Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

Great.

...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.

Ooooh, burn.

My great-great grandfather was a slave owner. Family lore has it that the slaves had been treated so well that they stayed on after the emancipation.

Or, maybe, they had no real alternatives. Who knows.

Earguy: Or, maybe, they had no real alternatives.

This is more likely. Reconstruction was a bad, bad time for free blacks.

That currency value converter is bullshiat.

Nice find, subby. I would have loved to meet the man that wrote this letter.

Wow, I hope that's authentic because it's fascinating.

Sure, right after I deduct what you owe me for your training, room, board, clothing, medical expenses and whatever else I can think up to charge you for.

If these are the letters I think they are, I probably read them in high school. Doesn't make them any less awesome.

/Can't read the link.
//Site is already farked.

I think Drew went and melted this poor man's server.

Where are our enterprising Fark Independents to claim the slave's demands amount to socialism?

crazypeltast52: Sure, right after I deduct what you owe me for your training, room, board, clothing, medical expenses and whatever else I can think up to charge you for.

This. And it was done.

what_now: Earguy: Or, maybe, they had no real alternatives.

This is more likely. Reconstruction was a bad, bad time for free blacks.

Scary thing is, it had nothing on the period afterwards that ended the 19th century.

Earguy: ...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.

Ooooh, burn.

My great-great grandfather was a slave owner. Family lore has it that the slaves had been treated so well that they stayed on after the emancipation.

Or, maybe, they had no real alternatives. Who knows.

I have the same family story. My guess is that the former slaves had no alternative.

WFern: Where are our enterprising Fark Independents to claim the slave's demands amount to socialism?
No, the trolls are going to spin this one into either "Liberal Hate" or "Fake Lib Outrage". I called it, I'd be willing to bet TF on it if I had the money to waste.

farked

anyone have the text they can post?

what_now: Earguy: Or, maybe, they had no real alternatives.

This is more likely. Reconstruction was a bad, bad time for free blacks.

All think all blacks were free during Reconstruction and yeh, it was a real day at the beach for everyone else.

coco ebert: Wow, I hope that's authentic because it's fascinating.

Do you actually believe his master taught him to read and write? Much less in more modern lauguage? And then shot at him? Ok.

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/raceequalopportunity/a/jourdonanderson.htm

here is a copy.

link is the farked

link is farked.

I have 'redbone' heritage (Native American and African American), and I want my reparations and a casino.

WFern: Where are our enterprising Fark Independents to claim the slave's demands amount to socialism?

You have it backwards. Demanding a fair wage for work is capitalism. Expecting someone to work for free is socialism.

/socialist outrage in 3, 2, 1 ...

So was the owner black or white?

Remember, blacks were slave owners, too.

hey guys,

do you guys remember when the slaves were freed but no one told them until after the war was over?

many lulz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

/web page farked

crazypeltast52: Sure, right after I deduct what you owe me for your training, room, board, clothing, medical expenses and whatever else I can think up to charge you for.

Given how even the best living conditions for slaves were, this shouldn't amount to anything meaningful.

How much was did a pound of cornmeal and a dozen herrings go for per week?

Sodden Moxie: hey guys,

do you guys remember when the slaves were freed but no one told them until after the war was over?

many lulz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

/web page farked

Remember when the Emmanciation Proclamation only freed the slaves in states that had seceeded? Damn.

Earguy: ...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.

Ooooh, burn.

My great-great grandfather was a slave owner. Family lore has it that the slaves had been treated so well that they stayed on after the emancipation.

Or, maybe, they had no real alternatives. Who knows.

The mindset of the slave owner would be to treat your slaves as any other tool. You take care of your tools because it is cheaper than having to replace them all the time. You don't starve your oxen and expect them to be able to pull your plows. Besides, it doesn't matter how well you treat slaves, it is still a great evil.

There weren't a whole lot of opportunities for the freed slaves after emancipation. Anyone who has worked a shiat job that they loathed going to each day for lack of a choice would understand.

