[LINK] Pawning the ex-master
Jun. 5th, 2009 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldA while ago--but not too long ago--![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
james_nicoll posted a wonderful link, "What's 19th century English for getting schooled?", purporting to contain the letter written by one ex-slave, Johndon Anderson, in response to a request by his former owner to come back to work for him.
It goes on, deliciously, in this same vein.
There has been some question as to the authenticity of this document. It is certain that it dates to 1865, and as for the question of authorship, who knows? Hidden in the academic debate on the profitability of American slavery, horrible things were obviously going on. Robert Fogel, a man who argued that slavery was profitable, also calculated that the average slave woman had a roughly 50% chance of bearing the child of her owner or one of the owner's male relatives. It's certainly brilliant satire!
james_nicoll posted a wonderful link, "What's 19th century English for getting schooled?", purporting to contain the letter written by one ex-slave, Johndon Anderson, in response to a request by his former owner to come back to work for him.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, 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 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.
It goes on, deliciously, in this same vein.
There has been some question as to the authenticity of this document. It is certain that it dates to 1865, and as for the question of authorship, who knows? Hidden in the academic debate on the profitability of American slavery, horrible things were obviously going on. Robert Fogel, a man who argued that slavery was profitable, also calculated that the average slave woman had a roughly 50% chance of bearing the child of her owner or one of the owner's male relatives. It's certainly brilliant satire!
