Jourdon Anderson's Letter To Former Slavery

Introduced to Britain's North American colonies in 1619 by the Dutch, the slavery of African Natives did not become a notable source of labor for the southern plantation system until the eighteenth century. Economic factors such as the development of plantations made the use of slaves more necessary and profitable and greatly influenced the idea of slavery. Also, social factors including

When the Civil War ended in April 1865, it bought an end to the U.S. slave system. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands forced slave owners to pay their former slaves as laborer’s. Slave owner, Colonel P.H. Anderson wrote a letter to one of his former slaves, Jourdon Anderson, asking him to return as a free worker on the plantation. As a free man, Anderson wrote back but with specific demands. This essay will cover Anderson’s attitude towards his mater, his view of what he was owed, and his hopes for his and his family’s life in freedom.

After the emancipation of slaves, many things changed throughout the south. The slaves had the title of freed people, but these freed people didn't have the same rights and privileges as their white counterparts. Even though the freed slaves were suppose to be able to live an equal life with the whites, the whites still found ways to keep the African-Americans from being equal with them on all levels. The whites imposed all kinds of hidden rules towards the blacks and the consequence of breaking those laws was death. The whites did not want the ex slaves to be equal and even after the white men's mistress failed at assuming the jobs of their ex slaves, the slave masters still didn't give blacks credit for being able to do the work that

Phillips' book is an attempt to provide an overview of the practice and institutions of slavery in the Americas from its beginnings to the 19th century. Writing in 1918, Phillips hoped to provide an account of slavery based upon historical evidence and modern methods of research, rather than ideological motivations. He drew his evidence from the plantation records and letters of slave owners; contemporary travel accounts; court records and legal documents; newspaper articles; and in some instances, the recordings of slaves themselves, rather than what he viewed as more biased sources such as abolitionist writings. While this approach was not systematic and led him to base many

The person that I researched for my legacy of slavery project was John W. Fields. John W. Fields was a young child living in Owensburg Kentucky. When he was six years old, he got separated from his family because his master had died and needed to pay off his estate. He had eleven other sisters and brothers who got divided and went to their new masters. He was sorrowful for the longest time after he got separated. His life after that was he would wake up very early and work until nightfall. When his master's estate had finally been paid he was transferred to a different mistress.

In the village of Hampton there was a man who goes by the name of Benjamin F. Butler who had in his words, “a large number of Negros, many of them are composed in a great measure of women and children who had fled thither within my lines for protection, who had escaped from marauding Rebels who had been gathering up able-bodied blacks to aid them in construction their batteries on the James and York rivers... (Doc A)” This may prove to us that Ben was a slave owner in Virginia possibly before the Civil War and during the Civil War. Ben had some questions on his mind about his slaves, “First, what shall be done with them? Second, what is their state and condition? Upon these questions I desire the instruction of the department. (Doc A)” He had many other questions about his slaves and how the way he was treating them, “... Are these men, women, and children slaves? Are they free? Is their condition that of men, women, and children, or of property, or is it a mixed relation? What has been the effect of rebellion and a state of war on their status? (Doc A)” Ben had his moments on his questions about the slaves and the events that are going on, but he had something to say to his questions in his head, “When I adopted the theory of treating the able-bodied Negro fit to work in the trenches as property liable to be used in aid of rebellion, and so contraband of war, that condition of things was

Letter to my old Master is a letter that was wrote by Jourdon Anderson to his former master Colonel P.H. Anderson after the slaves had been freed in 1863. Jourdon received a letter stating that Col. Anderson wants him to return to him but Jourdon wrote this letter to him instead in early August 1865. The letter Jourdon sent to Col. Anderson was written in Dayton, Ohio which is also where most of the freed slaves went to live at after they were released from there owners. The focus audience for “Letter to my old Master” is the former slave owners in the late 19 century that was trying to get their former to return to them and continue to work for free. The feeling for “Letter to my old Master” for me was a very of unsure feeling, you are not sure at the middle of the letter how Jourdon really feels. Jourdon talks about how Col. Anderson was going out of his way to kill a presumably wounded prisoner, and Jourdon then talk about how Col. Anderson had already shot at him twice personally before he had left, and he is still able to tell Anderson how happy he is that he was able to survive. I think personally that he was very sincere when he said that, he really didn’t have any real reason to say it. That shows a lot about his character as a man and the strength he has as a person to forgive is