/my family fought on both sides, rather typical of most Americans.

Sodden Moxie: hey guys,

do you guys remember when the slaves were freed but no one told them until after the war was over?

many lulz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

/web page farked

Well, since the confederacy had secceded (or was trying to, whatever your flavor on the matter), the Emancipation Proclomation and the like did not apply to states who no longer belonged to the US or did not recognize they did. So, yeah, the slaves weren't "free" until after the war.

minoridiot: So was the owner black or white?

Remember, blacks were slave owners, too.

Well, if it was in Tennessee prior to the civil war I think you'd be right the vast majority of the time if you guessed white. And I think you probably know that.

My family were Mississippi delta sharecroppers who worked the fields with a couple of slaves the entire community 'invested' in. The all had about the same standard of living, which was crap. Emancipation came and freed the slaves, which was a good thing, but left my family and the community with that much more work. My grandfather finally managed to break the cycle thanks to FDR's New Deal.

My grandparents had stories of pickin' cotton and tobacco from sunrise to sunset through their childhood. And they only had a few years of schoolin'. He was self taught after that.

Glad the slaves were freed, and the South lost, but it would have been nice if the Government had done something about the other social inequities of the day.

I did get a kick out of the stories of the black family that showed up to a family reunion a few dozen years ago. Would have loved to see the reaction of some of my kin, and I'd have been the first to invite them to my table!

JohnBigBootay: minoridiot: So was the owner black or white?

Remember, blacks were slave owners, too.

Well, if it was in Tennessee prior to the civil war I think you'd be right the vast majority of the time if you guessed white. And I think you probably know that.

Second largest slave owner in SC was a black man.

OgreMagi: WFern: Where are our enterprising Fark Independents to claim the slave's demands amount to socialism?

You have it backwards. Demanding a fair wage for work is capitalism. Expecting someone to work for free is socialism.

/socialist outrage in 3, 2, 1 ...

So in a minimum wage debate, the large employer is the socialist?

WFern: Where are our enterprising Fark Independents to claim the slave's demands amount to socialism?

I don't know about that. But most definitely uppity...

gadian
Second largest slave owner in SC was a black man.


You know damn well that doesn't mean a thing.

Even if one or two blacks owned slaves, the VAST MAJORITY of slave owners were white.

It doesn't matter how many slaves one black owned.

And you know that.

/Christ...

OgreMagi: after the emancipation.
/my family fought on both sides, rather typical of most Americans.

Just curious. What state where they from? I know that a lot of people in "middle states" like TN and MD had fighters on both sides.

This has to be fake right? Who the hell would teach a slave to read/write or do math?

shawnshawnery: This has to be fake right? Who the hell would teach a slave to read/write or do math?

I'm thinking he had an attorney do it. The reply to address was a lawyer.

GastroPhysicist: gadian
Second largest slave owner in SC was a black man.


You know damn well that doesn't mean a thing.

Even if one or two blacks owned slaves, the VAST MAJORITY of slave owners were white.

It doesn't matter how many slaves one black owned.

And you know that.

/Christ...

Yeah, but it would not be wrong to ask "what it a white or black man who owned the slaves?". Not asking would be intellectually dishonest.

shawnshawnery: This has to be fake right? Who the hell would teach a slave to read/write or do math?

Some slaves did get an education. Not field slaves who did unskilled labor, but some who might have been the master's kids, or were house slaves, or did skilled work.

The North could have purchased all the slaves in the South for less than the cost of the Civil War.

GastroPhysicist: gadian
Second largest slave owner in SC was a black man.


You know damn well that doesn't mean a thing.

Even if one or two blacks owned slaves, the VAST MAJORITY of slave owners were white.

It doesn't matter how many slaves one black owned.

And you know that.

/Christ...

Does it matter if the slaves were black or white? Because there were white slaves, too.

shawnshawnery: This has to be fake right? Who the hell would teach a slave to read/write or do math?

