Washington Post – by Gillian Brockell
March 13, 2022
“The painful, cutting and brilliant letters Black people wrote to their former enslavers
... Jourdon Anderson and his family were freed by Union troops during the Civil War and left Tennessee for Ohio. A few months after the war ended, Anderson’s former enslaver wrote to him, asking him to return to the plantation, where the harvest was about to come in, and promising a wage and freedom. Anderson dictated his reply to his abolitionist employer, who was so impressed with its wit he had it published in the newspaper.“
The Jourdan Anderson – Letter to former enslaver
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 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….”
Read the Anderson letter and other letters of former slaves here…