By Jordon Anderson: Dayton, Ohio, on August 7, 1865.
Tuesday, October
07, 2014.
Editor’s note: In August of 1865, Colonel P.H. Anderson of
Big Spring, Tennessee, a slave owner who has fallen on hard times, sent a
letter to one of his former slaves, Jourdon Anderson, asking him to return
to work for him at the old plantation where Mr Anderson was enslaved before he
was emancipated. Mr Anderson response, as dictated in his new Ohio State home to
a journalist, is below.
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 Jordon, 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,
Jordon
Anderson