I do not know the answer to this but my mother and my father taught me to do the reading and writing and the math until I was old enough then I learned at school. Maybe they sent the slave to the school in the area or at the tutor center. I do not know if this is the right answer but it seem like the good guess.

And since the link seems to be farked, here's the text. Otherwise, scroll down past this:

Quote for the Day: After the end of the Civil War, many former slavers tried to contact the black men and women they had once enslaved - even those who had escaped during the war and headed north - to try to convince them to return to the plantation and work the land as hands or tenant farmers. One of those freedmen, Jourdon Anderson, wrote a letter back to his former captor, explaining the terms on which would return. This may be my favorite thing that I read all week. Emphasis is added.

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.

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.

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

The letter was reprinted by Lydia Maria Child in her anthology, The Freedmen's Book. Jourdon Anderson's body now rests in the Woodland Cemetary, in Dayton, Ohio, so it seems that his old captor never accepted his offer. For reference, the back wages he demanded - $11,680 in 1865, before adding interest - would be worth about $162,452 in 2008 dollars.

meow said the dog: shawnshawnery: This has to be fake right? Who the hell would teach a slave to read/write or do math?

I do not know the answer to this but my mother and my father taught me to do the reading and writing and the math until I was old enough then I learned at school. Maybe they sent the slave to the school in the area or at the tutor center. I do not know if this is the right answer but it seem like the good guess.

Dude. You're high right now, aren't you?

minoridiot: GastroPhysicist: gadian
Second largest slave owner in SC was a black man.


You know damn well that doesn't mean a thing.

Even if one or two blacks owned slaves, the VAST MAJORITY of slave owners were white.

It doesn't matter how many slaves one black owned.

And you know that.

/Christ...

Does it matter if the slaves were black or white? Because there were white slaves, too.

There were indeed. "Indentured servitude" much? White trash? It does not matter if the slaves were white or black. In fact, I think the families of white slaves should be asking for reparations if the others can as well.

DaMacGuy:
Glad the slaves were freed, and the South lost, but it would have been nice if the Government had done something about the other social inequities of the day.

Maybe one day your dream will come true and the government will do everything for you. I can imagine how difficult life has been for you and your ancestors being forced to do for themselves.

TheDumbBlonde: meow said the dog: shawnshawnery: This has to be fake right? Who the hell would teach a slave to read/write or do math?

I do not know the answer to this but my mother and my father taught me to do the reading and writing and the math until I was old enough then I learned at school. Maybe they sent the slave to the school in the area or at the tutor center. I do not know if this is the right answer but it seem like the good guess.

Dude. You're high right now, aren't you?

No, this is a valley. I am the dudette! LOL OUT LOUD!

gadian:
In fact, I think the families of white slaves should be asking for reparations if the others can as well.

We need to add another square:

ciocia: gadian:
In fact, I think the families of white slaves should be asking for reparations if the others can as well.

We need to add another square:

The Bingo card is a keeper.

ciocia: gadian:
In fact, I think the families of white slaves should be asking for reparations if the others can as well.

We need to add another square:

So what you are saying is that white folks are to be seen, but not heard unless it is to hand over some money?

GastroPhysicist - Second largest slave owner in SC was a black man.


You know damn well that doesn't mean a thing.

Even if one or two blacks owned slaves, the VAST MAJORITY of slave owners were white.

It doesn't matter how many slaves one black owned.

And you know that.

/Christ...


I disagree, given how often the issue of slavery is framed as something that 'white people did to black people' and how often it carries with it the implication that it's a great shame of the 'white race,' or as an indication of some moral failing on the part of white people, I think that fact (coupled with the existence white slaves) is the perfect reminder that slavery was an economic thingsomething that rich people did to poor people.

Very few people owned slaves, even in the south, and those who did were well off, and given the means, black people didn't shy away from owning other blacks as slaves any more than whites have ever shied away from owning other whites as slaves.

The only reason to hush-hush it and pish-posh it is to try to maintain it as a strictly racial issue... when in reality it was a very complex socioeconomic issue.