To My Old Master
Letters of Note, a website with regular offerings of exactly what it claims, published a great one from 1865. Apparently a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, asked his former slave Jourdan Anderson to come back and work on his farm. Anderson was now emancipated, living in Ohio, earning weekly wages, supporting his family, sending his children to school -- you get the idea.
His response, which he dictated, is unbelievably spectacular:
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.
That is so wonderful, I want to cheer. "Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me." Heh.
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Jul '10
Re: To My Old Master
Best rejection letter ever.
May '10
Re: To My Old Master
I just want to clarify, I wasn't being sarcastic, I think the letter is wonderful. Standing up to evil through non violence, as Jourdon did, is exactly what turning the other cheek means. The typical response to evil is fight or flight. Turning the other cheek is the third way. It is making an aggressor face his wrong doing by mirroring it back to him in a non-violent yet provocative way.
Nov '10
Re: To My Old Master
Aaron Miller
This is the one part that really makes me wonder about the letter's authenticity. Wasn't $25 per month a whole lot of money back then?
It's about $1 a day. Even back then it wasn't that much.
Nov '11
Re: To My Old Master
TheRoyalFamily
Aaron Miller
This is the one part that really makes me wonder about the letter's authenticity. Wasn't $25 per month a whole lot of money back then?
It's about $1 a day. Even back then it wasn't that much. · 1 hour ago
Prices rose about 73% during the Civil War and declined by about 42% by the beginning of 1880. (Source: FRB Minneapolis). $25 per month might not have been as much as it might seem.
May '10
Re: To My Old Master
This particular letter is standard fare in most US history textbooks and primary source reading collections, at least on the college level. (It's funny how the internet leads things previously widely available and published to suddenly be 'found'.) I've discussed it with my Freshman level students several times. Inevitably, the question of its authenticity always comes up.
Although, I don't know enough about this specific case to say for sure, it's highly unlikely that Anderson wrote this himself, although he was likely aware of its content. As part of Reconstruction, many northern abolitionist lawyers came into the South to help the mostly illiterate Freedmen work their way into the new contract based labor system following emancipation. Mainly, they helped the freed slaves understand and produce work contracts so that they could reestablish under presumably fairer conditions. This was one of the major roles of the Freedmen's Bureaus that also observed claims of abuse and set up new schools, among other things. Whatever its level of authenticity, the letter was most certainly published in the newspaper as a deliberate propaganda effort.
Edited on February 1, 2012 at 12:40amAug '10
Re: To My Old Master
What a wonderful website. Clicking on the picture hoping for a larger image, it took me off to the site as you mentioned and I am really enjoying it's incredible range. From Mencken describing "the meaning of life" to Rik Mayall of the Young Ones, there are fields of gems here. Thanks.