Abolishment of Slavery Slavery was caused by economic factors of the English settlers in the late 17th century. Colonists continually tried to allure laborers to the colony. The head right system was to give the indentured servant, a method of becoming independent after a number of years of service. Slavery was caused by economic reasons. Colonists chiefly relied on Indentured Servitude, in order to facilitate their need for labor. The decreasing population combined with a need for a labor force, led colonists to believe that African slaves were the most efficient way to acquire a labor force that would satisfy their needs. Slaves were people who were taken from their homeland in Africa and brought to America, to serve as servants on

Jourdon does not consider going back to his former slave owner to work for him in fear the he will be treated as he was before. Jordan writes to his former slaver owner the conditions he expects if he were to go back and the goals he has if he were to return. One of the goals Jourdon expresses in his letter is to have proper money to pay for his services from his former owner. He writes that he would like to receive payment for the service he has done in the past to ensure that he will be paid for his services to his former owner in the future. In fear of bing treated as a slave Jourdon expresses one of his expectations to his former slave owner if her were to return to Tennessee. Jordan writes “As to my freedom, which you say I have,…. as

Reading the first letter from Jourdan Anderson, one of the meanings of freedom one can take away from the tone of Anderson’s diction is the freedom to throw shade. Seriously, Anderson is now a free man and thus free to write smugly to his former master, and eloquently so. His letter essentially tells the Colonel there is no chance in hell that he and his family will return to live with the man who previously enslaved them. Anderson also expressed he knew he was already a free man in response to the Colonel promising his freedom upon his return. Anderson states, “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.” That line asserts to the Colonel that going returning to Big Spring would not be advantageous because he can already live freely with his family. He does not need, nor want to return to the Colonel’s home.

Slavery, especially in America, has been an age old topic of riveting discussions. Specialist and other researchers have been digging around for countless years looking for answers to the many questions that such an activity provided. They have looked into the economics of slavery, slave demography, slave culture, slave treatment, and slave-owner ideology (p. ix). Despite slavery being a global issue, the main focus is always on American slavery. Peter Kolchin effectively illustrates in his book, American Slavery how slavery evolved alongside of historical controversy, the slave-owner relationship, how slavery changed over time, and how America compared to other slave nations around the world.

The book “American Slavery 1619-1877” is a book on slavery unlike anything I have ever read. Most books on slavery look at it through extremely common perspectives and have flooded the nonfiction genre. However, the author, Peter Kolchin, decides to show the reader that his studies on slavery are different from any previous study done. He brings up a lot of arguments that were actually thought to be unarguable, and shuts them down. It is miraculous to think that someone finally got to the very root of American slavery and can finally give Americans of today a real feel for the reasons behind slavery.

In 1688 the first American movement was the one to abolish slavery when the German and Quakers decent in Pennsylvania. The Quakers establishment had no immediate action for the Quaker Petition against slavery. The first American abolition society was the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully by the Quakers that had strong religious objections of slavery. In 1756 John Woolman gave up his business to campaign against slavery along with other Quakers. Thomas Paine was the first to write an article about the United States abolition of slavery and it was titled “African Slavery in America”.

Reparations? Just the term stirs up controversy, along with endless amounts of questions that are still to be answered. Should reparations be awarded? Is it feasible? Who should receive it? In what forms should it be given? These are only a few of the most important questions that need to be answered. To answer these questions, I will draw on the research conducted for my country study and the panel debates that were conducted over the past weeks. To fully understand my reasoning you must be informed of the approaches discussed on both sides of these debates.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was the transportation of slaves that were shipped from Africa to the America’s. It lasted for more than three and a half centuries from the middle of the 15th century to the end of the 19th century. It all started when the Portuguese and other European empires discovered that they could start expanding overseas further south (Africa). They realized that they wanted to capture African Slaves and bring them to specific places. Soon the America’s were discovered by Christopher Columbus. After it was discovered the Spanish copied them and took most of their slaves to Brazil (America’s).