10/06/2024
Jourdon Anderson's Letter to His Former Enslaver, 1865
In 1865, Jourdon Anderson, a formerly enslaved man from Tennessee, received a letter from his former enslaver, Colonel P.H. Anderson, asking him to return and work on his plantation. Jourdon responded with dignity and clarity, explaining why he would not go back.
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# # # # To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir,
I got your letter and was glad to know you remembered me and wanted me to come back. You promised to treat me better than anyone else could. I have often worried about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you for hiding Rebels at your house. I suppose they never found out about you going to Col. Martin's to kill the Union soldier left in the stable. Even though you shot at me twice before I left, I didn’t want to hear of you being hurt. I’m glad you are still alive.
It would be nice to visit the old home and see Miss Mary, Miss Martha, Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give them my love and tell them I hope we will meet in a better world if not in this one. I would have visited you all when I worked in the Nashville hospital, but a neighbor told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got the chance.
I want to know what good chance you propose for me. I am doing fairly well here. I get $25 a month, with food and clothing. I have a comfortable home for Mandy (people here call her Mrs. Anderson) and the children, Milly, Jane, and Grundy. They 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 I attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes people say, "The colored people were slaves in Tennessee." The children feel hurt, but I tell them it was no disgrace to belong to Col. Anderson. Many would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master.
If you will write and say what wages you will give me, I can better decide if it would be to my advantage to move back.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained there since I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost Marshal General of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without proof that you will treat us justly and kindly. We have decided to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will help us forget and forgive old scores and trust your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years and Mandy for twenty years. At $25 a month for me and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add interest for the time our wages were withheld, deduct what you paid for our clothing and doctor visits, and the balance will show what we are due. Please send the money by Adams Express, care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for our past labor, we can have little faith in your future promises. We trust the good Lord has opened your eyes to the wrongs done to me and my ancestors by making us toil for generations without pay. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee, there was never a payday for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who cheat 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 and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die than have my girls brought to shame by the violence of their young masters. Please also let me know if there are any schools for 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 hello to George Carter and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson
