

Wow - gutsy, fair minded, and solid in his expectations and intent
We can learn........

Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:59 am » by **Jet17**

Just amazing!

Troll said what I wanted to say, so that is all I have to say.