Excerpt: "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."
A group of escaped slaves in Virginia in 1862. (photo: The Library of Congress)
A Letter From a Former Slave
01 February 12
�
n 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.
Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, TennesseeSir: 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.
�
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Goldman Sachs needs to be Nationalized and broken up.
In short, the Treasury helps its friends, but only the "invisible hand" can help the rest of us. At that moment I realized Obama will probably be re-elected. Nobody has in our whole history helped CEO's more than he has. And Geithner, for all his apparent ineptitude, has actually done exactly what he and Obama have meant to do. Poor America!
They are just living the American Dream -and somebody has to pay for it. :-)
Maddave is right on! Boot 'em via Nationalizing and breading up.
We MUST put in place a 0.05% transaction tax on ALL equity trades which would really put the brakes on the "skimming" thusly described. Elliott Spitzer confirmed what I have contended for years that about HALF of ALL daily trades taking place in the markets are of this sort.
Such shenanigans increases both volatility and risk, in particular for the retail investor who is not engaged in this practice which is exclusive to the Wall Street "set-up."
John Russell, Dade City, Fl
Occupy Wall Street and demand prosecutions!
Ofcourse the execs stay fat and happy - their campaign contributions to Obama are investments that are paying off.
The bailouts that Senator Obama votes for, the TARP bills President Obama voted for.
The watering down of the AUDIT THE FED bill the democrats did...
no one should be surprised that FASCISM is live and well
Obama is the biggest corporate whore the world has ever seen
Then you think wrongly.
As a Tea Party member I know for a fact that the government bail outs are unconstitutiona l and yes it is fascism and I an other TP members are opposed because companies do not have a right to funds extorted from the tax payers given to them by low politicians in high places.
As a citizen and as a tax payer It matters not if it was Bush or Obama who give away our money, it is wrong.
They really aren't free people (I've known some in the corporate high-paid category described here) and they seem to me to be trapped in a system which doesn't allow them to be whatever they really might be. They wear a stylish uniform, behave in a proscribed way and follow orders just as sure as the military, and as likely as not live in gated non-communities.
They isolate themselves from any but their own corporate reality and all their material acquisitions seem to bring them little joy, as spoiled kids who take their "toys" for granted.
Sure, I am one of the "New Poor" but I do what I love for what little I make, have pride in my productivity and unique creativity and try to be a contributing part of my community, sharing the struggle for survival and even a little growth.
They may look down from on high from their architecturally appalling and space-gobbling glass towers, at the OWS masses but I wonder if there isn't just a trace of envy in what they see; fellowship, mutual aid and support forming an irresistible force, growing and shaking their very foundations?
"Ah make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the dust descend,
Dust into Dust and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and -sans End!
Omar Kayyam.
People genes/nature is very different - read work of E. J. Wilson.
http://www.heyokamagazine.com/heyoka_magazine.27.bankersmanifesto.htm
99%
TOO BIG TO FAIL!!