As slavery collapsed at the close of the Civil War, former slaves quickly explored freedom’s possibilities by establishing churches that were independent of white control, seeking education in Freedmen’s Bureau schools, and even building and maintaining their own schools. Many took to the roads as they sought opportunities to work and to reconstitute their families. Securing their liberty meant finding the means of support to obtain land or otherwise benefit from their own labor, as Jourdon Anderson made clear in this letter to his former owner. He addressed Major Anderson from Ohio, where he had secured good wages for himself and schooling for his children. Many freedpeople argued that they were entitled to land in return for their years of unpaid labor and looked to the federal government to help achieve economic self-sufficiency. Black southerners understood the value of their own labor and looked for economic independence and a free labor market in their battle over the meaning of emancipation in post-Civil War America.
Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find 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 Col. 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 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 $25 a month, with victuals and clothing;
have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks here 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, "The 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 Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have
been
proud, as I used to was, 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 are sincerely 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 $25 a month for me, and $2
a week
for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest
for
the time our wages has 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
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 Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die
if it comes 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.
From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson
P.S.--Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
Source: Cincinnati Commercial, reprinted in New York Tribune, August 22,
1865.